Omaha daily bee., 1918-11-30
The Price IN Human Life
New York Evening Post.

Great Britain has published its casualties in
statistical form, and it is now the hrst to an
nounce the human price it has paid tor its share
of allied victory. 1t is smaller than the unoi-
fetal estimates. For that matter, even an ON
cial statement only little while ago placed the
British dead at round million. The actual hg-
ures as announced in the House OF Commons
on Tuesday are 65S,665 dead, 2032,l21 wounded,
and 359,145 prisoners and missing; this tor the
entire empire, white and colored. What proper
ton of the wounded are permanently incapaci'
tated we have no means of knowing, but I'M
questionably the great majority should be mt tor
useful life In peace, inasmuch as the seriously
wounded, so described in the daily casualty lists,
would now be included among the fallen For
the moment we may deal, therefore, with those
only who have paid the full and ultimate price.
For Germany, the Vorwarts presented yes o
terday an estimate Of l,sS0,0O0 dead, 4ooo,oOO
wounded, 100000 prisoners, and 100000 unac-
counted for. The greater part OF these last
may be added to the killed who might thus num-
Der l,750,000. For Russia, the casualties have
usually been placed at seven or eight millions,
of whom the fallen would be about 100000.
The British and German figures suggest ratio
for the dead of anywhere from n to Is per cent
Of the total casualties Applied to Russia, this
would give US the figures just set down. Death
from disease must have been high in the Rus
sian armies but, on the other hand, the case
with which vast numbers of Russian prisoners
were gathered in would tend to reduce the NOR
tally record in battle. The same argument
would operate in the case of Austria, with its
huge losses in prisoners at the beginning OF
the war and during Brussiloff's 1917 campaign.
With this factor in mind and in proportion to
the armies it put into the field as compared with
Germany, we may put Austra's dead at l,00O,-
900.
An estimate of Frances sacrifices may be at
tempted in a roundabout way. OF Germany's
1,750000 dead, we may assume that about $780,
900 fell in France and Belgium; this because of
the comparative lack of serious resistance which
the Germans encountered in the east after the
first half year of the war After May |, 1915,
the Germans against Russia had nothing even
suggesting Verdun to deal with. But if Ger
many's killed in the west were million and
half, we may argue that the allied dead on the
same front would be not far removed one way
sor the other. Probably the allied loss was
somewhat heavier, because, with the exception
of Verdun, they fought the harder aggressive
battles until last March. If we say, then, that
the British and French dead were 1,750000, and
subtract the official British figures for the west
ern front, little short of 100000, it would mean
that the French, who gave their lives numbered
about one and quarter millions.
Italys fallen, in proportion to the size Of its
armies and the length of front on which it was
engaged, might number half million. For the
smaller nationalities we can only estimate
roughly, but they cannot widely affect the total:
Serbia, 100000; Belgium, 100000; Bulgaria, So,
900; Turkey, 100000; Portugal 10000 Our own
dead, when the account stands complete, may
range between 10000 and $4,000, with the proba-
bilities for the smaller loss. To recapitulate:
NJ lAf