War Deaths

As a social phenomenon, war is undoubtedly to be met at any time and in any place where the presence of the human species is found. In historical times, the art of warfare evolved into a science of warfare, and its specialists acquired a prestigious status in society. As Georges Dumézil put it, along with the laborer and the priest, the soldier was to become a prominent figure in Indo-European civilization. And there's no suggestion of the absence of this figure in other civilizations as well, even those that were styled as pacifist societies. The German general Claus von Clausewitz coined the famous adage that “war is the continuation of politics with other means,” and this pertains to death. War has as its goal to produce dead people, first the death of military people, but also the death of civilians who are present in and around the area of battle. In contemporary warfare, the risk of being killed is as high or even higher for civilians as it is for soldiers.

War as a Lethal Activity

Prior to the time of the invention and implementation of gunpowder around the end of the Middle Ages, the number of dead by feat of war seems to have been rather low. But guns and also the assembling of vast armies were to exact a growing number of war casualties. In most cases, the wounded would face death within a short period of time. For most of these individuals, their fate was undoubtedly worse than that of those who died instantly from their wounds. Along with bullets and knives, gangrene was one of the main purveyors of death in time of war.

The lot of the wounded when neither painkillers, antibiotics, nor anesthetics existed was certainly a gruesome one. To the death by wounds, specific illnesses must be added, such as dysentery or typhoid fever, to which a great number of warriors were to succumb. Perhaps the toll paid to these epidemics has been higher than that paid to the direct effects of the fighting itself. In war, casualties do not mean only men and women killed in combat, but also the wounded and sick whose death may occur much later. There are also the victims of mass slaughter linked to the war operations, and even those victims for whom death penalties were carried out because of desertion or cowardness during battle.

Civilian casualties must be added to this list. Terror air raids conducted during World War II account for a large amount of these victims, adding of course the displacement of huge throngs in [Page 985]the zones of combat, and voluntary mass slaughters, the Shoah being the perfect example.

The total number of dead casualties in the wars conducted at the time of Napoleon was high, an estimated 4 million casualties. But it is from the second half of the 19th century that the concept of “war of attrition” gained relevance. The American Civil War (1861–1865) is said to have cost the country some 620,000 dead, or about 2#x0025; of the total American population in 1861. The estimate of 258,000 Confederate war dead derives from incomplete data, because the war was mostly fought in the South and the number of Southern civilian deaths is unknown and not included.

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