Page 466 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

466 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

dition, 11,170 soldiers and officers died of sickness and disease. Japanese casualties, accord-
ing to Russian official sources and other European sources of the time, were 49,400 killed.
To this number one has to add those who died of combat injuries, all together more than
58,800 killed. To these it is necessary to add about 27,200 who died of sickness and disease.
Japanese casualties, then, were clearly much higher than those of the Russian Army. an
1
American contemporary medical source gives very interesting data on Japanese casualties.
43,892 killed on the field, about three and a half as many - 145,527 - combat injuries, over
9,000 of which died of their wounds, almost 7 and a half thousand died of disease and more
than 4,500 of contagious disease. Thus Japanese human losses at that war were 64,938, much
higher figure than the one given by the Soviet historian. Thus, in terms of military ability,
Japan certainly could not continue the war. Moreover, even during the war with Japan the
great majority of the Russian Army was stationed in the European part of the empire. Giv-
ing the size of the population of the Russian Empire [almost 141 and a half millions at the
beginning of 1904, almost 144 millions at the beginning of 1905], in terms of demographic
impact, the war of 1904-5 did not have any effect on Russian population and, of course, on
the demographic basis for the armed forces.
From 1905 to 1907 there were a series of empire-wide peasants’ rebellions, suppressed
by the army. Most casualties were peasants civilians, data is hardly available, its accuracy is
highly suspected, thus it would not be discussed here.
The First World War was one of the two greatest and most destructive wars of the 20th
century, yet it is dwarfed in comparison to the huge human losses and destruction of the
Second World War. On the Russian front WWI ended in gradual manner, thus it has a num-
ber of termination dates, from November 1916 to November 1917. The formal diplomatic
end-of-war treaty was signed in Brest-Litovsk only in march 1918 [8 months before the
cease-fire on the Western front]. In this war Russia fought on two fronts, one against the
weaker enemy, the Ottoman Empire, on the Caucasian front. The main front, however, was
in Europe, against the German Empire and her allies - the Habsburg Empire and Bulgaria.
Unlike the front in Western Europe, the front between Russia and her enemies was dynamic,
shifting, ultimately involved great territorial losses for Russia. This of course involved also
great reduction in size of the population.
The scope of Russian casualties in WWI is a matter of debate. The numbers given by
different sources vary to high degree, but for our purpose in the present paper we can accept
the data suggested by General N. N. Golovine [of the Russian Imperial Army] of 1,260,000
which includes killed on the field and missing in action. to this one has to add death
2
because of sickness and disease, approximately 43,400 men. This has to be compared with
combat losses of other European power: Germany’s combat losses, dead and missing, were
1,531,200. The entire British Empire suffered 908,371 dead soldiers and officers. France
3

1 B. Ts. Urlanis, Istoriia voennykh poter [St.-Peterburg, 1994], pp. 133-4; pp. 288. L. L. Seaman, The Real
Triumph of Japan [New York, 1906], pp. 4-5.
2 B. Ts. Urlanis, op. cit., pp. 141-150. N. N. Golovine, The Russian Army in the World War [New Haven, Co,
1931], pp. 86-93.
3 Quoted in Urlanis, op. cit., pp. 150, 154-5.