It must be remembered, too, that the casualties referred to--being confined to "the western area of the war"--do not include our losses at sea, which comprise few "wounded" and no "missing." At sea it is either neck or nothing, sink or swim: a modern battle-ship, if holed and exploded, like the Good Hope and the Monmouth off the coast of Chile, going to the bottom, and most of her crew with her, like Kempenfelt's oaken Royal George-- Brave Kempenfelt is gone, His victories are o'er; And he and his eight hundred Will plough the waves no more. Thus if our casualties at sea, which are mainly of one kind only, be added up, they will probably be found to exceed our deaths on land, which are always much less numerous than other kinds of losses; yet the mortality of our battlefields has been mournful enough, especially among officers--where the death percentage has been higher than in any other war we ever waged. On the other hand, the Germans have had to pay a fearful price for the death-toll they have exacted of us and our Allies, seeing that, according to their own official admission, their casualties to the end of September amounted to over 500,000 for the Prussian army alone, while the corresponding figures for Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Baden, and other States have to be added; so that the estimate of Mr. Hilaire Belloc that the total losses of the Germans up to date must be somewhere near a million and three-quarters men would appear to be not very far out. Well now, supposing that the war were to last for two years, it follows that, at the same rate of loss, the German casualties would amount to 12,250,000, which is almost unthinkable. Its very destructiveness should tend to shorten the duration of this terrible war. As Mr. Asquith said at the opening of Parliament, in a curiously cryptic and significant passage: "The war may last long. I doubt myself if it will last as long as many people originally predicted." God grant that this may be so! But in the meantime there are no signs of any abatement of fury on the part of the Imperial Hun of Berlin, who stamps, and struts, and rages like Pistol on the field of Agincourt; and "Bid him prepare, for I will cut his throat!" is ever the burden of his objurgations. How different from the calm, serene, dignified utterances of our own gracious Sovereign and the despatches of his Generals are the minatory rantings of the Kaiser, his von Klucks, and his Crown Princes of Bavaria, with their vicious appeals to the worst passions of their soldiers against the English as the most bitterly hated of all their foes! [Continued overleaf. __________________________________________________________________________ THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, NOV. 18, 1914--5