What was the worst battle in history in terms of casualties? Waterloo? Stalingrad? Any comments?
-Eric
-Eric
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Hi Eric!
The bloodiest battle in human history is said to be the battle of Stalingrad, with an estimation of 2 millions of combined casualties among the military and the civil population as well. Of course casualties are no that easily calculated
in such massive battles, particularly when civilians and huge numbers of POWs are involved.
Here is an interesting link, for what it counts anyway,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_casualties
I think it is really creepy converting the loss of human lives into cold numbers, what do you guys think? Of course, quoting Stalin, "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." And unfortunately that's the way the things in this world have ever been working...
Cheers, Giorgos -
I would Imagine for shorter term Battles such as the battle of Kursk and even the defencive battles of Berlin, these would be very high in casualty statistics for both sided.
GregComment
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bloody battles
Stalingrad was bad, of course, but it also lasted months.
Alittle macabre maybe, but we should maybe look at the highest rate of casualties, maybe on a daily basis, or weekly, and also consider the area over which the battle was foughts.
Waterloo might have been high for it's time, but still way smaller than Borodino in 1812, which was a 50000 casualty one-day slugfest.
That's also about what the Romans lost at Cannae, if I'm not mistaken...not alot of quarter giver there.
July 1st, 1916, at the Somme, cost the British 57000 that day only, of which over 19000 were actually killed. You just can't leave that disaster out of the discussion.
And Verdun, well, that was maybe more of a meat grinder than a bloodbath. It lasted the better part of the year, but I think had more shells expended per square mile than any other.Comment
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http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/
Bloodiest Battles in History.
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800,000–1,600,000 - Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943)
670,000–1,500,000 - Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944)
700,000 - Battle of Moscow (1941–1942)
400,000–680,000 - Battle of Kiev (1941)
500,000 - Battle of Smolensk (1941)
370,000 - Battle of Voronezh (1942)
370,000 - Battle of Belarus (1941)
175,000–350,000 - Operation Bagration (1944)
230,000–350,000 - Battle of Kursk (1943)
300,000 - Battle of the Somme (1916)
270,000 - Second Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive (1942)
270,000 - Battle of West Ukraine (1944)
260,000 - Battle of Verdun (1916)
260,000 - Battle of the Caucasus (1942)
165,000–300,000 Battle of Chalons (451)
230,000 - Battle of Berlin (1945)
200,000 - Siege of Tenochtitlan (1520–1521)
190,000 - Battle of West Ukraine (1941)
180,000 - Battle of France (1940)
170,000 - Battle of the Lower Dnieper (1943)
170,000 - Battle of Königsberg (1945)
150,000 - Battle of Rostov (1941)
150,000 - Battle of Okinawa (1945)
150,000 - Battle of Passchendaele (1917)
132,000 - Battle of Normandy (1944)
130,000 - Battle of Gallipoli (1916)
130,000 - Battle of Budapest (1945)
125,000 - Third Battle of Nanking (1864)
125,000 - Battle of Lemberg (1914)
115,000 - Battle of the Frontiers (1914)
100,000 - Battle of Chernikov-Poltava (1943)
100,000 - Battle of Smolensk (1943)
90,000 - Battle of the Aisne (1917)
83,000 - Battle of the Baltic (1941)
80,000 - Battle of the Somme (1918)
80,000 - Battle of the Marne (1918)
74,000 - Battle of Polyarnoe-Karelia (1941)
72,000+ - Battle of Belgorod (1943)
70,000 - Second Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945)
70,000 - Second Battle of Anchialus (917)
69,000 - Battle of Leyte (1944)
66,000 - Battle of Donbass (1943)
56,000–66,000 - Battle of Cannae (216 BC)
65,000 - Battle of Lvov-Sandomir (1944)
64,000 - Battle of the Aisne (1918)
62,000 - Battle of Artois (1915)
61,000 - Battle of the Baltic (1944)
60,000 - Battle of Basra (1985–1988)
60,000 - Battle of Monte Cassino (1944)
60,000 - Battle of Arras (1917)
60,000 - First Battle of Ypres (1914)
60,000 - Battle of Champagne (1915)
40,000–56,000 - Tet Offensive (1968)
55,000 - Korsun Pocket (1944)
55,000 - Battle of Voronezh (1943)
50,000 - Meuse-Argonne offensive (1918)
50,000 - Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo (1917)
50,000 - Battle of Hsuchow (1927)
