Title: How Many People Died in the First World War? | History Hit
Headings: How Many People Died in the First World War?
How Many People Died in the First World War?
Peter Curry
Loss of life in Britain
Outside Europe

Content: A simple look at the numbers tends to blind us to the sheer scale of the loss of life. So many men died in the battlefields of World War One that the postwar media spoke of a ‘lost generation’ and showed an active concern for women who would apparently not be able to marry. A German prisoner helps British wounded make their way to a dressing station near Bernafay Wood following fighting on Bazentin Ridge, 19 July 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. Credit: Ernest Brooks / Commons. Particularly grievous to many countries during the war was outbreak of the Spanish flu. This began to cause widespread deaths in 1918, and lasted for several years after the war. It is so named because censorship laws preventing reporting on the flu in most countries that were at war. Spain remained neutral and consequently had no ban on reporting the spread of the virus, making it seem as though it was particularly badly affected. This was a particularly virulent strain of influenza which resulted in the deaths of between 50 and 100 million people, or around 5% of the world’s population at the time.