CHAPTER XIV

THE TERRIBLE PRICE.

A NATION OF MEN DESTROYED MILLIONS IN SHIPPING AND COMMERCE DESTROYED— WORLD'S MAPS CHANGED BILLIONS IN MONEY-IMMENSE DEBTS-NATION'S WEALTH-THE UNITED STATES A GREAI I'ROVIDER.

THE

'HE human tongue seems almost devoid of power to convey to the human mind what the war has actually cost the world in lives, money, property, ideals and all that is dear to humanity. In all the world there is not a human being who has not contributed something to the awful cost and the loss due to the destruction of property, the stopping of industry, the waste of energy and the curtailment of human endeavor in the interest of civilization, and the effects which the struggle has had upon the world cannot even be approximated in dollars and cents.

We have been taught to regard war as a terrible thing and to realize that thousands must be slain, but in no war in the history of the world has there been as many troops engaged as have been killed in the European war on the battlefields of Belgium and France.

At the beginning of the year 1917 it was estimated that the total casualties of the war were 22,500,000. In a report based on figures compiled in Washington it was stated: The human estimated waste and financial outlay are staggering. The combined casualties of the war, partly estimated because all belligerents do not publish lists, are 22,500,000. The figures included killed, permanently injured, prisoners and wounded returned to the front. Of this number the Central Powers were estimated to have suffered permanent losses in excess of 4,000,000, and the entente perhaps twice that number, Russia being by far the heaviest loser.

The financial outlay, based in part on official reports and

statements and in part on estimates, was placed at approximately $80,000,000,000, divided $50,000,000,000 to the entente and $30,000,000,000 to the Central Powers. The entente lost more than 3,500,000 tons of merchant shipping and approximately 800,000 tons of naval vessels. On the other side the loss of naval tonnage was approximately 250,000 tons, and merchant ships aggregating 211,000 tons were reported captured or destroyed.

IMMENSE LOSS TO COMMERCE.

Of the foreign commerce the Central Powers had lost $10,000,000,000 in the two and a half years of war, including imports and exports. The loss of commerce of Great Britain and her allies with the Central Powers probably was in the neighborhood of $7,000,000. This was largely made up at least on the import side by increased trade with the United States and other neutral countries and enlarged trade with the colonies.

Germany lost virtually all her African colonies and all her possessions in the Pacific Ocean, an aggregate of more than 1,000,000 square miles. Turkey also lost a large area of territory held at the outbreak of the war, while Austria lost most of Bukowina and Galicia. To offset the territory losses of the Central Powers, the entente have lost in Europe approximately 300,000 square miles. Of this large area, all of it thickly populated in normal times, 175,000 square miles were wrested from Russia on the eastern battlefield.

The staggering losses in men include the vast number on both sides wounded in such a way as not to permanently cripple them and render them unfit for military service. The figures are based on official reports and estimates by military experts. Germany's permanent losses were placed at 1,500,000 men, including about 1,000,000 in killed. The permanent losses of Austria-Hungary were placed at about 1,000,000 more than those of Germany, owing to the fact that so much

of the hard fighting on the eastern front was in the AustroHungarian theater. The losses of the Austro-Hungarians during the drive of General Brusiloff in 1916 were frightful. Large numbers of Austrians were taken prisoner by Brusiloff.

Russia's casualties for the first year of the war were estimated by military experts at more than 3,500,000 men, and these were doubled in the succeeding year, according to estimates by American military experts. Russia returned to the fighting line a smaller percentage of wounded than any of the other great Powers.

GREAT BRITAIN'S CASUALTIES.

Great Britain's casualties were placed in excess of 1,250,000 despite the limited front of British operations in France in the early stages. The aggregate of Italy's casualties was estimated at 1,500,000, while Belgium's were placed at 200,000, Servia's at 400,000, Montenegro's at 150,000 and Rumania's at more than 300,000.

While the area of the territorial losses of the Central Powers was nearly four times as great as that of the entente group, with the exception of the occupied portions of Bukowina and Galicia, the value of the territory included in them is comparatively small. For example, Germany's African colonies were sparsely settled, largely by natives, with virtually all development in the future. Despite this fact, their loss was a severe blow to Germany.

The territorial losses of the entente covered all but a small corner of Belgium, a highly developed, thickly populated industrial country; a large slice of northern France, virtually all of Servia, all of Montenegro, more than three-fourths of Rumania and 175,000 square miles of Russia, the major part of it in the grain-growing section.

According to military experts on the "war map" of Europe as it stood at that time, the Central Powers had won the war. But when their enormous loss of foreign commerce and

territory is considered, their "victory" was shown to have most decided limitations, especially because of their admission that they eventually would have to give up all occupied territory in view of the frightful cost in men and money.

FIGURES POSITIVELY STAGGERING.

Supplementing these statements, as showing the progress of the war, it was stated just before the United States took its memorable step to break off diplomatic relations with Germany, members of the National War Council estimated the total casualties of the war at that time as in excess of the population of the United Kingdom, which in 1911 was more than 45,000,000. This of course included those maimed, injured or so stricken that they were unfit for future service. The number actually killed was estimated at more than 7,000,000.

Staggering as these figures are they are easily conceivable when it is remembered that the German front lines covered more than 500 miles with Allied troops opposing them, and that in a single battle millions of shells were fired by one side or the other. In one battle it was officially reported that 4,000,000 shot and shell were used, and in another the English mined the German trenches for a distance of several miles and blew out the strongholds, using more than 1,000,000 pounds of high explosives.

One of the great 42-centimeter guns of the Germans is said to have used a charge of guncotton involving the use of a full bale of cotton to make the explosive-and a bale of cotton contains 500 pounds. The shrapnel of the heavy field artillery of the United States contains 717 balls or bullets about the size of a common marble, and the shell, so timed that it explodes just before it touches the ground, scatters the bullets or balls over an area estimated at one yard for every bullet, or more than 700 yards. With thousands of such shells being

rained over the entrenchments is it any wonder that the list of wounded and killed was great?

Thousands were killed by poisoned gases, and where they were not killed a very large percentage of those affected suffered consequences which rendered them unfit for battleturned them into invalids. The gas bombs produced hemorrhages of the lungs and bowels in thousands of cases and left those who inhaled the fumes in an anemic and permanently disabled condition. And what of the thousands who succumbed to fevers, and who because of the terrible shock became mental and physical wrecks and were made unfit for further duty on the actual firing lines?

A MATTER OF DOLLARS AND CENTS.

When it comes to the cost in dollars and cents it is possible to tell something of what they mean with reference to war construction and maintenance, although no one can estimate what it represents in destruction. No one has yet devised an accounting system to determine the percentage of "depreciation" through wear and tear on guns and devices that cost thousands of dollars each, but everybody knows that guns wear out and that some of the larger ones have a very decided limit on the number of times they can be fired without being rebored or rifled.

Railroads which have taken years to build and develop have been destroyed, telephone and telegraph lines put out of commission, great castles and temples razed, works of art burned, whole cities devastated, green fields turned into great craters torn up by bombs and shells, factories dismantled, herds of cattle fed into the maw of the armies, and the ruthless Germans even went so far as to wantonly cut down and destroy whole forests and magnificent shade trees which it took generations to grow.

How the indebtedness of the nations grew during the progress of the war is shown in the following statement issued