30,000–50,000 - Battle of Naissus (268)
45,000 - Fourth Battle of Kharkov (1943)
44,000 - Battle of the Crimea (1944)
42,000 - Battle of the Seelow Heights (1945)
40,000 - Battle of Imphal (1944)
38,000 - Battle of the Bulge (1944–1945)
37,000 - Battle of Tannenberg (1914)
36,500 - Battle of the Ebro (1938)
35,000 - Battle of Mukden (1905)
30,300–34,000 - Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC)
32,000 - Battle of Lepanto (1571)
31,000 - Battle of Thapsus (46 BC)
31,000 - Battle of Taierzhuang (1937)
30,000 - Battle of Saipan (1944)
30,000 - Battle of Konotop (1659)
30,000 - Battle of Marignan (1515)
30,000 - Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9)
20,000–30,000 - Battle of Munda (45 BC)
29,000 - Battle of Iwo Jima (1945)
25,000 - Battle of Pydna (168 BC)
26,000 - Katyn Massacre (1940)
22,500 - Battle of Leipzig (1813)
20,000 - Battle of the Trebia (218 BC)
18,500 - Battle of Borodino (1812)
16,500 - Battle of Halhin Gol (1939)
15,000 - Battle of Waterloo (1815)
15,000 - Battle of Lake Trasimene (217 BC)
11,000 - Battle of Heraclea (180 BC)
11,000 - Siege of Petersburg, Virginia (1864–1865)
7,000–11,000 - Battle of Pharsalus (48 BC)
10,500 - Battle of Asculum (279 BC)
10,360 - Battle of Mons Graupius (83 or 84)
10,000 - Battle of the Metaurus (207 BC)
10,000 - Battle of Celaya (1913)
8,700 - Battle of Cynoscephalae (197 BC)
7,058 - Battle of Gettysburg (1863)
6,592 - Battle of Marathon (490 BC)
5,350+ - Battle of Suomussalmi (1939–1940)
5,000+ - Battle of Dara (530)
5,000+ - Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081)
4,808 - Battle of Antietam (1862)
4,360 - Battle of Chickamauga (1863)
4,329 - Battle of Isandlwana (1879)
4,175 - Battle of Leuthen (1757)
3,477 - Battle of Shiloh (1862)
3,205 - Second Battle of Bull Run (1862)
200–2,850 - Battle for Fallujah (November 8–November 14, 2004)
2,800 - Battle of Midway (1942)
2,400 - La Noche Triste (1520)
2,000+ - Battle of Manzikert (1071)
1,705 - Battle of Cold Harbor (June 1-3, 1864)
1,700 - Battle of Vicksburg (1863)
1,000+ - Battle of Dyrrhachium (48 BC)
868 - First Battle of Bull Run (July 21, 1861)
622 - Jamestown Massacre (1622)
567 - Battle of Rorke's Drift (1879)
495 - Battle of Monongahela (1755)
383 - Battle of the Alamo (1836)
366 - Battle of Bunker Hill (1775)
350 - Battle of Spion Kop (1900)
302 - Battle of Little Bighorn (1876)
And a few more not listed above...
30,000,000–60,000,000 - Mongol Conquests (13th century)
33,000,000–36,000,000 - An Lushan Rebellion (756–763)
25,000,000–Manchu Conquest of Ming China (1616–1644)
17,000,000 - Timur Lenk's conquests (1370–1405)
3,000,000–8,000,000 - Thirty Years War (1618–1648)
250,000–800,000 - Sack of Baghdad by Hulagu Khan (1258)
50,000–350,000 - Rape of Nanking, China (1937)
60,000–100,000 - Sack of Jerusalem, First Crusade (1099)
70,000 - Sack of Merv by Genghis Khan (1221)
70,000 - St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (France, 1572)
30,000–40,000 - massacred in Novgorod by Ivan the Terrible
25,000 - Sack of Magdeburg (Thirty Years War, Germany, 1631)
20,000 - Sack of Baghdad by Timur (1401)
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RobertComment
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Thanks guys for the comments. Robert, appreciate your statistics on casualties throughout history. Amazing.
-EricComment
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I did not realize there were 180,000 casulties in the French 1940 invasion.Comment
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list
Thanks for the extensive list, although I think it would be worth checking a few of those numbers with other sources.
I think they low-balled Verdun, 1916, considerably.Comment
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The numbers shown on this excellent site are almost the same;Originally posted by Chad1 View Post
http://www.wereldoorlog1418.nl/battl...achtoffers.htm
The Battle of Verdun and the number of casualties
"Nothing can be said of the number of dead, wounded and missing for certain. The official French war history that was published in 1916 estimates the French losses at Verdun at 377,231. Of this number 162,308 are dead or missing. The most reliable estimates of the German losses mention 337,000 of which 100,000 dead, wounded or missing (Reichsarchiv, Potsdam, 1918). The total amount of casualties would then be: 714,231 of which 262,308 dead, wounded or missing. (Note: this number does not yet include the number of prisoners of war that returned after the war.)"
