Could the death toll of world war one be far higher than 13 million?
First World War (1914-18): 15 000 000 [make link] This is the only major bloodletting which has pretty much the same body count no matter which source I check: 8,500,000 military deaths. It all goes back to a report issued by the U.S. War Dept. in Feb. 1924, amended by the Statistical Services Center, Office of the Secretary of Defense on 7 Nov. 1957, which everyone (“everyone” = Brzezinski, Britannica, Norman Davies, Encarta, Gilbert, Hammond, Small & Singer, Wallechinsky) more or less agrees with. Among my major sources, only Eckhardt and Urlanis diverge from the mainstream. In The Defeat of Imperial Germany 1917-1918, Rod Paschall cites a study by Arthur Banks. I’ve also consulted John Ellis & Michael Cox, The World War I Databook (“E&C”): Austria-Hungary: 1,100,000 (Urlanis); 1,200,000 (everyone, Paschall); 2,300,000 (Eckhardt) E&C cite two different tables in the Austrian Official History, giving total killed as either 1,016,200 k. or 539,630 k. Neither includes 478,000 who died a
