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In this context we may note that the toll of

French prisoners is better than the most sanguine people dared to estimate. Railway records show that nearly twenty-four thousand prisoners have been removed by railway, and to this number must be added a good many others not yet dealt with. Further, there is the new gain of a thousand. The total number of prisoners due to the new push is something between twenty-five and thirty thousand. That is a splendid achievement, and significant of many things. The French probably took very few prisoners in the trenches, but when whole battalions surrendered, as they did, they were of course accorded the protection and humane treatment due to prisoners of war.

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