Casualties in the two World Wars for Combatant Nations
Created | Updated May 22, 2006
Lies...
There is an old phrase that the victors write the history books. As a result there is a lot of mythology about which nations suffered the most during the two world wars.
These statistics will help to disperse the myths.
One might guess that one in five Britons killed in the Second World War was a civilian; but who would have thought that more Greeks were killed than Americans? It is certainly shocking to discover that over 17% of the Polish population died.
When we look at the First World War, it is salutary to discover that Bulgaria sustained more casualites than the USA, and that half as many Britons were missing as killed. It is certainly a surprise to realise that considerably more Austro-Hungarians were missing in action in the First World War than Americans were killed in both wars combined.
Damned lies...
As you can see, the WWII figures do not include wounded or missing, and not all the figures are available for all countries. Switzerland, Eire and Sweden are notable by their absence. Eire did not exist as a separate nation in the First World War, and all three countries were neutral in the Second.
It is not clear whether the statistics for WWII include those killed in the Holocaust. The high numbers of Polish civilian dead suggest that they might be. It is however chilling to know that the Jewish population of Europe was 8,000,0000 in the 1930s, and the global population of Jews now is only 10,000,000.
For all that, these statistics remain illuminating and disturbing.
They are presented in the order of the greatest number of deaths.
Dead, Wounded and Missing in the First World War
| Country | Dead | Wounded | Missing | Total |
| Russia | 1,700,000 | 5,000,000 | - | 6,700,000 |
| Germany | 1,600,000 | 4,065,000 | 103,000 | 5,768,000 |
| France | 1,359,000 | 4,200,000 | 361,650 | 5,920,650 |
| Austria-Hungary | 922,000 | 3,600,000 | 855,283 | 5,377,283 |
| Italy | 689,000 | 959,100 | - | 1,424,660 |
| Britain | 658,700 | 2,032,150 | 359,150 | 3,050,000 |
| Romania | 335,706 | 120,000 | 80,000 | 535,706 |
| Turkey | 250,000 | 400,000 | - | 650,000 |
| Bulgaria | 87,500 | 152,390 | 27,029 | 266,919 |
| USA | 58,480 | 189,955 | 14,290 | 262,725 |
| Australia | 58,150 | 152,170 | - | 210,320 |
| Canada | 56,500 | 149,700 | - | 206,200 |
| Serbia | 45,000 | 133,148 | 152,958 | 331,106 |
| Belgium | 44,000 | 450,000 | - | 494,000 |
| India | 43,200 | 65,175 | 5,875 | 114,250 |
| New Zealand | 16,130 | 40,750 | - | 56,880 |
| Portugal | 7,222 | 13,751 | 12,318 | 33,291 |
| Greece | 5,000 | 21,000 | 1,000 | 27,000 |
| Montenegro | 3,000 | 10,000 | 7,000 | 20,000 |
| Japan | 300 | 907 | 3 | 1,210 |
| Totals | 7,996,888 | 21,755,196 | 1,979,556 | 31,508,200 |
Civilian and Military deaths in the Second World War
| Countries | Total Deaths | % of Prewar Population | Military Deaths | Civilian Deaths |
| USSR | 20,600,000 | 10.40% | 13,600,000 | 7,000,000 |
| China | 10,000,000 | 2.00% | - | - |
| Germany | 6,850,000 | 9.50% | 3,250,000 | 3,600,000 |
| Poland | 6,123,000 | 17.20% | 123,000 | 6,000,000 |
| Japan | 2,000,000 | 2.70% | - | - |
| Yugoslavia | 1,706,000 | 10.90% | - | - |
| France | 810,000 | 1.90% | 340,000 | 470,000 |
| Greece | 520,000 | 7.20% | - | - |
| USA | 500,000 | 0.40% | 500,000 | - |
| Austria | 480,000 | 7.20% | - | - |
| Romania | 460,000 | 3.40% | - | - |
| Hungary | 420,000 | 3.00% | - | - |
| Italy | 410,000 | 0.90% | 330,000 | 80,000 |
| Czechoslovakia | 400,000 | 2.70% | - | - |
| Great Britain | 388,000 | 0.80% | 326,000 | 62,000 |
| The Netherlands | 210,000 | 2.40% | 198,000 | 12,000 |
| Belgium | 88,000 | 1.10% | 76,000 | 12,000 |
| Finland | 84,000 | 2.20% | - | - |
| Australia | 39,000 | 0.30% | - | - |
| Canada | 34,000 | 0.30% | - | - |
| Albania | 28,000 | 2.50% | - | - |
| India | 24,000 | 0.01% | - | - |
| Norway | 10,262 | 0.30% | - | - |
| New Zealand | 10,000 | 0.60% | - | - |
| Luxembourg | 5,000 | 1.70% | - | - |
| TOTAL | 52,199,262 | - | - | - |
Interesting, isn't it?
WWI and WWII Statistics on the Web
World War One
- A simple table with differing statistics from the ones shown above. In particular it records 126,000 killed and died for the USA, which is a considerable difference: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWdeaths.htm
- An article which mentions the difficulties in compiling statistics which gives some information on how they have arrived at the numbers: http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/blww1castable.htm
- The article which was used as the source for the WWI statistics shown in this entry: http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/casualties.htm
- Another simple table of yet another different set of numbers: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/FWWcasualties.htm
- This is intresting because it only shows the Allied deaths and bundles up individual countries into "British Empire"; a useful example of how easy it is not to present the full picture which is disturbing because it is explicitly aimed at schools: http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/warstatistics.htm
- This site shows one set of statistics sorted in different orders: http://www.worldwar1.com/tlcrates.htm
World War Two
- The simple table which was used for this guide entry: http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/statistics.htm
- A fascinating page which cites statistics on a national basis, and then compares the numbers quoted in different reference books. For example the numbers quoted for Russian Military Deaths vary from 6,115,000 (Info Please) to 22,000,000 (The Guardian): http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/ww2stats.htm
- A simple table giving different numbers again. http://www.hitler.org/ww2-deaths.html
- A site which starts off with statistics of war deaths and continues with military statistics which are particularly detailed about German armaments: http://www.angelfire.com/ct/ww2europe/stats.html
- A page of simple statistics from a site which focusses on the war in the Ukraine: http://www.infoukes.com/history/ww2/page-29.html
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A site of citations
- This site is a mine of useful and disturbing information about statistics, not to mention disturbing statistics. This page is a provides a Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Man-made Megadeaths of the Twentieth Century: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstats.htm
Bringing it up to date
- This page compares the statistics for WWI, WWII and the recent Gulf War, with an allegedly realtime counter of the cost of the war in the Gulf: http://www.threeworldwars.com/world-war-overview.htm
