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) [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 during the Napoleonic/Revolutionary Era [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 1/3 of 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:
    • 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 are the only actual numbers 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.)"
  5. Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) 20,000,000 [make link]
    • Ho Ping-to, Studies in the Population of China, 1368–1953, pp. 246–247:
      • “Some nineteenth century Western observers estimated the total population loss during the Taiping period at 20,000,000 to 30,000,000. Their estimates, however intelligent, were the guesswork of treaty port residents”). Ho is lukewarm on these estimates and seems to consider them too low. The only hard evidence Ho gathers is that the provinces hardest hit by the rebellion had lost 19.2 million people between 1850 and 1953. “Although twentieth-century . . . wars must also have affected the populations of these provinces, the . . . figures may reflect permanent wounds that the populations . . . received in the great upheaval of the middle of the nineteenth century.”
    • Several editions of Guinness Book of World Records call this the bloodiest civil war in history with 20-30 million dead.
    • 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
  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, p. 84: �Estimates of the number killed range from 250,000 to 500,000 individuals�
    • Juan Gonz�lez, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America: 600,000 died in Mexico's War of Independence.
  6. New Granada (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.
    • Harvey, Liberators: Latin America's Struggle for Independence, 1810-1830, p.192: "More than a quarter of a million had been killed in achieving Gran Colombia's independence".
    • 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
    • Juan Gonz�lez, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America: Venezuela lost half of its nearly 1 million inhabitants.
  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]
    • Mahfoud Bennoune, The Making of Contemporary Algeria, 1830-1987, (Cambridge University Press, 2002) p.42: "as a direct consequence of this kind of colonial war of conquest the total urban and rural population declined from an estimated three million in 1830 to 2,462,000 by 1876."
      • French losses: 92,329 soldiers dead in the hospital and 3,336 killed in battle, 1830-51
    • Ben Kiernan, Blood and Soil, p. 374: 825,000 Algerians killed
    • COWP: 300,000 total, incl.15,000 French
  11. Spain, 1st Carlist War (1832-40) [make link]
    • Clodfelter: up to 140,000 d., incl. 65,000 govt. + 60,000 Carlists
    • Singer
      • 30,000 Spanish
      • Outsiders:
        • UK: 2,500
        • France: 100
        • Portugal: 50
      • TOTAL: 32,650
    • Eckhardt: 33,000
    • COWP
      • States
        • 65,000 Spanish
        • France: 7,700
        • UK: 2,479
        • Portugal: 50
      • TOTAL: 135,229
    • Urlanis: 50,000
  12. Ireland, Famine (1845-48) [make link]
    • Encyclopedia Americana (2003), "Ireland": 750,000
    • NOTE: Some people blame the British government for this. Some don't. See letter.]
  13. Mexico (1847-55) [make link]
    • Govt vs. Yucatan Maya
      • COWP: 300,000
  14. Crimean War (1854-56) [make link]
    • Singer, COWP:
      • Russia: 100,000
      • France: 95,000
      • Turkey: 45,000
      • UK: 22,000
      • Sardinia: 2,200
      • TOTAL: 264,200
    • Eckhardt: 264,000 military
    • Bodart:
      • Russia: 40,000 KIA + 60,000 disease = 100,000
      • France: 20,240 KIA + 75,375 dis. = 95,615
      • Turkey: ca. 35,000 dead
      • UK: 4,602 KIA + 17,580 dis. = 22,182
      • Piedmont: 28 KIA + 2,166 dis. = 2,194
      • [TOTAL: 277,173]
    • The Crimean War (Essential Histories, No 2) by John Sweetman
      • UK
        • KIA: 2,755
        • Died of wounds: 2,019
        • Died of disease: 16,323
        • Total: 21,097
      • France
        • KIA: 10,240
        • Died of wounds: 20,000
        • Died of disease: 75,000
        • [Total: 105,240]
      • Sardinia: 2,050 (all causes)
      • Turkey: unkn.
      • Russia: 110,000+
      • TOTAL: Paul de la Gorce est. >300,000 "may not be far wrong"
    • MEDIAN: Of the nine estimates, the median is 309,000
    • Urlanis
      • K. in Battle: 53,000
      • Military. Killed and died: 309,000
    • 1911 Britannica
      • Battle deaths:
        • Allies: 70,000
        • Russians: 128,700
        • TOTAL: 198,700
      • Dead from all causes
        • Allies: 252,600 (including 5,000 English)
        • Russians: 256,000
        • TOTAL: 508,000
    • Michael G. Mulhall, Dictionary of Statistics (1892), p.587
      • Russia: 30600 kia + 42000 d. of wds. + 374000 d. of sickness = 446600 d
      • France: 8490 kia + 11750 dow + 75375 dos = 95615 d
      • Turkey: 10100 kia + 10800 dow + 24500 dos = 45400 d
      • UK: 2755 kia + 1847 dow + 17580 dos = 22182 d
      • TOTAL: 51945 kia + 66397 dow + 491455 dos = 609797
    • Robert Breckenridge Edgerton, Death Or Glory: The Legacy of the Crimean War (1999) p.5 ("The butcher's bill for the Crimean War of 1853-1856 will never be known exactly, but it probably amounted to over 1 million deaths...")
