# Most battle deaths **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 28, 2003, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-battle-deaths/158255 "2003-02-28T22:56:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-battle-deaths/158255/21 "2003-03-02T04:25:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bonzer \* > **Certainly not true in Britain. As a nation, we don’t feel any particularly direct connection with the atomic bombings in Japan. (Untrue, of course: the British government of the period was utterly proud of it’s involvement in the Manhatten project. And, as far as technical issues went, correctly so.) However there’s intense awareness of what happened in Dresden. It’s pretty much the emblematic Bad Thing that happened in British history and still immensely political. The recentish statue of “Bomber” Harris in the Strand is a good example; I don’t think _anybody_ regards this a neutral symbol of anything. Some people regard it as entirely right and proper, while the rest of us can’t walk past it without feeling disgust.** Interesting, thanks for discussing it. It never occured to me that somebody outside the U.S. & Japan might not be as obsessed about us dropping the bomb. :rolleyes: (Bloody Americans. 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-battle-deaths/158255/22 "2003-03-02T05:39:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bonzer \* > \*\*Any number below about 150,000 wouldn’t particularly bother me. Of the estimates quoted by **Daoloth** , I’m really not inclined to uncritically accept ones by either Saundby or Goebbels, since both had more than enough (different) motives to push for high figures. Quite why the issue arose in Manstein’s trial, I don’t know. But the Red Cross figure seems weirdly high and I’d like to know the context. > \*\* As for Red Cross, Rummel cites de Zayas citing it. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Brian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c89c15/32.png) [@I\_Brian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Brian)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-battle-deaths/158255/23 "2003-03-02T08:34:26Z")
**Daoloth** > [@](#): > > I got the Alexander stats from Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power by Victor Davis Hanson. I don’t see why they’d be that absurd. > > Also, your numbers on the Final Solution are off. About 11 million perished in the Holocaust. I’ll go check my books downstairs. So far as IO can remember about Alexander the Great, although Darius had overwhelming size, the battle was decided not by a slaughter but by Alexander leading his Companion Cavalry directly at Darius’s chariot. The moment he fled the battlefield, his army fragmented. But as stated, I’ll go check later. As for the Final Solution - same thing - I’ll check, but thought the figures around 6-7 million total. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-battle-deaths/158255/24 "2003-03-02T11:36:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by I, Brian \* > > I’ll go check my books downstairs. So far as IO can remember about Alexander the Great, although Darius had overwhelming size, the battle was decided not by a slaughter but by Alexander leading his Companion Cavalry directly at Darius’s chariot. The moment he fled the battlefield, his army fragmented. But as stated, I’ll go check later. I would also tend to regard the numbers for Alexander as being a bit inflated. How much is the question. If we take Issus for example, we do have some grounds for high Persian casualties, because it seems most were after rout and were inflicted on infantry that was fleeing on a reversed front through narrow channels. _However_ it does state that Darius’ calvary ( which would have been a substantial part of his army ) mostly escaped and the cited figures by ancient sources of 110,000 Persian dead ( or in one case 71,000 and 40,000 captured ) vs. 120-450 Macedonians seem really overblown, especially considering there was heavy engagement before then with Darius’ hard-hitting Greek mercenaries. Given the fact that there was hard fighting, I would expect heavier Macedonian/allied Greek casualties; given that the calvary would have been a large part of the army, I can’t imagine even a state as sophisticated as Achaemenid Persia ( which was essentially feudal in many respects ) to have been able to sustain in the field the enormous army necessary to produce 110,000 infantry ( mostly ) dead - we’d be talking a quarter million men or more probably; and finally I have a hard time coutenancing a 250:1 casualty rate under even those conditions for a ancient army. Cannae appears to be a more reliable figure because ancient accounts really do seem to attest to the near-total annhilation of the Roman army. Here the casualty rates are usually listed at a more reasonable ( at most ) 15 or 16:1 and that in a complete battle of annhilation with an almost fully enveloped and trapped army. Much more believable. MHO. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-battle-deaths/158255/25 "2003-03-02T17:12:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by I, Brian \* > \*\ ***Daoloth** > As for the Final Solution - same thing - I’ll check, but thought the figures around 6-7 million total. \*\* I’ve generally seen it at around 5.8 million Jews and 5 million others (400,000 Romani, 10,000 gays, more than a million Slavs, 3 million Soviets POWs in camps). ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2003, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-battle-deaths/158255/26 "2003-03-03T00:54:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by js\_africanus \* > It never occured to me that somebody outside the U.S. & Japan might not be as obsessed about us dropping the bomb. :rolleyes: (Bloody Americans. 🙂 ) A possible clarification. It’s not that we British regard Hiroshima and Nagasaki as insignificant. Far from it. It’s that Dresden is routinely regarded as a parallel case. Plus the difference that, while the bombing of Dresden is something we’re aware that _we_ did, the atomic bombings tend to be regarded as something _you_ (i.e. Americans) did alone. As I’ve indicated, I personally think the latter tendency is simplistic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-battle-deaths/158255.md?page=1)