Casualties Analysis: WWI

1. The two original countries involved were Austria-Hungary who mobilized about 8,000,000 and Serbia who had about 7,000,000 troops which is far less than the amount of men Russia and Germany put into the war. This seems ridiculous to me as they were basically drug into the war for no other reason then they had to keep an alliance. This is just further proof to me how unnecessary the war was and as a civilian at that time would look at those numbers and be really upset by them. Why does it seem like everyone was trying to fight a battle that wasn't theirs? Also, it is interesting that Germany put so much effort into this war and yet they are the ones blamed and forced to pay for a lot of it. Then again, maybe because they had such a big involvement accounts for their guilt. Overall, these kind of numbers are completely insane no matter what country it is from.

2. Geographically, Austria-Hungary is smack in the middle of Europe between Russia and France. The fact they were in the center of so many waring countries could account for their high casualty rate. Also, having both Russia and France fighting them from two fronts, would force Austria-Hungary to divide their army and therefore weaken it, resulting in higher numbers of casualties.

3. Well I take that a lot of the "missing" soldiers were deserters of the war effort which is the penalty of death in most countries. As the war drug on, many of the soldiers saw and experienced the horrors of war and began to question the purpose of it all. The Russians too shared this feeling and probably had little faith in their country as a whole and what they could accomplish. This may have had an influence of what started the Russian Revolution because Russia was a divided country. There was no trust and the government had just collapsed under the stress of the war.

4. The amount of soldiers America mobilized for the war in such a short period of time, especially compared to other countries, just goes to show and enhance the impact that America's entrance into the war had. If need be, America could have brought in even more too. They were really the tipping point that brought an end to the war because both sides were done fighting. Even though they stayed out of the war for as long as possible, when America did enter, they asserted themselves as a world power and went full force ahead.

5. Overall, the allies had a lot more countries involved than the central powers. However, it is interesting that the total number of mobilized forces for the central powers was almost 20,000,000 then the allies. But the number I find most important in why the allies were victorious is the casualties percent of the mobilized armies, which was lower for the allies. So even though they had less people fighting, less people were dying. Maybe because they had less people fighting too kept their moral up a little higher too while fighting.

6. Overall the casualty rates for WWI are ridiculous. After a war like this, how could anyone want to fight anymore? Also, even though the number of actual soldiers dead is much smaller, the fact that the casualty rates were so high accounts for the soldiers that came back and weren't the same... had gone crazy or lost body parts, etc. It doesn't seem fair the amount of casualties that certain countries had when they were not even part of the original conflict? How does something seemingly so small escalate into such a world wide catastrophe? I wonder what would have happened if America hadn't entered into the war at all? The central powers might have had more of a chance of winning. Or if they had joined the central powers instead. Also, Germany's contributions and losses from the war might have contributed to their anger of having to make so many payments for the war damages and then later their involvement if WWII. Again, in general, no matter what country, the number of casualties are horrible and had a major impact on the meaning of war.