Napoleonic Wars casualties

The casualties of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), direct and indirect, break down as follows:

A mass grave of soldiers killed at the Battle of Waterloo

Note that the following deaths listed include both killed in action as well as deaths from other causes; Deaths from diseases such as those from wounds; of starvation; exposure; drowning; friendly fire; and atrocities; Medical treatments were changed drastically at this time. 'Napoleon's Surgeon', Baron Dominique Jean Larrey, used horse-drawn carts as ambulances to quickly remove the wounded from the field of battle. This method became so successful that he was subsequently asked to organize the medical care for the 14 armies of the French Republic. With the partial exception of Great Britain, all of the states at the time did not keep especially accurate records, so calculating losses is to a certain extent a matter of conjuncture.[1]

France 1792-1815

• 306,000 French killed in action[2]
• 600,000 civilians[3]
• 65,000 French allies killed in action[3]
• 800,000 French and allies killed by wounds, accidents or disease, primarily in the disastrous invasion of Russia[3]
• 1,800,000 French and allies dead in action, disease, wounds and missing[2] summary over Napoleonic Wars

Peninsular War:

• 180,000–240,000 dead[4]
• 91,000 killed in action[4]

Invasion of Russia:

• 334,000 dead[5]
• 100,000 killed in action (70,000 French and 30,000 allied)[5]

The effect of the war on France over this time period was considerable. Estimates of the total French losses during the wars vary from 500, 000 to 3 million dead.[1] According to David Gates, the Napoleonic Wars cost France at least 916,000 men. This represents 38% of the conscription class of 1790–1795. This rate is over 14% higher than the losses suffered by the same generation one hundred years later fighting Imperial Germany.[6] The French population suffered long-term effects through a low male-to-female population ratio. At the beginning of the Revolution, the numbers of males to females was virtually identical. By the end of the conflict only 0.857 males remained for every female.[7] Combined with new agrarian laws under the Napoleonic Empire that required landowners to divide their lands to all their sons rather than the first born, France's population never recovered. By the middle of the 19th century France had lost its demographic superiority over Germany and Austria and even the United Kingdom.

Coalition forces

Napoleon on the field of Eylau

• 120,000 Italian dead or missing.[8]
• Russian: 289,000 killed in major battles.[9]
• Prussian: 134,000 killed in major battles.[9]
• Austrian: 376,000 killed in major battles.[9]
• Spanish: more than 300,000 military deaths[8] – more than 586,000 killed[10]
• Portuguese: up to 250,000 dead or missing.[11]
• British: 311,806 dead or missing.[12]
• Killed in battle: 560,000–1,869,000[13]
• Total: 2,380,000–5,925,084 [14]

Royal Navy, 1804–1815:

• killed in action: 6,663
• shipwrecks, drownings, fire: 13,621
• wounds, disease: 72,102

Total: 92,386.[15]

British Army, 1804–1815:

• killed in action: 25,569
• wounds, accidents, disease: 193,851

Total: 219,420[15]

Total dead and missing

The Disasters of War by Francisco Goya

• 2,500,000 military personnel in Europe
• 1,000,000 civilians were killed in Europe and in rebellious French overseas colonies.[16]

Total: 3,500,000 casualties

David Gates estimated that 5,000,000 died in the Napoleonic Wars. He does not specify if this number includes civilians or is just military.[17]

Charles Esdaile says 5,000,000–7,000,000 died overall, including civilians.[18] These numbers are subject to considerable variation. Erik Durschmied, in his book The Hinge Factor, gives a figure of 1.4 million French military deaths of all causes. Adam Zamoyski estimates that around 400,000 Russian soldiers died in the 1812 campaign alone. By contrast, Michael Clodfelter gives the figure of 289, 000 Russian battles between 1805-1814.[1] Civilian casualties in the 1812 campaign were probably comparable. Alan Schom estimates some 3 million military deaths in the Napoleonic wars and this figure, once again, is supported elsewhere. Common estimates of more than 500,000 French dead in Russia in 1812 and 250,000–300,000 French dead in Iberia between 1808 and 1814 give a total of at least 750,000, and to this must be added hundreds of thousands of more French dead in other campaigns—probably around 150,000 to 200,000 French dead in the German campaign of 1813, for example. Thus, it is fair to say that the estimates above are highly conservative.

