The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1917-09-06

SuitS III dppdiliHB ioSoeS "hiohb $3.50
own men, with a minimum of loss
among their adversaries.
Indeed, the official French and Eng
.lish returns, tempered by those off,
cially admitted by Berlin, go to show
that in all the fighting that has taken
place on the French and Belgian fronts
since the beginning of the year the
German losses have been not merely
three or four times, but seven, eight
and even ten times as large as those
of the allies. The Germans are, In
fact, being constantly driven on to
the English and French lines, to be
killed, placed hors de combat or cap
tured, and their armies are therefore
being subjected to a continual process
of attrition. which has already brought
them within sight Of utter exhaustion.
Allies Can Afford to Wait.
Sir Douglas Haig, Gen. Petain and
the Italian Generalissimo Cadorna are
all three commanders eager to spare
their men, even If 1t prolongs the war.
They can afford to wait, whereas EN-
porer William cannot. Under the
orders of Haig and Petain divisional,
brigade and regimental commanders
who show recklessness in the sacrifice
Of the lives of their men are at once
shelved and even punished, no matter
how great their individual heroism.
1t was because he was not suffi-
GENTLY careful in this connection that
Generalissimo Nivelle, who hurled his
armies forward without the indispen-
sable preliminary bombardment, was
removed by the French government
from the supreme command some
months back, and after that having
been savagely abused in the senate
and in the chamber Of deputies in
martial on the charge of having un-
necessarily squandered the lives of his
men,
Warfare is conducted nowadays on
merly, and in spite of ali such hor-
rible contrivances as the use of poison
gas and liquid fire 1t is on the whole
more humane. That is to say, COM
manders, at any rate those now in
control Of the French, British, Ameri-
can, Russian, Belgian and Portuguese
troops in Flanders, seek to secure vic
tory with the least possible loss of
life. The smaller the sacrifice of his
troops the greater a generals fame
and the greener his laurels as con-
queror.
To the relatives of the American
boys in khaki who have crossed the
Atlantic to fight for the Stars and
Stripes in Flanders and in France I
would say this, that the time of the
reckless sacrifice of soldiers lives is
past, at any rate where the powers of
the entente are concerned.
There was good deal Of it in the
first year Of the war, and it cannot be
denied that in certain battles, notably
that of Neuve Chappelle and in some
of the fighting in the magnificent de-
Tense of Verdun, there were needless
and l am sorry to say altogether USE
less losses.
But the officers responsible for them
have been deprived of their commands
and their fate has been a salutary les
son to those who have taken their
places. The one idea of the COM
mander nowadays is to obtain his vic
tory with the minimum of cost, no
matter If 1t involves the proongation
of the struggle and the increase in ex-
penditure of treasure. Money can al
ways be replaced, But human life
extinguished is gone forever and the
loss is irreparable.
In this connection the statistics
by the war department at
based on the official re-
turns of the allies since the beginning
Of the war, show that only one man
out of every 500 loses limb: that 95
per cent recover from wounds, and
that with nearly 80 per cent con-
valescence is so complete as to permit
Of the return Of the patient sound as
ever to the firing line.
LAS for the ratio Of deaths ii Is one
hftieth of l per cent, while thanks
to the modern perfection of the sani-
.ary services the maladies and cpl
iemics which were responsible for
some 70 and even 80 per cent of the |
ieaths in former wars are now virtu-
lily nonresident.