    • Helen Fawkes, "Ukraine honours Crimean War dead," BBC 9 September, 2004 ("More than a million people were killed in the war.") http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3640772.stm
  15. China, Punti-Hakka Clan Wars (1856-67) [make link]
    • Some guy on Internet (Jon Kehrer): 500,000 people died [http://www.apex.net.au/~jgk/taishan/phcwar.html]
  16. Venezuela, Federal War (1859-63) [make link]
    • Scheina, Latin America's Wars: 100,000 d. of all causes, incl. 30,000-50,000 combat deaths
    • Singer, COWP: 20,000
  17. China, Nien Rebellion (1860-68) [make link]
    • Small & Singer, COWP: 75,000
  18. China, Miao Rebellion (1860-72) [make link]
    • Small & Singer, COWP: 75,000
    • Byron Farwell, Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Land Warfare p. 556 "Miao Rebellions" (1855-72): "Casualties, including civilians, were estimated at one and a half million."
  19. American Civil War (1861-65) [make link]
    • Military/Total Deaths [Sources listed in reverse chronological order]
      • J. David Hacker, "A Census-Based Count of the Civil War Dead", Civil War History, December 2011: 750,000 to 850,000 total dead
        • This is the first major reassessment of the Civil War's death toll in over a hundred years. (see "Recounting the Dead", NY Times, Sept. 20, 2011) [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/recounting-the-dead/]
      • Encyclopedia Americana (2003)
        • United States: 360,222
          • k. in battle: 67,058
          • d. of wounds: 43,012
          • [Total battle deaths: 110,070]
        • Confederacy: 258,000
          • k. in battle: 94,000
        • [TOTAL: 618,222]
          • [Battle deaths: 204,070]
      • Britannica (1992)
        • United States: 359,528
        • Confederacy: 258,000
        • TOTAL: 617,528
      • DoD (USA only)
        • Battle deaths: 140,414
        • Other deaths: 224,097
        • TOTAL: 364,511
      • COWP: 650,000 total, incl. 364,511 USA
      • McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (1988)
        • United States: 360,000
        • Confederacy: 260,000
        • TOTAL: 620,000 (p.854)
      • Trager, The People's Chronology, "1865"
        • United States: 360,222
          • k. in battle: 110,000
        • Confederacy: 258,000
          • k. in battle: 94,000
        • TOTAL: 618,222
          • k. in battle: 204,000
      • Singer, Eckhardt: 650,000
      • Dumas:
        • USA
          • KIA: 67,038
          • Died of wounds: 43,000
          • Disease: 224,586
          • Accident, murder, suicide, etc.: 24,872
          • TOTAL: 359,496
      • Urlanis (1971)
        • K. in Battle: 134,000
        • Military. Killed and died: 538,000
      • Regimental Losses In the American Civil War - William F. Fox, 1889 [http://www.civilwarhome.com/foxs.htm] , also, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion - Frederick H. Dyer, 1908 [http://www.civil-war.net/searchstates.asp?searchstates=Total]
        • Killed and Mortally Wounded: 110,070
        • Died of Disease: 199,720
        • In Confederate prisons: 24,866
        • Drowning: 4,944
        • Accidents: 4,114
        • Total Deaths, all causes: 359,528
    • Civilian Deaths
      • McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (1988)
        • Civilian deaths: 50,000 (p.619)
      • One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation by Roger Ransom, Richard Sutch, p.53-54 (2001)
        • General Howard, Freedmen's Bureau, estimated that 25% of African-Am. lost their lives by the war.
        • Instead, Ransom/Sutch estimate that 1.6% of African-Am. died as a direct result of the war. [based on the 3.5M blacks in the CSA, this would come to around 56,000 civilian deaths. Howard's est. would be 875,000 d.]
      • James Alan Marten, Civil War America: Voices from the Home Front (2007) p. 213
        • "Out of the 4000 black refugees living in Helena, Arkansas, in 1863–1864, about 1100 died. In Memphis, 1200 out of the 4000 contrabands died in only three months, while the camp at Natchez—also holding 4000 refugees—suffered a nearly 50 percent mortality rate in 1863."
      • James Downs, Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction (2012): Including deaths by disease among newly freed slaves would boost overall death toll of war to over a million. 50,000 former slaves, probably more, died in smallpox epidemic. [http://blog.oup.com/2012/04/black-white-demographic-death-toll-civil-war]
    • Battles