Nineteenth Century Death Tolls (original) (raw)

Statistics of Wars, Oppressions and Atrocities of the Nineteenth Century

(the 1800s)

Alphabetical Index

Site Index


Over 1 000 000 killed

  1. Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) 4 000 000 [make link]
    • NOTE: The era of almost continuous warfare that followed the overthrow of the French monarchy is traditionally split into three parts:
      1. The Revolution itself (including all internal conflicts)
      2. The Revolutionary Wars during which France fought international wars as a Republic
      3. The Napoleonic Wars, during which France fought international wars as an Empire.

    The numbers here generally refer only to the international wars of the Imperial period, but not always.

    • The Napoleonic Empire, 2d ed (1991, 2003) Geoffrey Ellis (citing Esdaile)
      * KIA, Died of Wounds + Camp Disease, France Proper: 1,400,000 during the period 1792-1815, incl. 916,000 [65%] under the Empire.
      * Total war dead among all Eur. armies: 3 million [65% or 1.95M under the Empire?]
      * Civilians: 1 million
    • Samuel Dumas, Losses of Life Caused By War (1923) cites:
      * Taine: 1,700,000 French
      * Delbrück: 2,000,000 military deaths, all armies (¼ of them French)
      * Hodge:
      * UK Navy, 1804-15:
      * KIA: 6,663
      * Shipwrecks, drownings, fire: 13,621
      * Disease: 72,102
      * TOTAL: 92,386
      * UK Army, 1804-15:
      * KIA: 25,569
      * Disease: 193,851
      * TOTAL: 219,420
      * Fröhlich: 5,925,084 dead (1801-1815), including 1M Fr+Ger civilians and 160,000 dead in Sainte-Domingue.
      * Danzer's Arme-Zeitung, KIA in major battles:
      * Austria: 376,000
      * Prussia: 134,000
      * Russia: 289,000
      * TOTAL: 799,000 (Dumas suggests that multiplying this total by 3 to include disease deaths and small skirmishes might be appropriate. Urlanis claims that these number are for killed and wounded, not just killed.)
    • Gaston Bodart, Losses of Life in Modern Wars (1916)
      * French
      * French battle deaths: 306,000
      * KIA among French allies: 65,000
      * TOTAL: 371,000 KIA
      * Disease deaths among same: ca. 400,000
      * Combined French military deaths, both battle and disease: 1M
      * Enemy deaths: about the same [1M]
      * TOTAL: 2 Million
    • Urlanis
      * K. in Battle: 560,000
      * Military. Killed and died: 3,105,000
      * French: 1,200,000
      * Russian: 450,000
      * German: 400,000
      * Austrian: <200,000
      * Spanish: >300,000
      * British: 243,000
      * Italians: 120,000
    • Clodfelter
      * French and Allies (1805-1815): 370,750
      * French: 306,000 KIA (same as Bodart above)
      * French allies: 65,000 KIA
      * "most" estimate that 1.3-2.0M Fr. d. 1792-1815
      * UK
      * UK Navy (same as Hodge/Dumas above)
      * KIA: 6,663
      * Shipwrecks, drownings, fire: 13,621
      * Disease: 72,102
      * TOTAL: 92,386
      * UK Army, 1793-15:
      * KIA: 920 officers + 15,392 men
      * Died of wounds: 8,174
      * Missing and presumed dead: 2,003
      * [TOTAL: 26,489]
    • A History of Spain and Portugal, Vol. 2, Stanley G. Payne: "Altogether, the war may have cost the lives of a quarter-million Portuguese."
    • Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System
      * Battle deaths: 1,869,000
    • Eckhardt: 1,000,000 civ. + 1,380,000 mil. = 2,380,000
    • Sorokin:
      * TOTAL (1803-14): 1,991,284 ("losses". i.e. killed + wounded. Killed alone would be approx 1/4 to 1/3of that, or 500-660,000)
    • MEDIAN
      * Military deaths (all sides, all causes): of the eight estimates listed here, the middle three are 2 million ±
      * Civilian deaths: all three estimates listed here: 1 million
    • BATTLES:
      * Arcis-Sur-Aube
      * Aspern-Essling
      * Austerlitz
      * Bautzen
      * Berezina
      * Borodino
      * Dresden
      * Eckmühl
      * Lâon
      * Leipzig
      * Ligny
      * Lützen
      * Quatre Bras
      * Talavera
      * Trafalgar
      * Viasma
      * Wagram
      * Waterloo
      * Wavre
      * Wurschen
    • ATROCITIES:
      * Chartrand, The Portuguese Army of the Napoleonic Wars: 2,969 people reported murdered by French near Coimbra, Port.
      * Rothenburg, The Napoleonic Wars: After fall of Jaffa, Nap. had 2,500 POWs shot.
    • see also: French Revolutionary Wars
  2. Mfecane (1818-1840), and the reign of Shaka (1816-1828) 1 500 000 [make link]
    • Eugene Walter, Terror and Resistance (1969) cites the following, but admits it might be lower:
      * Henry Francis Flynn: more than 1,000,000 deaths caused by Shaka's wars.
      * George Theal, History of South Africa (1915): 2,000,000
    • The diary of Henry Francis Fynn, 1838, p.20: “The numbers whose death he occasioned have been left to conjecture, but exceed a million.”
