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Old 01-20-14, 11:25 AM   #9
MH
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It might not be revisionist, but some of these seem to be either confusing the issue or misleading:

About being the bloodiest war up to that point, it is true that it was certainly less bloody in terms of total death count or deaths as a percentage of the population compared to some previous conflicts like the Taiping Rebellion or the Thirty Years' War, but the main cause of deaths in these were due to indirect effects of the war on the civilian population like disease and famine while a vastly larger proportion of deaths in World War I were caused by direct military action. Also, all of these happened over a period of time several times longer than World War I.

As for military deaths, though, I can't really see how the percentage of British deaths compared to a previous war can change the fact that World War I had vastly more military casualties than any other war prior to it. Granted, more soldiers fought in it as well, but if the question was just how many died as a function of how many participated I could find any number of wars which had much higher casualty rates, like the War of the Sixth Coalition.


About the other point i have no idea.

This seems like an attempt by the author to write something controversial without thinking it over.
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