Lives Lost During World War I

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It will never be possible to completely calculate the toll in human lives that was paid during the First World War. Battlefield deaths, civilian deaths, and deaths due to outbreaks of diseases cost millions of lives, all around the world. The short term impact was devastating, but through the long term the war may have had negligible demographic consequences. Accurate numbers for deaths are difficult to calculate. It is believed that between 9-10 million military men were killed during the war. The calculations are further complicated when attempting to determine civilian dead. Beckett notes that one calculation for Britain, France Germany and Austria-Hungary yields a civilian death toll of 3.7 million and a birth deficit of 15.3 million. Another calculation yields a number between 20 and 24 million. These losses do not take into consideration the dead of Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania or any of the Balkan nations. They also do not contain the 1.5 million Armenian victims of Turkish genocide. Disease was a major cause of death, especially civilian deaths, during the Fi...

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