World War I
AD – MPE: 3.3
ND – MPE: 2.8
During World War One Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania were the major nondemocratic war parties. Germany, France, Britain, the US, Japan, Serbia, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were the most important advanced democracies during the war.
White gives an overview of expert estimates, which range from 5 to 13 million civilian deaths.
According to the Wikipedia-article “World War One Casualties” roughly 2.3 million civilians were directly killed during the war. This number includes roughly 1.5 million Armenians – 0.6 to 1.7 million – slaughtered by Turkey, which was supported by Germany. Jeremy Salt has convincingly shown in his magisterial book “The Last Ottoman Wars” that the number of Armenian victims is almost certainly closer to the low estimate of 0.6 million.
5.4 to 6.1 million civilians died from war-related diseases and famines. These numbers don’t include the Influenza Pandemic. Roughly 1 million of these deaths were the result of the hunger blockades against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Britain, including 0.1 German victims after the end of the war.
0.75 to 1 million civilians perished in the African colonies of the European powers. In his book “Tip & Run – The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa” historian Edward Paice shows in great detail that Britain was responsible for at least 0.1 million civilian deaths and Germany for even more.
About 0.35 to 1 million died in the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon. Wikipedia explains why the politics of the Ottoman Empire, a blockade by the Entente powers and locust swarms were responsible. Lindsey Cummings also discusses evidence for the great importance of British, Ottoman, French and German policies in her thesis: “Economic Warfare and the Evolution of the Allied Blockade of the Eastern Mediterranean: 1914-1917”.
The Wikipedia-numbers do not include famine victims in Iran. The Wikipedia-article “Persian famine of 1917-1919” explains that British, Russian, Turkish and German policies during the war were partially responsible for the famine. The article discusses estimates which range from 2-10 million victims of famine and disease. In his in-depth book: “The Great Famine and Genocide in Iran 1917-1919” economic historian Mohammad Gholi Majd convincingly shows that brutal exploitation and violent repression by the British, Russian and Ottoman occupiers were responsible for huge numbers of excess deaths from famine and disease. He assigns most of the blame to the British, because they were the most powerful force in the country during most of the famine years. But according to his analysis Russian occupation forces share only slightly less responsibility than the British. Ottoman policies also contributed to the massive population losses during the war. Majd claims that roughly 8-10 million Iranians lost their lives. Many shocking details in his pioneering book have convinced me that millions perished in this politically induced famine. But his high numbers are very speculative. Other historians are sceptical about Majd’s calculations.
A 2014 article called “War Losses” by Antoine Prost for “1914-1918 Online – the International Encyclopedia of the First World War -” cites estimates by Westmoreland which amount to about 6.64 million civilian victims and estimates by Overmans which amount to 5.95 million civilian deaths.
Based on these numbers I conclude that nondemocracies killed 1.7 to 3.5 million civilians during WWI. The most plausible estimate is 2.6 million. Advanced democracies most likely killed 2.7 to 4.5 million innocent people during WWI. The most plausible estimate is 3.3 million.