by Charles Bobbitt

Created on: October 03, 2008   Last Updated: September 10, 2010

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the British were locked in a struggle with the Dutch Boers over control of South Africa. During three years of war, twenty-thousand British soldiers were killed. Less than two decades later, twenty-thousand British soldiers were killed on one day of the Somme Offensive in World War I. In fact, by the end of the five-month Somme offensive, the number of British casualties, those killed or wounded, exceeded 420,000 – a number that almost equaled the total number of British troops employed during the three year Boer War.

The British by no means suffered the worst in terms of casualties in World War I. For sheer number of dead and wounded, roughly 2.5 million, they ranked fifth. Russia suffered the most, with some casualty estimates as high as 9 million. Germany, France, and Austria followed, in that order, with casualties between 4.5 million to 7 million. Italy, too, suffered well over 1 million casualties, with some estimates approaching 2 million. The French, Russians and Austrians all had casualty rates – the percentage of those mobilized suffering casualties - at or in excess of 75%.

There are three main reasons for the extraordinarily high number of casualties in World War I. Foremost is the scale of the war. Troops from more than twenty countries participated, with the Allies mobilizing more than 40 million troops, and the Axis powers, over 20 million. Therefore, although the death rate in World War I was half that of the American Civil war,  the total number of deaths was ten times as high.

The second reason for the high number of casualties in World War I was technology. The First World War saw the advent or extension of artillery, machine guns, flame throwers, and poison gas. These weapons, combined with the geography of the battlefields, created the perfect environment for the mass casualties seen on the Western Front in battles such as those at Ypres, the Somme, and Verdun.

The third reason behind the high number of casualties was strategy. After it became evident that there would be no quick finish to the war, the Allies settled in to a war of attrition. Here, the principles of war laid out by von Clausewitz in, “On War,” took effect. The goal of the Allies was to grind out battles until the Axis had no more money or manpower to continue the fight. If a battle cost the Allies 600,000 lives, but at the same time cost the Axis 400,000, the Allies would, in theory, eventually prevail.   

The Allies did prevail, but at great cost. By the close of World War I, nearly 10 million soldiers had died, more than 20 million had been wounded, and over 7 million were reported captured or missing.

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