Top 10 Wars

The obvious first in our list, this mother of all wars was a spectacular collision of human greed and pride, an inferno fueled by mass production and pushed beyond all boundaries by the booming age of transportation. After the end of World War I, the attempts of victorious powers to prevent repetition of such a conflict proved calamitous. Also, the Japanese gained strength beyond strength and predictably started harboring ambitions of an Empire. These and a host of other events reacted together to explode into the greatest war ever. Being the most studied event of the century, details of the conflict are well known, taught from school for the purpose of both historical education and admonition. The carnage largely started with the Japanese invasion of China on July 1937 and ended in August, 1945 with the surrender of Japan. As with all wars and disasters, a variety of cumulative (combatant and non-combatant) body counts exist, ranging from around 37 million to touching 70 million. Between 40 to 50 million is the most frequently encountered estimate with Russia (~20 million), China (~11 million), Germany (~7 million) and Poland (~6 million) being the principal contributors.

It is difficult to imagine that the obscure, landlocked nation of Mongolia had once inflicted the greatest ever loss of life compared to world population. For a century, the marauding “Devil’s Horsemen” dominated everything that came in their way. Although their mission was more of a conquest than of genocide, they nevertheless directly or indirectly caused the deaths of around 60 million people. From the unification of Mongol tribes under Genghis Khan in 1206 to the failed invasions of Japan by Kublai Khan in 1281, Mongols conquered the biggest empire known to man. It ran east to west from Korea to Danube and north to south from Lake Baikal to Hainan. Their plundering armies destroyed the great cities of Baghdad, Samarkand, Bukhara and Kiev and often left towns with no living inhabitants. They employed a simple strategy, the ones who submitted were spared but the ones who resisted were slaughtered. An estimated 40 million alone were killed in the various campaigns in Northern China and the conquests of Russia and Baghdad sent 1 million each on their way. It has also been alleged that their invading armies were responsible for the introduction of Black Death into Europe. In the Genoese possession of Caffa in Crimea, their army catapulted disease ridden corpses of their own warriors over the city walls. Some Genoese managed to flee and reach Genoa, bringing the plague with them which ultimately killed 20 million in Europe.

This first truly modern war revealed the horrible scale of suffering that technology could inflict upon mankind. Triggered in 1914 by the assassination of an Austro-Hungarian prince in rival territory of Serbia, it rode on a complex wave of pacts, alliances and misconceptions. Traditional war tactics were combined with infant technologies resulting in terrible human losses. For the first time, battles were fought in the air and poisonous gasses were used. Planes took off into battle from aircraft carriers and armored extermination vehicles called tanks saw action. Rival soldiers waited on each other for months in trenches, separated by a few meters of desolation known as the No Mans Land. As the war lingered on, USA followed isolationist policies but the German insistence on unrestricted U-Boat attack finally drove them in and eventually with their help, the Central Powers or the Axis were defeated in 1918. Average estimate for the total body count stands at around 8.5 million military and 10 million civilian deaths. Around 5 million alone were lost by the Ottoman Empire and Russia and Germany also suffered around 3 million deaths each. Some intellectuals saw the war as the proverbial “War to End All Wars”, however political missteps such as the Treaty of Versailles ensured it was not to be. Also notable during the war was the large scale violation of treaties and betrayals, with the most notable being the Arab revolt against Ottoman Empire, whose reverberations are still being felt today.

An understudy to Genghis Khan, this Turko-Mongol Muslim conqueror is remembered for his sheer love of bloodshed. Perhaps the greatest bandit in history, Tamerlane’s campaigns were more raids of loot and plunder rather than of governance and influence. Like Genghis, he too rose from a modest background, an accident in his youth damaging his right arm and leg, hence the name ‘Lame’. By 1369, he had declared himself to be the new Genghis Khan, linking his ancestry to him and becoming the supreme leader of Transoxiana (Modern Day Uzbekistan and some surrounding regions). Soon, he set out on his bloody offensives and efficiently devastated everything in his path for the next 36 years. First, Persia was overrun and the Caucasus followed suit. Turning eastward, he conquered India and finally in his most famous victory, defeated the Ottoman army at Ankara. His huge empire at its peak encompassed most of the Middle East and Central Asia. The stories of his single minded brutality have attained folk legend status in Asia. He razed great cities like Delhi, Aleppo and Isfahan and even the Muslim cities of Baghdad and Damascus were not spared. Never a man for compassion, he responded to a rebellion in Isfahan by slaughtering 70,000 and making a tower of skulls. Again the exact cost of his adventures is impossible to ascertain but most sources put it at above 15 million deaths. Tamerlane’s empire disintegrated after his death but one descendent called Babur managed to conquer Delhi again in 1526, founding the Mughal dynasty.