    • Major Charters, Royal Artillery, “Notices Of The Cape And Southern Africa, Since The Appointment, As Governor, Of Major-Gen. Sir Geo. Napier.” United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine, London: W. Clowes and Son, 1839, Part III, p.24: “Chaka may be termed the South African Attila; and it is estimated that not less than 1,000,000 human beings were destroyed by him"
    • Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, “Shaka”, v.10. p.689 (“… left 2,000,000 dead in its wake.”)
    • Donald R. Morris, The Washing of the Spears, p.60 ("At least a million people, and more likely two, died in a decade that virtually depopulated" the interior.)
    • Hanson, Carnage and Culture, p. 313: "Shaka ... slaughtered 50,000 of his enemies in battle.... As many as 1 million native Africans had been killed and starved to death as a direct result of Shaka's imperial dreams."
    • NOTE: These numbers are controversial in South Africa. Afrikaaners claim that Shaka depopulated much of southern Africa leaving it conveniently empty and free for the taking when the Boers moved in. Africans, on the other hand, deny this and claim that the death toll is wildly exaggerated. But one or two million is the only actual number I've seen.
  3. 19th Century Slave Trade
  4. Venezuela, power struggles (1830-1903) 1 000 000 [make link]
    • Scheina, Latin America's Wars: "during these seventy-four years of conflict some 300,000 combatants and 700,000 civilians were killed directly (battlefield deaths and assassinations) or indirectly (wounds, sickness, starvation, and imprisonment.)"
      * This includes the Federal War, 1859-63
  5. Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) 20 000 000 [make link]
    • Guinness Book of World Records calls this the bloodiest civil war in history with 20-30 million dead.
    • Colin McEvedy, Atlas of World Population History
    • Alan McFarlane, The Savage Wars of Peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian Trap (2003): 20M
    • Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition, "Taiping Rebellion," v.11, p.509 (1992): 20M
      * 100,000 k. at Nanking.
    • Spence, Search for Modern China, p.805: 20m
    • Colin McEvedy, Atlas of World Population History, "China" (1978) pp.170-173: 25,000,000
    • MSN Encarta Encyclopedia, “China”, p.20 [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia\_761573055\_20/China.html\]
    • Robert L. Worden, et al., ed., China: a country study, Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, 1987.
    • PGtH: 20,000,000
    • Small & Singer: 20,000,000
    • Eckhardt: 2,000,000
    • COWP: 2,000,025, incl. 25 UK
    • see also Miao, Nien and Moslem Rebellions, 1860-77
  6. Panthay Rebellion (1855-73) 1 000 000 [make link]
    • Raphael Israeli, Islam in China (Lexington Books, 2007) p.286: one million
    • Damian Harper, China, (Lonely Planet) p.648: one million
    • Clodfelter, v.1, p.401: one million
  7. Colonial El Niño Famines (1876-1900) 27 000 000 [make link]
    • Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (2001) argues that the business policies of the imperial European landlords, merchants and bureacrats in the face of El Niño drought intensified these famines and thereby caused millions of deaths. If true, this accusation could easily create a moral equivalence between these famines and the devastating Communist famines of the 20th Century, but so far, Davis is the only major authority I found who tackles this question.
    • Estimated death tolls:
      * 1876-79 Famine
      * India
      * est. by Digby: 10.3 M
      * est. by Maharatna: 8.2 M
      * est. by Seavoy: 6.1 M
      * China
      * Broomhall: 20 M
      * Bohr: 9.5-13 M
      * Brazil: 0.5-1.0 M (Cunniff)
      * 1896-1900 Famine
      * India
      * The Lancet: 19.0 M
      * Maharatna: 8.4 M
      * Seavoy: 8.4 M
      * Cambridge: 6.1 M
      * China: 10 M (Cohen)
      * Brazil: 1.0-1.5 M (Smith)
      * TOTAL: 31,700,000 to 61,300,000 (midpoint: 46.5M)
  8. Sudan, Mahdist state (1881-98) 5 500 000 [make link]
    • Francis Mading Deng, War of Visions: Conflict of Identities in the Sudan (1995) p.51: "It is estimated that the population of Sudan fell from around 7 million before the Mahdist revolt to somewhere between two and three million after the fall of the Mahdist state." [4m -5m]
    • Jok Madut Jok, War and Slavery in Sudan (2001) p.75: "By 1898. the population of Sudan under the Mahdist rule and those areas within its proximity was reduced from eight million to two and a half million people." [5.5m]
    • Edward Spiers, Sudan: The Reconquest Reappraised (1998) p.12: "Sir Reginald Wingate estimated that the mortality in the Mahdist state from war and misgovernment was 6 million out of a population of 8 million."
    • Henry Cecil Jackson, Osman Digna (1926) p.185: "Between the years 1883 and 1898 the population of the Sudan fell from eight and a half million people to less than two millions." [6.5m]
  9. Congo Free State (1886-1908)
    • Approximately 4,500,000 deaths during the 19th C.
    • See the 20th Century

