jueves, enero 05, 2006

Casualties of war

¿En dónde murieron más personas, en las guerras napoleónicas o en la guerra civil norteamericana? y en esta última, ¿qué bando tuvo más bajas?
Contestando a las anteriores y a otras preguntas, obtenemos de Wikipedia una buena síntesis de cifras, que no es por morbo que las coloco.

Guerras napoleónicas
France
400,000 killed in action
600,000 died of other causes
~1,000,000 TOTAL French dead and/or missing
Countries against the French Empire
400,000 TOTAL Russian dead and/or missing
400,000 TOTAL German dead and/or missing
~200,000 TOTAL Austrian dead and/or missing
~300,000 TOTAL Spanish dead and/or missing
200,000 TOTAL British dead and/or missing
Total Napoleonic Wars dead and missing
~2,500,000 military personnel in Europe
~1,000,000 civilians in Europe & in rebellious French overseas colonies

Guerra civil norteamericana
United States of America (North)
120,000 killed in action
240,000 died of other causes
~360,000 TOTAL Union dead and/or missing

Confederate States of America (South)
95,000 killed in action
165,000 died of other causes
~260,000 TOTAL Confederate dead and/or missing

Total American Civil War dead and missing
~620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers
UNKNOWN total Northern and Southern civilian casualties

Entre las guerras más sangrientas del siglo, importante lugar ocupa la de la triple alianza, de la que cito unos párrafos:
The Paraguayan people had been fanatically committed to López and the war effort, and as a result they fought to the point of dissolution. Paraguay suffered massive casualities, losing perhaps the majority of its population. The war left it utterly prostrate.
The specific numbers of casualities are hotly disputed, but it has been estimated that 300,000 Paraguayans, mostly civilians, died; up to 90 percent of the male population may have been killed. According to one numerical estimation, the prewar population of approximately 525,000 Paraguayans was reduced to about 221,000 in 1871, of which only about 28,000 were men. Definitively accurate casualty numbers will probably never be determined.

Of the around 123,000 Brazilians that fought in the War of the Triple Alliance the best estimates say that around 50,000 died. Uruguayan forces counted barely 5,600 men (some of whom were foreigners), of whom about 3,100 died. Argentina lost around 18,000 of its 30,000 combatants.

The high rates of mortality, however, were not the result of the armed conflict in itself. Bad food and very bad hygiene caused most of the deaths. Among the Brazilians, two-thirds of the killed died in hospitals and during the march, before facing the enemy. In the beginning of the conflict, most of the Brazilian soldiers came from the north and northeast regions of the country; the changes from a hot to cold climate and the amount of food available to them were abrupt. Drinking the river water was sometimes fatal to entire battalions of Brazilians - the source of the main cause of death during the war, cholera.


De inestimable valor es esta fuente por mi antes desconocida. Chéquenla.

1 comentario:

Anónimo dijo...

Hola. Fui a la fuente citada, pero detecto unproblema con los datos de bajas de la Guerra del Pacífico, que enfrentó a mi país, Chile, contra los aliados Perú y Bolivia. Sólo en las batallas de Chorrillos y Miraflores, donde el pueblo peruano y lo que quedaba de su ejército defendieron valiente pero imfructuosamente el acceso a Lima, el Ejército chileno perdió unos 8 mil hombres (5 mil muertos, 3 mil heridos) y nunca se ha sabido el total de bajas del lado peruano, pero sí se sabe que fueron más que en el lado chileno porque nuestros vecinos defendieron su ciudad con mujeres, niños y viejos, además de las no muy eficaces tropas profesionales.