Which war claimed the most lives?

WW 2 with 50-60 million

However, WW 1 cost about 10-12 million, but another 18 million(some estimates put the toll as high as 40 million) if you include victims of the Spanish flu pandemic which resulted directly from the movement of people (mainly American servicemen!).

Also, bear in mind that Russia lost over 20 million in the war as well as untold millions due to starvation and famine during Stalin's purges of the 1930s.

Poland has always suffered. Both Russia and Germany inflicted mass murders in Poland. Estimates are up to 20% of the population or over 5 million deaths.

German casulaties were reckoned at about 5 million, Japanese about 3 million, Yugoslavia about 3 million, Italy and France 1-2 million.

It's estimated that China lost upward of 50 million people caused by Mao Zedong's red guards in the 1950's & 1960's.

In terms of world population casualties, WW 2 is still the highest in the total NUMBER of deaths, but some of the campaigns of Genghis Khan in China and Persia, and Tamerlaine come close in terms of PERCENTAGES killed, mainly through THE resultant famine and plagues.

WW 2 which cost the lives of about 50 million people...

...(military as well as civilians).

Russia alone lost over 22 million military and civilian lives.

From an American perspective: US Civil War

That's a lot of history to cover.

From an American perspective it would be the American Civil War with 618,000 deaths using a casualty amount which included civilians and those military personnel who died from other causes such as disease.

Second would be WW 2 in which there were 292,131 KIA (killed in action).

WW 2 deaths were huge by any measure

Due to mobility and firepower, modern wars are bloodier than wars from prior eras. WWII deaths were huge by any measure.

It is estimated that the USSR lost over 8(M)illion soldiers plus 15M(or more)civilians, who were mostly victims of cross fire and starvation. About 2M Ukranian and Lithuanian Jews were murdered by Germany.

• China fought a long war with Japan and lost several million troops and civilians, probably on the order of 10M or so.

• Germany lost 3.5M troops in combat plus another 1.5M murdered/starved as POWs. At least 600,000 civilians were killed in air raids. About 1M civilians were killed during the vicious fighting through eastern Germany in 1945. After the war, at least another 2M were murdered. Altogether this is a staggering total of around 9M persons.

• Japan lost about 1M troops in combat, mostly against the USA. Japan also lost significant numbers fighting China,the USSR, and Great Britain. Japan also lost hundreds of thousands of civilians due to American bombing.

• Poland lost many people too. While few were soldiers (the Polish army collapsed quickly), there was a lot of killing in Poland during, and after, the war. Poland had a large Jewish population and it was decimated by the Holocaust. The population in general suffered greatly at forced labor, low rations, etc. After the war, the German minority was murdered by Soviets and Poles.

• Otherwise, various countries such as Britain, Romania, France, the USA, Canada, Italy and others suffered many fatalities, but all were well below 1M.

Another reason war casualties have been larger in the last hundred years is that the world's population is larger.It is perhaps a truer indication of the savagery of war to compare past conflicts involving large groups that were decimated.

Perhaps no large population of people in history suffered more than the German people in the religiously instigated "Thirty Years War". It is estimated that 30% to 50% of the German people were killed, starved, murdered, etc. during this conflict. Even WWII did not devastate Germany as much as The Thirty Years War did.

Answer

World War II cost 62,000,000 lives.

World War I cost 66,000,000 lives if you count those caused by Spanish flu as a result of the close contact of different nationalities with different immunities to viruses.

Before these, though, the Mongol invasions of Europe and Asia in the 1500s cost 60,000,000 lives - which is a much more significant proportion of the world's population at the time.

First answer by ID1411003571. Last edit by Eoin6661. Contributor trust: 72 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 168 [recommend question]