One of the most hotly debated historical questions is “How many Native Americans died after October 12, 1492”. An answer will perhaps never be found, since estimates of Pre-Columbus native population vary wildly, from a minimum of 8 million to touching 145 million. Sources of these calculations are pseudo scientific at best, dependent heavily upon archeological evidence or simple general perception at the time. Two things are generally agreed upon, 1) Depopulation occurred on a massive scale after European discovery 2) Acts of ethnocide were committed with the chief participants being the English and Spanish. The question that how many died of disease and how many were massacred will again never be answered. Arguments sway towards the majority of population being wiped out by old world diseases against whom natives had no immunity, but evidence of genocide is also present. Total death toll again varies massively, from around 2 million to a high of 100 million. Some historians have come up with allegations of Mongol minded Europeans deliberately infecting populations with small pox. From a multitude of sources, varying counts of total population focus at around a figure of 40 million and the death count median settles at around 15 million. With such high totals, even the most skeptical count of direct war related fatalities would certainly place this conquest amongst costliest on human life in history.

This war was the greatest European megadeath until World War I and still remains the greatest ever religious war. With Martin Luther’s reformation in 1517, Europe was effectively divided into Protestant and Catholic powers. Although the major European empire, The Holy Roman Empire remained effectively Catholic, Protestants especially Lutherans also held major states. One these states; Bohemia revolted in 1617 when it became apparent that a staunch Catholic was to be crowned the Holy Roman Emperor. A spectacular show of defiance was given by the Bohemians when they tossed the Emperor’s representatives out of a window (and according to legend, into a pile of horse dung), effectively sparking the bloodbath. With no concept of standing armies in those times, the Empire acquired Spanish and Bavarian help and managed to crush the rebellion. However, the protestant nations of Denmark and Sweden soon intervened with varying political and religious motives, ensuring the continuation of war. Protestant forces were finally defeated in 1634 however France, a Catholic nation soon entered the war against the Empire, turning the conflict completely political. French defeat of the Spaniards in 1543 led to the treaty of Westphalia, which granted Netherlands and Switzerland its independence and gave religious freedom to Protestant states. The last great religious war ravaged the German states, which by some accounts lost 30 % of their population. The armies were mostly composed of paid mercenaries who made their best efforts to plunder and annihilate non combatants. Around 7 million civilians perished in the war with military looses anywhere from 350,000 to 2 million.

The Napoleonic wars are a series of battles fought almost non stop from the Napoleon’s coup d'etat in 1799 to his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. In a way reminiscent of World Wars, the British formed six coalitions with various European nations to try and stop Napoleon from conquering whole of Europe into submission. For a time, this seemed highly plausible as he inflicted defeat upon defeat on rest of Europe. As Napoleon won, he installed relatives and aides as heads of the conquered territories and implemented his own civil laws. He was finally stopped by a combination of the Russian winter, British naval supremacy and an equally brilliant general the Duke of Wellington. The most significant aspect of his wars was the sheer size of armies. The largest pre-Napoleon army only amounted to 200,000 men while the French army peaked at 1.5 million. Large armies meant large death tolls which often exceeded 50,000 during major battles. The doomed Russian campaign alone cost Napoleon around half a million men. The Napoleonic wars were a “Revolution in War” and changed the way wars had been fought for hundreds of years. General conscription came into practice giving rise to large armies and the concept of “Nation in Arms”. Total body count for these 12 year long battles is anywhere between 3 million to a high of 7 million. The wars had considerable political impact, with the British rising as the undisputed global super power. Spanish tactics against the occupying French also war gave rise to the term “Guerrilla”, however their preoccupation in the homeland and weakening of their navy meant that their grip on South American colonies loosened. This directly resulted in the subsequent South American wars of independence, the first time a European war had such a profound impact on outside world.

