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World War 1 was a bloody war of untold slaughter. Its tragedy, can be summed up by the casualties which amounted to an estimated 40 million military and civilian on all sides, via military combat or other issues like famine due to blockade and inadequate supplies.

The two sides, the Entente alliance and the Central Powers fought for 4 years between 1914-1918. A war, which was supposed to be quick and decisive was actually quite the opposite and lasted much longer than expected. A lack of offensive armory did not help, and in the west French, German, British (Commonwealth) and to a lesser extent American soldiers were ground down in trench warfare, and failed offensives. This was only broken in 1918 when the tank was used. In the East, the Russian Empire also fought the German Empire but was defeated. The Ottoman Turks, and Austria- Hungary were also involved on the German side. There were of course a number of other nations involved, like Japan, Bulgaria and colonies of the British, French and German empires which also sustained casualties.

Of course, various sources now shed light on the casualties sustained. Sources that shed light on the war figures range from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to historical books like The World War 1 Source Book. The number of studies carried out, has now allowed for a reasonable amount of agreement on the subject.

To begin with, looking at military casualties alone tells a story. 9.7 million casualties are recorded on all sides of the conflict. Breaking this down further makes for interesting reading. The victorious Entente nations accumulated 5.6 million, while the defeated Central alliance accumulated 4.4 million. As such, despite winning the Entente lost more soldiers. This serves to highlight that it was a close conflict.

Militarily, the German Empire lost the highest number of soldiers. This is recorded at about 2 million. Alternatively, the second highest number inflicted was on the Entente side, with the Russian Empire losing 1.8 million soldiers in the war.

Civilian casualties are almost as high: 8.8 million on all sides. When broken down, the total on the Entente side amounts to 3.6 million while on the other side there were 5.1 million in total. The most curious figure is that give for the Ottoman Empire, 4.2 million civilian casualties is by far the largest recorded for any nation/empire involved. Not including them and civilian statistics are actually relatively light on the Central side.

Of those that participated,

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