by Michael Fassbender

Created on: October 07, 2008   Last Updated: January 13, 2009

The trauma of the First World War was unprecedented. The scale of it alone was staggering: for almost four and a half years, most of Europe was locked in combat. Despite all efforts, technological and tactical alike, to achieve a decisive breakthrough, only rarely was anything like it accomplished. Far more often, enormous battles resulted in casualties numbering in the tens of thousands for the net gain of a stretch of land measurable at most within a few miles.

Published figures for the casualties of the Great War are estimates only, and the reliability of such figures varies from country to country. Still, most estimates suggest that deaths alone number somewhere between eight and nine million. Additionally, some 20 million were wounded. By the population standards of the day, it was as if Europe had lost an entire country: for the purposes of contrast, Italy began the war with about 35 million people altogether.

It is easy to lose a sense of perspective when contemplating raw numbers. Numerous encyclopedic sources provide tables to account for casualties of all belligerent nations. It is more important to try to extract some understanding of what the numbers mean. For example, at first glance it is apparent that the Great Powers fared the worst in raw numbers, from Germany at the greatest total losses, through Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, the United Kingdom, and then Italy. The losses of smaller countries, however, could be astonishingly high in relative terms; for example, Rumania's losses were only barely exceeded by Turkey, while Turkey's overall population was almost three times as large. (For this purpose, the civilian deaths in the Armenian population of Turkey are not considered.)

A more careful analysis of the figures suggests that, with a few exceptions (such as the Americans), the prospects of any individual soldier were bleak. A soldier fighting in Rumania, for example, had a 25% chance of being killed. Ironically, the Western Front killed more in total numbers, but an individual's chances were surprisingly better: a British soldier stationed in Belgium was only half as likely to die there as the aforementioned soldier in Rumania. Better organization and logistics, as well as stronger defensive positions resulting from more stable front lines probably do much to account for this disparity. Still, if one adds the probabilities of being killed, wounded or captured, one finds that any given soldier was 50% likely to suffer one of those fates.

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