The question which Power has got the largest number of
prisoners is being generally asked at the present moment, but it is by no means easy to answer. A Reuter tele- gram from Petrograd, dated Wednesday, says that the number of Austrian prisoners alone brought into Kiev since the beginning of the war reached on Tuesday a total of over one hundred thousand. The Russians have no doubt in addition a considerable number of German prisoners, though bow many it is difficult to guess. The Germans profess to have taken over one hundred thousand Russian prisoners in East Prussia. As to French prisoners, the Germans assert that they have taken about one hundred and forty thousand, but the French only acknowledge about forty thousand. The discrepancy is stated to be due to the barbarous system under which the Germans in the provinces which they enter are seizing all the men capable of bearing arms and deporting them to Germany. It is reported that they have taken over one hundred thousand Frenchmen in this way. Their real prisoners of war are therefore only forty thousand. The number of German prisoners in French hands, all of them, of course, soldier prisoners, is also about forty thousand. Of British prisoners the Germans hold about nine thousand. How many German prisoners we ourselves have, whether taken by our own troops or by the Belgians—the Belgians' prisoners of war are sent here—has nowhere, as far as we know, been stated.
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