War, Peace, and International Relations. An Introduction to Strategic History

the casualties of 1914–1 8 , regarded in strategic historical context, because the war of
1939–45 produced an even larger casualty count. When industrialized great powers
waged war in pursuit of decisive military victory, the dreadful human costs recorded
twice in half a century must be the result. Table 6.1 tells the story starkly.
To emphasize the greatness of this Great War, note that the Allies – all of the Allies,
that is – mobilized a grand total of 42,1 88 , 8 10 men, while the comparable total for
the Central Powers was 22, 8 50,000. The strategic history of the two world wars shows
the iron authority of a rule which determined how large or modest the relative human
cost of industrial-age mass warfare would be to a particular country. In both wars,
unsurprisingly, casualties were suffered in direct proportion to the duration and intensity
of exposure to lethal risk. In the Great War the British Empire suffered approximately
908 ,371 battle deaths, contrasted with 397,762 (for Britain alone) in World War II.
The difference is easily explained. Between 1914 and 191 8 the British Expeditionary
Force (BEF) waged continuous land warfare against the main body of the enemy’s
forces in the principal theatre of war. From 1939 to 1945 the BEF met the main body of
the German Army for only three disastrous weeks, in May 1940. The more fighting a
country’s armed forces were obliged to do, the greater their casualties. This is as obvious
as it is strategically significant. In both world wars, someone had to wage a lot of warfare
if Germany were to be beaten, which meant someone had to suffer enormous casualties.
In 1914–1 8 , Britain, for the first and only time in its history, bore close to a full human
burden of continental warfare against the most potent killing machine of the era, the
Imperial German Army.

World War I: controversies 83

Table 6.1Casualties in World War I

Dead Wounded Total casualties

Allies 5,421,000 7,025,4 87 17,292, 863

Central Powers 4,029,000 8 ,379,41 8 15,4 8 6,963

Total 9,450,000 15,404,905 32,779, 8 26*

Note:* Includes prisoners of war

Key points

1. World War I was the most significant event of the twentieth century.


2. Every great power had strong reasons for fighting.


3. Germany went to war for defensive reasons, out of fear, not because of
   overconfidence or in order to advance an agenda of aggression (though victory
   must have yielded Berlin continental hegemony).


4. The character, especially the duration, of the war mortgaged the subsequent
   peace, but World War II was not the inevitable eventual consequence of World
   War I.

continued