Congo is the largest country by area in Sub-Saharan Africa, meaning it sits on a treasure-trove of mineral wealth. So as per historical trends, wherever there are natural resources in Africa, there is war and the Second Congolese War is the most vicious example of one such conflict. After colonial times, various major ethnic groups from Rwanda and Uganda extended into Eastern Congo and thus both countries exercise considerable influence in the region. In 1997, after the year long First Congo War, Laurent Kabila led rebels with Rwandan support managed to overthrow long time dictator Mobuto Seko. However, attempts to lessen foreign influence in the newly formed government threatened Ugandan and Rwandan designs for Congolese resources and they instigated rebel groups into full scale war. The rebels soon battled their way towards the capital but Kabila managed to win support from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe who sent military support, pushing the rebels back eastwards, dividing the country effectively into two halves. With Rwandan supported Tutsis and government supported Hutus locking horns, acts of ethnic cleansing akin to the Rwandan genocide were replayed by both sides. The violence claimed around 350,000 lives but around 3 more million deaths occurred as the result of war related famine and disease. Even after the formal end of hostilities in 2003, 1000 deaths were still being reported each day. The events however, were largely ignored by the western world, considering the fact that it was the biggest war in the history of the continent. Those “Conflict Diamonds” had now changed into “Blood Diamonds”.

This 3 year long war saw Communism and Capitalism collide for the first time. After the end of World War I, the Japanese were expelled by Russia and USA. Both agreed to hold the peninsula North and South of the 38th parallel respectively, effectively turning the nation into a playground of ideologies. Predictably, North had a communist leader in Kim Il-sung and the South was under US influenced Syngman Rhee. Kim Il-sung soon chalked plans for Korean reunification and invaded in 1950. As he advanced South rapidly, USA intervened but it too was dealt with similarly and soon, a small enclave in the South East was all that was left of South Korea. The US forces under Douglas MacArthur however launched a daring amphibious assault behind enemy lines, forcing it back, retaking Seoul and continuing on into North. With allied forces (known as UN forces by then) approaching the Manchurian border, the Chinese became wary and entered the war against the UN. They retook Seoul in early 1951 but ran out of steam soon after, enabling UN forces under Mathew Ridgeway to bounce back. The Chinese and Communists were driven back across the 38th parallel but were not pursued, ensuring a deadlock till the ceasefire in 1953. Both sides committed atrocities during the war killing around 1.5 million civilians in total. Military losses amounted to around 1.4 million including nearly 40,000 UN deaths. The war extirpated the nation, with North Korea unable to recover to the day and also confirmed UN status as merely a vessel of USA and its allies.

A mismatched David vs. Goliath duel, this conflict is immortalized in history as the one war that USA lost to an extent. Like Korea 9 years earlier, Vietnam also became an ideological playground, however this time around, the Americans faced just the natives and Chinese/Russians didn’t directly participate. After the 1954 expulsion of French from Indo-China by largely communist forces of North Vietnam, the country was divided into a communist North and democratic South. USA sought to limit the communist charge by installing a semi-puppet regime in South and showering it with military and monetary support. The North however had their plans for reunification and in 1959, they activated an armed insurgency in the south known as Viet Cong, putting US ambitions under serious pressure. Poorly performing South Vietnamese army soon made the case for full US entry and in 1964, they did that under the pretext of the controversial Gulf of Tonkin incident. However, pre-entry myths of weak little men in black pajamas and bombardment back to Stone Age were turned on their head as the communists proved formidable. Guerrilla tactics, jungle covered landscape and ingenuities like vast networks of tunnels enabled the insurgents to balance the overwhelming technological advantage held by the enemy. In early 1968, the communists launched a massive but ultimately unsuccessful operation known as the Tet offensive. Despite being beaten back with huge losses, the offensive highlighted their large scale battle ability and more importantly, turned the US public opinion against the war. Faced with a strong anti-war movement, crippling war bills and mounting death toll, the US army withdrew in 1971. This opened the door for the communists, who promptly invaded and reunited the country in 1975. The US had entered, lost around 58,000 men and got out without achieving anything. The South Vietnamese fatalities amounted to around 225,000 and victory for Communist forces came at a price of anywhere between half a million to 1 million deaths. The war saw widespread used of chemical defoliants, poisons and incendiary substances such as Napalm, scarring and denuding the landscape. Images of horrifically burnt Kim Phuc running from a Napalm strike became icons of human suffering during war. The total cost on general Vietnamese population is anywhere from 100,000 to more than 2 million. The war also had serious ramifications for the region with neighboring Cambodia and Laos being taken over by communists too; Cambodia coming under a particularly bloody band of communists called the Khmer Rouge.