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Before I became a historian, I was trained as an experimental psychologist. As abstract and as theoretical as my work has become, it is always grounded in empirical data. I work "from the bottom up."
I notice I've been using the term "slaughter" in my essays recently. This term does not appear frequently in the past. However, why not BEGIN WITH SLAUGHTER AS THE FUNDAMENTAL DIMENSION OF WARFARE and genocide: the essence or core of these phenomena.
No mater what the reasons and rationales and justifications, the end result is SLAUGHTER. As I sometimes put it, "nations kill a lot of people."
Why do I focus on the First World War in my research? Because THIS WAS THE PRIMAL EVENT OF SLAUGHTER THAT DROVE THE 20th CENTURY (I know there were episodes of slaughter prior to the First World War, consult Nadine Akhund about the Balkan wars, but this was the "big daddy," the progenitor).
Instead of focusing and studying all of the "reasons" (this becomes very, very tiresome after a while), why not focus on the EMPIRICAL RESULT, the reality or actuality of what occurred (much as many historians prefer emphasiziing grandiose "geopolitical" explanations).
I've reproduced the Table below on many occasions, It's worth looking at again to remind ourselves that the First World War is best characterized by the quantity of slaughter that occurred. What word shall I used: gigantic, colossal, monumental?
Well, historians have "grown accustomed to her face, she almost makes the day begin." I sometimes write about the normalization of the fantastic.
The SLAUGHTER of the First World War led to the SLAUGHTER OF POLES by the Germans in the Second World War, then the SLAUGHTER of Soviet soldiers in the early years of the Second World War, then the SLAUGHTER of the Jews. And on and on it goes.
So before we go berserk with explanations and reasons and causes, let's stick with the fundamental REALITY OF SLAUGHTER, the common denominator that unites war and genocide.
I'm familiar with the anthropological and historical dictum of studying each society and each war in and of itself, each episode or event of collective violence as unique in its causality.
This posture, however, becomes fatuous and dishonest once we recognize that at the core of the 20th Century lies a persistent and consistent history of SLAUGHTER.
What is the meaning of this WILL TO SLAUGHTER?
Best regards,
Richard Koenigsberg
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First World War Casualties
The figures below are from Chris Trueman's HistoryLearningSite.co.uk
| Country |
Men mobilised |
Killed |
Wounded |
POW’s + missing |
Total casualties |
casualties in % of men mobilised |
| Russia |
12 mill |
1.7 mill |
4.9 mill |
2.5 mill |
9.15 mill |
76.3 |
| France |
8.4 mill |
1.3 mill |
4.2 mill |
537,000 |
6.1 mill |
73.3 |
| GB + Empire |
8.9 mill |
908,000 |
2 mill |
191,000 |
3.1 mill |
35.8 |
| Italy |
5.5 mill |
650,000 |
947,000 |
600,000 |
2.1 mill |
39 |
| USA |
4.3 mill |
126,000 |
234,000 |
4,500 |
350,000 |
8 |
| Japan |
800,000 |
300 |
900 |
3 |
1210 |
0.2 |
| Romania |
750,000 |
335,000 |
120,000 |
80,000 |
535,000 |
71 |
| Serbia |
700,000 |
45,000 |
133,000 |
153,000 |
331,000 |
47 |
| Belgium |
267,000 |
13,800 |
45,000 |
34,500 |
93,000 |
35 |
| Greece |
230,000 |
5000 |
21,000 |
1000 |
27,000 |
12 |
| Portugal |
100,000 |
7222 |
13,700 |
12,000 |
33,000 |
33 |
| Total Allies |
42 mill |
5 mill |
13 mill |
4 mill |
22 mill |
52% |
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| Germany |
11 mill |
1.7 mill |
4.2 mill |
1.1 mill |
7.1 mill |
65 |
| Austria |
7.8 mill |
1.2 mill |
3.6 mill |
2.2 mill |
7 mill |
90 |
| Turkey |
2.8 mill |
325,000 |
400,000 |
250,000 |
975,000 |
34 |
| Bulgaria |
1.2 mill |
87,000 |
152,000 |
27,000 |
266,000 |
22 |
| Total Central Powers |
22.8 mill |
3.3 mill |
8.3 mill |
3.6 mill |
15 mill |
67 |
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| Grand Total |
65 mill |
8.5 mill |
21 mill |
7.7 mill |
37 mill |
57% |
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