TEN MILLION MEN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 7569, 28 April 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

TEN MILLION MEN.

TOLL OF WAR. TOTALS ESTIMATED FROM REr PORTS. FRANCE DEARS THE FIRST SHOCK, On the last day of 1916 Europe has not yet begun to couut up tho frightful losses of 20 months of war. No ouo knows exactly how many have been killed or disabled for life. Tho Governments do not give tho figures. Some seek, lor natural reasons, to minimise their own losses and put in tho foreground, without totals, tho losses oi their enemies, comments Sterling Hehg under date December 18: Thus, recently, a great error has been propagated with respect to France. For tho first time in tho French Parliament a deputy, M. Albert Favre, was permitted to make a solemn statement of certain • proportions, and immediately the enemy radio service sent round tho world what purported to bo a report of it. France, said tho radio telegram, has mobilised one in six of her population-

What was stated in the French Parliament was something quite different: France has mobilised one man in six, while England, with respect to her adult male population, has put one man m 10 into the army, -.ally one man in eleven, and Russia one man in twenty. With respect to losses. Deputy Favre said: Franco’s losses have been three times as great as those of Italy and England. * It was a sober and worthy statement of F’rance’s wonderful effort, which continues never more magnificent than at present, and its objects was to exult in the total forces of the Allies, saying: ‘This is what Franco is doing; this is what we expect of you. Do not permit tho blood of France to bo weakened to a point where recovery might be too unjustly slow!” What is that point, for France and other nations? Is it possible to have an idea of the total losses on the last day of the year 1916? A notable Copenhagen “Society for the Study of the Consequences of tho War” recently published its second bulletin, devoted entirely to the losses of men in killed and disabled.

Although its statistics are neither complete nor exact, this Copenhagen society is far better posted than any other calculators attempting; to give the respective totals. The difficulties are great.

ENGLAND GIVES EXACT FIGURES. Only one of the belligerents, England, jjublished from the beginning, the exact ngures of its losses, at least up to January 1, 1916, and nothing of the kind has ever existed for the ten other belligerent States of Europe, except that uermany and Russia “offer documents which permit more or less approximate valuations.”

in the German lists, the Copenhagen society says, it is always necessary to correct their figures from the “retrospective information," which is given out long after their publication. In Russia, the Red Cross reports of federations of cities and zemstvos constitute a good source of information. In Austria and France, on the othel hand, tnere exists no official basis fol estimation. The French Government has published nothing. Vienna, at the oegiuning, issued lists of killed and wounded, but soon limited them to the names of officers; and the experts of Copennagen are equally reduced to conjecture as to the losses of Italy and the Balkan States—less difficult to estimate, nevertheless, from the fact that theii armies have suffered total losses less than the other great nations. LOWEST FIGURES ARE TAKEN. The Bulletin of Copenhagen given its method of research and calculation for the different countries, and its principles of induction, where figures are lacking seems clear and convincing. It is always the minimum estimate which is given as most plausible, so that there is no danger of registering exaggerated totals. .Unhappily, the actual totals must bo far greater, if only to bring them up to date, proportionately, to the end of the year 1916! The losses, of course, are composed of different elements. These are; Men fallen dead and counted as such on the field of battle; men taken up wounded and dying before, during or after the first aid dressings; the missing in great numbers of prisoners, but of whom the remainder lie buried in trenches or under ruins of houses or elsewhere; prisoners of war deceased; civilians killed near battlefields; refugees behind the front who die of disease and privations; natives of occupied territories who, in even greater proportions, die from similar causes; the excess mortality among sedentary populations not directly exposed to the enemy, but whose deaths are caused by privations, abandonments, despair, etc.; the deficit of births; and, finally, deaths caused in the armies by sickness, weakness, and privations.

MANY OF WOUNDED RECOVER.

The number of the wounded is quite a different category. When we see, for example, German totals of killed, wounded, and missing running well into the two milions it is understood and so intended to be that two-thirds of the wounded arc finally cured and return in battle—while missing is an extremely elastic term, capable of covering the dead not otherwise acknowledged or counted as dead, though perfectly well known to be such, equally with prisoners. The following totals of losses, therefore, comprise only the killed and permanently disabled at a minimum. The permanently disabled are calculated at 30 per cent of the wounded in countries where the exact figures arc not given or given for only a part of the war—which means, practically, nearly all the ton belligerents. From all of which it may be judged that the figures of the Society of the Consequences of the War arc arrived at laboriously, by vast quantities of additions, up to last August, and they ara here brought up proportionally to December 31, 1916. LOSSES OF NATIONS AT WAR. Disabled Dead. for life. Austria-Hungary .. 837,750 621,500 Belgium 58,000 38,500 Bulgaria 29,500 21,000 Great Britain 339,160 180,500 rranee 932,500 740,000 Germany 1,430,000 1,039,000 Italy 122,500 86,250 Russia 1,747,650 1,222,500 Serbia (Montenegro) 118,000 14,000 Turkey 116,650 122,500 Totals 5,731,710 4,085,750 Thus the war has cost humanity something like 17,000,000 dead and wounded of all categories—two-thirds of the wounded recovering, it must bo remembered . All the same, here arc 5,000,000 dead and 4,000,000 incapable of earning their living as a result of the 29 months of war. “France had to bear almost the totality of the first shock of the most formidable' war machine that history

has over known,” Deputy Favre said in the, French Parliament. “Germany iioped that with France once crushed she could easily get the hotter of the others.”

I “After the third year has begun ! France still stands the brunt of tlio | Western front.

i .Never once has Franco recriminated or j made the slightest complaint or rci serve l ," the spokesman contiuueii. “Wo i uavo given our best without counting. | All wo say is: ‘This is what wo have | done; this is what wo ask you to do.’ ” I Then in the French Chamber, which j has never enumerated its own losses or I tho losses of its Allies or adversaries, began a now and grandiose enumeration for the future. .New millions of mon!

BRITAIN'S INCREASE IN ARMIES,

“England, whom Germany accuses of having ‘unchained’ the war, had simply no army at all in August, 1914,” Deputy Fav., ..aid. “A low divisions constituted it. Given entirely to works o|. peace, England pulled herself together.’ “Xn October, 1014, nuglami had 75,000 volunteers. Six months later she had 2,000,000 soldiers;, in September, 1016, 3,000,000; in the spring of 1916, nearly 4,000,000, and after she bus revised her exemptions under tho new ooligatory service law for England and Scotland, tho British Army, with tho contingents of the colonies, will count 6,000,000 combatants!

“Italy, struggling in the mountains against an enemy perfectly fortified, has progressed slowly but gloriously at a cost of great enough sacrifices, all considered. Italy disposes of 3,000,000 actually mobilised, and her population permits her to increase this ; number notably. She has not yot revised her exemptions; and she is able, as Franco has done, to extend her mobilisatLn to older army classes.