Between 100,000 and 1,000,000

  1. United States, eradication of the American Indians (1775-1890) 350 000 [make link]
    • Russel Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival (1987)
      * Overall decline
      * From 600,000 (in 1800) to 250,000 (in 1890s)
      * Indian Wars, from a 1894 report by US Census, cited by Thornton. Includes men, woman and children killed, 1775-1890:
      * Individual conflicts:
      * Whites: 5,000
      * Indians: 8,500
      * Wars under the gov't:
      * Whites: 14,000
      * Indians: 30-45,000
      * TOTAL:
      * Whites: 19,000
      * Indians: 38,500 to 53,500
      * TOTAL: 65,000 ± 7,500
    • William Osborn: The Wild Frontier: atrocities during the American-Indian War from Jamestown Colony to Wounded Knee (2000)
      * Deaths caused by specific settler atrocities: 7,193 (1623-1890)
      * Deaths caused by specific Indian atrocities: 9,156 (1511-1879. Incl. Indian vs. Indian)
      * Osborne basically defines an atrocity as murder or torture of civilians and prisoners. Most of your outright massacres are counted, but the Trail of Tears, for example, isn't.
    • Trail of Tears (1838-39)
      * Trager, The People's Chronology: 4,000 out of 14,000 Cherokee die on route.
      * Osborne: anywhere between 1,846 and 18,000 Indians died, in total.
  2. Australia (1788-1921) 240 000 [make link]
    • Mark Cocker, Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold (1998)
      * Australian mainland
      * Ongoing frontier war: 2,000-2,500 whites and 20,000 Aborignies KIA ("best guess", probably higher)
      * General population decline: from 1M (1788) to 50,000 (ca. 1890) to 30,000 (1920s)
    • Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee (1993)
      * Decline of the Aborgines
      * From 300,000 (in 1788) to 60,000 (in 1921)
      * Extermination of the Tasmanians
      * From 5,000 (in 1800) to 200 (in 1830) to 3 (in 1869) to none (1877)
    • Clodfelter: 2,500 Eur. and 20,000 Aborignies k. in wars, 1840-1901
    • Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country (2001): 20,000 Aboriginies intentionally killed by whites.
    • Joseph Glascott, “600,000 Aborigines Died After 1788, Study Shows”, Sydney Morning Herald, February 25, 1987
  3. New Zealand (1800s) 200 000 [make link]
    • Mark Cocker, Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold (1998)
      * Maori pop: 240,000 (pre-contact) to 40,000 (1896)
    • Clodfelter, Maori War (1860-72)
      * UK, NZ: 700 k.
      * Maori: 2,000
  4. Russo-Turkish War (1806-12) 225 000 [make link]
    • Urlanis: 225,000 soldiers killed and died
    • Eckhardt: 45,000 military
    • OnWar.com
      * Russia: 70,000
      * Turkey: 100,000
      * TOTAL: 170,000
  5. New Spain (Mexico), War of Independence (1810-21) 425 000 [make link]
    • Clodfelter: 400,000-500,000 violent deaths, Mexicans and Spanish
    • Scheina, Latin America's Wars: 250,000-500,000 k.
  6. New Grenada (Grand Colombia), Wars of Independence (1810-23) 250 000 [make link]
    • Clodfelter: population of Venezuela dropped by 100,000 (from 300,000) in the 15 years following 1810.
    • Scheina, Latin America's Wars: pop. of Ecuador decreased from 600,000 to 480,000 [a loss of 120,000]. "Venezuela lost about one-fourth of its one million population."
    • Eckhardt: 37,000 total
  7. Greek Revolution (1821-28) [make link]
    • Eckhardt: 105,000 civ. + 15,000 mil. = 120,000
    • COWP: 15,000 state, 120,000 total
    • Urlanis: 60,000
    • Singer: 15,000 Turks k.
    • Carolyn Bain, Lonely Planet Greece
      * Psara: Turks killed all but 3,000 of the 20,000 inhabitants
      * 1824 Kasos: 7,000 inhabs. massacred by Turks.
  8. Javanese War (1825-30) [make link]
    • Uprising against the Dutch
      * Rudolf von Albertini, European Colonial Rule, 1880-1940: 200,000
      * Clodfelter (dead, mostly from disease)
      * Dutch: 8,000
      * Loyalist natives: 7,000
      * Javanese: 200,000, no more that one-tenth in battle [ca. 20,000 KIA]
      * Singer: 15,000 Netherlanders k.
  9. Russo-Turkish War (1828-29) [make link]
    • Singer, COWP:
      * Russia: 50,000
      * Turkey: 80,000
      * TOTAL: 130,000
    • Eckhardt: 61,000 civ. + 130,000 mil. = 191,000
    • Urlanis:
      * K. in Battle: 25,000
      * Military. Killed and died: 205,000
  10. French Conquest of Algeria (1829-47) [make link]
  1. Spain, 1st Carlist War (1832-40) [make link]
  1. Ireland, Famine (1845-48) [make link]
  1. Mexico (1847-55) [make link]
  1. Crimean War (1854-56) [make link]
  1. China, Punti-Hakka Clan Wars (1856-67) [make link]
  1. Venezuela, Federal War (1859-63) [make link]
  1. China, Nien Rebellion (1860-68) [make link]
  1. China, Miao Rebellion (1860-72) [make link]
  1. American Civil War (1861-65) [make link]
  1. Hui Rebellion (1862-78) [make link]
  1. Paraguay, War of the Triple Alliance (1864-70) [make link]
  1. Ten Years War, Cuba (1868-78) [make link]
  1. Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) [make link]
  1. Russo-Turkish War (1877-78) [make link]
  1. Cuban Revolution (1895-98) [make link]
  1. Somalia (1899-1920)
  1. Colombia, War of a Thousand Days (1899-1902)
  1. Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901)
  1. Philippine-American War (1899-1902)