"The concept "losses" is not very clear. The word applies to every single person who is (temporarily) not available for active duty any more. At the front this would indeed be the dead and wounded, but in the number of losses are included also: missing persons, men with the flu, a pneumonia, an inflammation of the jaw, etc. Even the prisoners of war, who escaped the battlefield in this special way, are included in the number of victims."
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RobertComment
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Hello,
This is a difficult and most likely endless discussion but I would want to add these figures:
The struggle to control Plancenoit village on June 18 1815, the so called side show of the battle of Waterloo.
The small village of Plancenoit changed hands on that day four times, the battle was fought from 16h30 till 20h30; in that short time the Prussians lost +/- 6.350 men, the French +/- 4.500.
The fight to control the church and annex graveyard was fought with close combat: bayonet charges included, both parties involved didn't take any prisoners; it is estimated that when the sun was down compleetly between 5.000 till 6.000 men lay dead in the village of Plancenoit.
This are impressive figures, specially if one sees how small Plancenoit is and in how a short time this casualties were made.
The French Young Guard was almost compleetly destroyed in this fight, Napoleon around 18h00 ordered the eight battalions of the Jeunne Garde, 4.300 men strong (the had been in reserve the whole day), to go to Plancenoit; when on June 26 the Young Guard paraded in Paris only 598 men (14%) were present, most of them had disappeard in Plancenoit.
Regards,
UComment
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The Lower Dnieper Offensive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Dnieper
"The Lower Dnieper Offensive (also known as the "Battle of the Lower Dnieper") took place in 1943 during the Second World War. It was one of the largest Second World War operations, involving almost 4,000,000 troops on both sides and stretching on a 1400 kilometers long front. During this four-month operation, the eastern bank of the Dnieper was recovered from German forces by five of the Red Army's Fronts, which conducted several river assault crossings to establish several bridgeheads on the western bank. Subsequently, Kiev was liberated in a separate offensive.
One of the costliest operations of the war, the casualties are estimated at being from 1,700,000 to 2,700,000 on both sides. Given the duration of the campaign and the huge area involved, more than one historian argues that the losses involved were huge, easily reaching or even surpassing those at the Battle of Stalingrad, but going "unnoticed" because of the big operation area (and of the aura of fame enveloping the latter). The death toll also depends on the time frame considered. It also depends whether the toll of the 1943 Smolensk battle, which was used as a kind of "deceptive maneuver" for the Dnieper battle, is included in the Battle of Dnieper's statistics.
On the subject of Soviet casualties, Nikolaï Shefov in his Russian fights puts the figure of 373,000 KIA and more than 1,500,000 total Soviet casualties. British historian, John Erickson, in his Barbarossa: The Axis and the Allies, puts a figure of 173,201 USSR KIA, during a time frame from 26 September to 20 December 1943, therefore not taking into account the period going from 24 August to 26 September. Glantz/House 'When Titans Clashed' put a figure of 428,000 total losses (103,000 KIA) during 26 August to 30 September (Chernigov-Poltava Operation) and 754,000 total losses (173,000 KIA) during 26 September and 20 December. Given the heavy German resistance even before Dnieper force-crossing, this figure seems a low estimate (Soviet sources estimate casualties from the post-Kursk offensive alone at 250,000 killed, wounded and captured), the figure of 300,000+ KIA seems quite correct and acceptable, with the WIA number following the 3:1 empiric ratio.
German losses, however, are more difficult to evaluate. The simple rule of 3:1 losses during an offensive operation against a heavily defended enemy would lead to a 500,000 casualties toll, reaching the one of Kursk. Shefov and other Soviet/Russian historians quote casualties as high as 1,500,000. This is however highly unlikely, this would mean that the number of casualties is close to the same size as the number of men involved, and if one considers the casualties per day ratio of Kursk battle, an operation twice as long under similar conditions would lead to a 1,000,000 toll."
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RobertLast edited by Robert T.; 05-25-2009, 02:06 AM.Comment
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One thing these stats make clear, it's a pity the Germans couldn't just stay home.
ericComment
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within those impressive statistics are there indicators re specific 'sides'' casualties? ie red army...german army...romanians...spanish...civilians..etc...? these figures are just huge, the scale hasnt really hit home until now.Comment
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Originally posted by corporalSteiner View Post
Human Losses of World War 2 by Country; you will find all the information on this web site; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
Total: 72,769,900 military and civilian deaths....
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RobertComment
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I consider a lot of those mentioned as campaigns compared to battles.Comment
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