Civilian deaths are impossible to accurately estimate. While military deaths are invariably put at between 2.5 million and 3.5 million, civilian death tolls vary from 750,000 to 3 million. Thus estimates of total dead, both military and civilian, range from 3,250,000 to 6,500,000.

References

• Clodfelter, M. (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492-2015 (4th ed.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-0786474707.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Blanning, Tim (2007), The Pursuit of Glory: The Five Revolutions that Made Modern Europe, New York: Penguin Group, p. 672
• Canales, Esteban (2004), 1808–1814: demografía y guerra en España (PDF) (in Spanish), Autonomous University of Barcelona, retrieved 3 May 2017
• Esdaile, Charles (2008), Napoleon's Wars: An International History 1803–1815, New York: Penguin Group. Viking
• Gates, David, The Napoleonic Wars 1803–1815, New York: St. Martin's Press, p. 272
• Gates, David (2011), The Napoleonic Wars 1803–1815, Random House.
• Philo, Tom (2010), Military and Civilian War Related Deaths Through the Ages, archived from the original on 20 April 2010
• White, Matthew (2014), "Statistics of Wars, Oppressions and Atrocities of the Nineteenth Century (the 1800s)", the Historical Atlas of the 20th Century, necrometrics.com.[lower-alpha 1] (See Matthew White) White cites:
  • Clodfelter, Michael, Warfare and Armed Conflict: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1618–1991
  • Bodart, Gaston (1916), Losses of Life in Modern Wars
  • Danzer, Arme-Zeitun (in German)
  • Dumas, Samuel (1923), Losses of Life Caused By War cites four sources
  • Eckhardt, William (1987), "Three page table", in Sivard, Ruth Leger (ed.), World Military and Social Expenditures 1987–88 (12th ed.)
  • Ellis, Geoffrey (2003) [1991], The Napoleonic Empire (2d ed.), cites Esdaile
  • Levy, Jack (1983), War in the Modern Great Power System[lower-alpha 2]
  • Payne, Stanley G., A History of Spain and Portugal, 2
  • Sorokin, Pitirim (1962) [1937], In Three volumes (ed.), Social and Cultural Dynamics[lower-alpha 2]
  • Payne, Stanley G., A History of Spain and Portugal, 2
  • Urlanis, Boris (1971), Wars and Population

Footnotes

1. White notes: "The era of almost continuous warfare that followed the overthrow of the French monarchy is traditionally split into three parts: The Revolution itself (including all internal conflicts) The Revolutionary Wars during which France fought international wars as a Republic" (White 2014).
2. White notes in section called "Main sequence" on another page "There's a string of authorities who seem to build their research on each other's earlier guesstimates: Sorokin, Small & Singer, Eckhardt, Levy, Rummel, the Correlates of War Project, etc. Most mainstream statistical analysis of war is based on these authorities; however, if you look at the individual authorities on the Main Sequence, you'll see that some have specific problems that carry over as they borrow from one another. See the wars in Algeria or South Africa for examples of how the Main Sequence agrees with itself and not with historians of the specific war" (White 2014).

1. Clodfelter 2017, p. 170.
2. White 2014 cites Bodart 1916
3. Philo 2010.
4. Clodfelter 2017, p. 157.
5. Clodfelter 2017, p. 163.
6. Gates & St. Martin's, p. 272.
7. Blanning 2007, p. 672.
8. White 2014 cites Urlanis 1971
9. White 2014 cites Danzer
10. Canales 2004.
11. White 2014 cites Payne harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPayne (help)
12. White 2014 cites Dumas 1923 citing Hodge: 92,386 Royal Navy + 219,420 British Army
13. White 2014 cites Urlanis 1971 560,000; Danzer 799,000; Bodart 1916 c. 1 million; Dumas 1923 (citing Delbrück) 1.5 million; Levy 1983 1,869,000
14. White 2014 cites Eckhardt 1987 2,380,000; Ellis 2003 (citing Esdaile) 3 million combatants + 1 million civilians; Dumas 1923 (citing Fröhlich) 5,925,084
15. White 2014 cites Dumas 1923 citing Hodge
16. White 2014 cites Ellis 2003 (citing Esdaile); Eckhardt 1987; Fröhlich
17. Gates 2011, p. .
18. Esdaile 2008, p. .