As yet there is no trustworthy account of what the
German losses have been. We only know that they must have been exceedingly heavy. Some reports speak of forty thousand dead men, which is by no means impossible. Others put the total casualties at two hundred thousand, others again at one hundred and fifty thousand. Judging by the intensity of the action and the huge number of combatants, and remembering the experience of such battles as those in Champagne and at Loos, we should say it was probably safe to put them at least at one hundred and fifty thousand. If so, the business has been a very expensive one for Germany. It would not have mattered if the result had been the breaking of the French lino beyond repair. When it comes to losing such numbers and not breaking it, what is to be said, especially when the inevitable next step must be the imminent risk of throwing good money after bad ? You cannot plunge as at Verdun and then go on as usual.