Between 10,000 and 100,000

  1. India, Sati (1800-29)
    • Somewhere around 17,500 widows burned during the 19th Century.
  2. Egypt (1805-11)
    • Muhammad Ali v. Ottomans
      * OnWar.com
      * Britain: 5,000
      * Egypt: 39,000
      * Rebels: 3,000
      * Ottomans: 9,000
      * TOTAL: 56,000
  3. Anglo-American War of 1812 (1812-15) [make link]
    • Dept.of Defense; 1984 World Almanac
      * USA: 2,260 KIA
    • Eckhardt: 4,000 military
    • Clodfelter
      * USA: 2,260 KIA + 15,000 disease
      * UK: ca. 3,000
    • Donald Hickey, The War of 1812 (1989)
      * USA:
      * KIA: 2,260
      * Executions: 205
      * Deaths by disease: 17,000
      * TOTAL: approx 20,000
      * UK:
      * No British numbers available. Hickey suggests there were probably more battle deaths and fewer disease deaths.
    • William Osborn: The Wild Frontier: atrocities during the American-Indian War from Jamestown Colony to Wounded Knee (2000)
      * Deaths caused by specific settler atrocities (1812-15): 58
      * Deaths caused by specific Indian atrocities (1812-15): 1,325
  4. 1st Anglo-Burmese War (1823-26)
    • Singer: 15,000 UK
    • Eckhardt: 5,000 civ. + 15,000 mil. = 20,000
  5. Turkey, massacre of the Jannisaries (1826)
    • PGtH: 20,000
    • Trager, People's Chronology: 6-10,000
    • Eckhardt: 14,000 civ. + 6,000 mil. = 20,000
  6. Portugal (1829-34)
    • Govt. vs. Conservatives
      * Singer: 20,000, plus 100 British
      * Eckhardt: 20,000
  7. Polish Insurrection (1830-32)
    • Singer: 15,000 Russians
    • Clodfelter
      * Russians: 15,000
      * Poles: many more
    • Eckhardt: 6,000 civ. + 15,000 mil. = 21,000
    • Urlanis: 70,000 total
  8. 1st Syrian War (1831-32)
    • Singer: Turkey lost 10,000 k
    • Eckhardt: 8,000 civ. + 10,000 mil. = 18,000
  9. 1st British-Afghan War (1838-42)
    • Singer: UK lost 20,000 k.
    • Eckhardt: 20,000 mil.
  10. 2nd Syrian War (1839-40)
  1. Argentina (1841-51)
  1. Vietnam, Persecution of Christians (ca. 1832-1887) [make link]
  1. 1st Sikh War (1845-46)
  1. Mexican-American War (1846-48) [make link]
  1. Revolutions of 1848 (1848-49)
  1. Persia (1848-54)
  1. Nicaragua, Walker Filibuster (1856-57)
  1. Zulus (1856) [make link]
  1. South Africa, Xhosa self-destruction (1857) [make link]
  1. India, Sepoy Mutiny (1857)
  1. War of Italian Unification (1859)
  1. Ottoman Empire, Lebanon (1860)
  1. Franco-Mexican War (Emp. Maximilian, 1862-67) [make link]
  1. Seven Weeks War (1866) [make link]
  1. Paris Commune (1871)
  1. Spain, 3rd Carlist War (1872-76)
  1. Bulgaria (1876)
  1. Japan (1877)
  1. War of the Pacific (1879-83)
  1. South Africa, Anglo-Zulu War (1879) [make link]
  1. Transvaal (1880-81)
  1. Sino-French War (1884-85)
  1. Korea, Tonghak Rebellion (1894)
  1. Sino-Japanese War (1894-95)
  1. Turkey (1895-96)
  1. Brazil, Canudos War (1896-97)
  1. Spanish-American War (1898) [make link]
  1. Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902

