( These are the wars in which the most Americans died. Battle of Verdun, (February 21December 18, 1916), World War I engagement in which the French repulsed a major German offensive. Note that “casualties” doesn’t necessarily mean deaths the term encompasses not only those killed in battle but also the wounded, the missing, and prisoners of war. In some cases, individual battles were included as part of larger engagements – for instance, the Battle of Kiev as part of Operation Barbarossa. While most of these battles occurred during the two world wars, the Vietnam War, Sino-Japanese War, and Chinese Civil War are included.Ĭlick here to see the most devastating battles in recent history Civilian casualties reached close to 10 million.Ģ4/7 Tempo has compiled a list of the deadliest battles of the modern era, based on sources, such as, War History Online, the Imperial War Museum ’s website, Britannica and World Atlas. Over 9 million soldiers died, with another 21 million more wounded. The First World War, which had its own share of deadly battles and massive destruction. ( These are the deadliest battles in U.S. While an exact number is hard to pin down, some estimates have estimated total military and civilian deaths as up to 80 million, with millions more wounded, captured, or otherwise displaced. World War II ranks as the deadliest conflict in history. Some of the worst atrocities happened in the modern era. Wars aren’t just material for the history books. Created in late 1916 and even before the end of the battle, the Medal of Verdun was made for soldiers who, for several months under intense pressure from. Whether a soldier or a civilian, every metric represents a life interrupted by a conflict most had no hand in creating.Īs the world watches the current war in the Ukraine unfold daily in headlines and news broadcasts, ghosts from battles fought not so long ago still loom on the edges of the public consciousness. That’s a sobering reminder that each casualty of war is not just a statistic but an actual human being. The horror of the battle was magnified by the extensive use of poisonous gasses, flamethrowers and, obviously, extensive and devastating use of artillery that basically created a "moon" landscape on Earth!Īt the end nobody really "won" as we are used to think of a normal battle: the Germans were repelled and went back to their starting trenches but the "victorious" French paid a terrible price, that greatly damaged their army, to defend a place that was, basically, strategically useless.“The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings,” wrote Aldous Huxley in an essay called “Words and Behaviour,” published in 1936, “and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own….”
The French, under Petain, were forced to defend every inch of ground suffering terrible casualties. At the end of the battle little territory had been gained by either side and the situation after the battle was much the same as it had been a year earlier. The initial idea of the German commander in chief Falkenhayn was to nail down the French in a position they were forced to defend at any cost (for reasons of historical and of national pride, the fortress of Verdun) and in doing so get bled to death loosing as many soldiers as possible (battle of attrition), annihilate their army and possibly be forced to sue for peace. The Battle of Verdun lasted for 300 days and became the longest and one of the most costly battles in modern warfare. In total Germans and French lost during the battle about #500,000# men (or more) and while for the French was a "glorious" victory (they were able to defend and retain a place of historical importance but strategically irrelevant) for the Germans was the first serious defeat of their mighty and proud army.Īlso, for both the contenders was a battle that decimated their armies without giving a decisive victory for the outcome of the war.
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