Ottoman casualties of World War I

"Hunger Map of Europe", published in December 1918, indicates serious food shortages in most of the territories of the Ottoman Empire, and famine in the eastern parts.

Ottoman casualties of World War I were the civilian and military casualties sustained by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Almost 1.5% of the Ottoman population, or approximately 300,000 people of the Empire's 21 million population in 1914,[1] were estimated to have been killed during the war. Of the total 300,000 casualties, 250,000 are estimated to have been military fatalities, with civilian casualties numbering over 50,000. In addition to the 50,000 civilian deaths, an estimated 600,000 to 1.5 million Armenians, 300,000 to 750,000 Greeks, and 300,000 Assyrians, lebanese Maronites 200,000 were systematically targeted and killed by Turkish authorities either via the military or Kurdish gangs.[2] Likewise, starting in 1916, Ottoman authorities forcibly displaced an estimated 700,000 Kurdish people westward, and an estimated 350,000 died from hunger, exposure, and disease.[3]

The post-war partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the mass migrations that occurred during and after World War I,[3] made it difficult to estimate the exact number of civilian casualties. However, the figure of military casualties is generally accepted as stated in Edward J. Erickson's Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War.

Disparity exists between Western and Turkish estimations of casualty figures. Analysis of Ottoman statistics by Turkish Dr Kamer Kasim suggests that the total percentage of Ottoman casualties amounted to 26.9% of the Empire's 1914 population. This estimate, however, is greater than numbers reported by Western sources.[4] Kasim has suggested that an additional 399,000 civilian casualties have not been accounted for by Western estimations.

Millets Prewar Civilian Military Post-War
% 1914 census[5] Other sources Military perished Civilian perished Total perished Survived
Armenian 16.1% 1,229,227 Unknown[6][7]
Greeks 19.4% 1.792.206
Jews .9% 187,073[5]
Assyrian 3%
Others .9% 186,152[5]
Muslim 59.7% 12,522,280[5] 9,876,580 2,800,000 (18.6%)[2] 507,152 (5.1% of its group)[2]
Total: millets 100% 20,975,345[5] 507,152 (2.4% of its group)[2] 4,492,848 5,000,000[1]
  1. ^ a b James L. Gelvin The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War, Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0521618045 p. 77
  2. ^ a b c d Edward J. Erickson (2001). Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War. General Huseyin Kivrikoglu (forward). Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 211. ISBN 978-0313315169.
  3. ^ a b S.C Josh (1999), "Sociology of Migration and Kinship" Anmol Publications PVT. LTD. p. 55
  4. ^ Kamer Kasim, Ermeni Arastirmalari, Sayı 16–17, 2005, p. 205.
  5. ^ a b c d e Stanford Jay Shaw, Ezel Kural Shaw "History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey" Cambridge University pp. 239–241
  6. ^ *File:US State Department document on Armenian Refugess in 1921.jpg
  7. ^ McCarthy, Justin (1983), Muslims and minorities: the population of Ottoman Anatolia and the end of the empire, New York: New York University press, ISBN 978-0871509635