Under 10,000

  1. USA, Creek War (1813-14)
    • Clodfelter: 1,800 Creeks and 700 Americans (soldiers + civilians)
  2. British-Mahabattan War (1817-18)
    • UK: 2,000 (Singer)
  3. Spain, Civil War (1820-23)
    • Singer (Govt. vs. Royalists: 1821-23): 7,000
    • Urlanis: 100,000
  4. Franco-Spanish War (1823)
    • Singer:
      * Spain: 600
      * France: 400
      * TOTAL: 1,000
  5. Turkey (1826)
    • Govt. vs. Janissaries
      * Singer: 6,000
  6. Russo-Persian War (1826-28)
    • Russia: 5,000 (Singer)
  7. Navarino Bay (1827)
    • Singer:
      * Turkey: 3,000
      * UK: 80
      * Russia: 60
      * France: 40
      * TOTAL: 3,180
  8. France, July Revolution (1830)
    • Govt. vs. Liberals
      * PGtH: 1,000
      * Singer: 1,700
      * Eckhardt: 2,000
  9. Mexico (1832)
    • Govt. vs. Liberals
      * Singer: 4,000
  10. USA, 2nd Seminole War (1835-42) [make link]
  1. Texan War (1835-36) [make link]
  1. Colombia (1840-42)
  1. Spain, 2nd Carlist War (1847-49)
  1. Chile (1851)
  1. La Plata War (1851-52)
  1. Peru (1853-55)
  1. Anglo-Persian War (1856-57)
  1. Peru (1856-58)
  1. Mexico (1858-61)
  1. Spanish-Moroccan War (1859-60)
  1. Syria (1860)
  1. Italo-Roman War (1860)
  1. Italo-Sicilian War (1860)
  1. Colombia (1860-62)
  1. Argentina (1863)
  1. Ecuadorian-Colombian War (1863)
  1. 2nd Schleswig-Holstein War (1860)
  1. USA, Reconstruction (1865-76) [make link]
  1. Spanish-Chilean War (1866)
  1. Argentina (1866-67)
  1. Venezuela (1868-71)
  1. Spain (1868)
  1. Argentina (1870-71)
  1. Colombia (1876-77)
  1. Argentina (1880)
  1. South Africa (1880-81)
  1. Tunisia (1881)
  1. Sino-French War (1884-85)
  1. Colombia (1884-85)
  1. Central American War (1885)
  1. Chile (1891)
  1. Brazil (1893-94)
  1. Brazil (1893-94)
  1. Peru (1894-95)
  1. Rhodesia, Matabele uprising (1896-98)
  1. Greco-Turkish War (1897)
  1. USA, Lynching (1882-1962)

Total:



List of Recurring Sources


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Last updated January 2004

Copyright © 1999-2004 Matthew White