"How Deadly Was World War I?" Topic

"Veterans Day in the United States was created to commemorate the veterans of World War I. This year Veterans Day also marks 100 years since the end of the war to end all wars.

As Statista's Sarah Feldman notes, World War I became known as the war to end all wars due to how deadly it was to those who went into combat. The advent of mustard gas and chlorine gas along with trench warfare, made the casualties rate much higher than previous conflicts.

Casualties are defined here as soldiers who were killed, wounded and captured or reported missing during combat…."

Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

In my experience, if you go to many villages in England, Scotland or Wales and look at the war memorial in the town center/green, the list of the village's WWI casualties invariably is significantly longer than their WWII list. Kind of bears out the idea that in WWI it was primarily soldiers who died, but in WWII, although the total casualty numbers were higher, it was more civilians who died.

Where's Canada?

Good question.

Amicalement
Armand

Does it include disease as a killer? Do flu deaths count? The war exacerbated the epidemic.

Maybe Canada was included under British Empire?

My Grandpa hated farming and tried to join the Austria-Hungary army just before war started. He was an inch too short and they wouldn't take him no mater how much he plead. So, he left and came to America. 90% casualties… Oh my!

I agree with Tom Molon, there is a significant difference in military casualties between the Wars in many European countries. My wife and I were discussing this topic on 11/11 comparing WWI to WWII. From a military casualty point of view WWI was higher and also from the perspective of civilian casualties due to diseases and famine in European countries it is quite large. When you look at WWII civilian casualties due to combat/bombing and in particular add Russian and Asian countries then the WWII casualties really add up.

The fundamental difference between WW1 and WW2 in Europe is that the USSR bore the brunt of the fighting against the German forces. The casualties from the Great Patriotic War are in sharp contrast to those of the 'British Empire' in WW2. If Britain had played the role of the USSR then we would be praising the WW1 generals for the 'low' number of casualties.

Robert

Maybe Canada was included under British Empire?

I would think so … as ANZAC, Indian, etc. numbers are not listed separately either.

And medical procedures were not as advanced as in WWII. However we know the losses in WWII dwarfed those of WWI. As not only medicine had evolved but so did the tech of killing your enemy did.

Regarding many village memorials in UK having more casualties in ww1 than ww2, I suspect this is partially to do with the 'pals' battalions where recruits from the same community were placed together in the same unit. This practise was stopped when it was realised a badly hit battalion would disproportionately hit a particular community and recruits thereafter were spread out in different units. Conversely it probably contributed to the phenomenon of the so called 'thankful villages' where all those who went off to war returned

I'm always skeptical of those breakdowns. Not only have I seen so many radically different casualty estimates for many different operations, those totals never take into account soldiers being wounded multiple times. Take somebody like Ernst Junger. He was wounded almost 20 times over the course of the war. Each time someone like that is wounded and knocked out of action for a time, it's a new casualty. Junger had a remarkable career, but I don't think he was especially exceptional in being wounded multiple times. Men who weren't killed outright or wounded too severely to go on serving, recovered and went back to the front. That sort of factor would inevitably push those percentages higher. I'm not by any means trying to downplay the awfulness of the carnage, just saying I think those numbers tell us less than they claim to.

skipper John, I think that 90% figure is mightily fueled by massive desertions in the last months of the war as the army effectively disbanded itself. The 0% figure for Japan is also suspect.

As far as I know, Japan only contributed some ships (that were under construction in the UK and were very nearly *yoinked* by the Royal Navy), no ground forces.

So a 0% casualty rate isn't impossible in that situation, since I don't think any of the Japanese ships were hit by enemy fire, mines, or whatnot.

IIRC the Japanese fought along side Brits in Tsingtao China against Austro-Hungarian and German Forces …

Yep, here is is :
link

From that link :

Casualties
Japanese casualties numbered 733 killed and 1,282 wounded; the British had 12 killed and 53 wounded. The German defenders lost 199 dead and 504 wounded. The German dead were buried at Tsingtao, while the remaining soldiers were transported to prisoner of war camps in Japan. The 4,700 German prisoners were treated well and with respect in Japan, such as in Bandô prisoner-of-war camp. The German troops were interned in Japan until the formal signature of the Versailles peace treaty in 1919, but due to technical questions, the troops were not repatriated before 1920. 170 prisoners chose to remain in Japan after the end of the war.

You beat me my good friend… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand