And this is only the beginning of the story. The figures just quoted refer only to fighting men. They take no account of the civilian population. But the civilian losses were simply incalculable, especially in eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire. It is estimated that for every soldier killed, five civilians perished by hunger, exposure, disease, massacre, or heightened infant mortality. The civilian deaths in Poland and Russia are placed at many millions, while other millions died in Turkey and Serbia through massacre and starvation. One item alone will give some idea of the wastage of human life during the war. The deaths beyond the normal mortality due to influenza and pneumonia induced by the war are estimated at 4,000,000. The total loss of life directly attributable to the war is probably fully 40,000,000, while if decreased birth-rates be added the total would rise to nearly 50,000,000. Furthermore, so far as civilian deaths are concerned, the terrible conditions prevailing over a great part of Europe since the close of 1918 have caused additional losses relatively as severe as those during the war years. The way in which Europe's population has been literally decimated by the late war is shown by the example of France. In 1914 the population of France was 39,700,000. From this relatively moderate population nearly 8,000,000 men were mobilized during the war. Of these, nearly 1,400,000 were killed, 3,000,000 were wounded, and more than 400,000 were made prisoners. Of the wounded, between 800,000 and 900,000 were left permanent physical wrecks. Thus fully 2,000,000 men--mostly drawn from the flower of French manhood--were dead or hopelessly incapacitated. Meanwhile, the civilian population was also shrinking. Omitting the civilian deaths in the northern departments under German occupation, the excess of deaths over births was more than 50,000 for 1914, and averaged nearly 300,000 for the four succeeding war years. And the most alarming feature was that these losses were mainly due, not to deaths of adults, but to a slump in the birth-rate. French births, which had been 600,000 in 1913, dropped to 315,000 in 1916 and 343,000 in 1917. All told, it seems probable that between 1913 and 1919 the population of France diminished by almost 3,000,000--nearly one-tenth of the entire population. France's vital losses are only typical of what has to a greater or less extent occurred all over Europe. The disgenic effect of the Great War is simply appalling. The war was nothing short of a headlong plunge into white race-suicide. It was essentially a civil war between closely related white stocks; a war wherein every physical and mental effective was gathered up and hurled into a hell of lethal machinery which killed out unerringly the youngest, the bravest, and the best.