Napoleonic Wars casualties

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The Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) direct and indirect casualties breakdown as follows:

NOTE: Deaths listed include being killed in action and/or of other causes such as dying of disease, wounds, starvation, exposure, drowning, friendly fire, atrocities etc.

France and allies

400,000 killed in action
600,000 died of other causes
~1,000,000 TOTAL French dead and/or missing

Countries against the French Empire

400,000 TOTAL Russian dead and/or missing
400,000 TOTAL Prussian dead and/or missing
~200,000 TOTAL Austrian dead and/or missing
~300,000 TOTAL Spanish dead and/or missing
200,000 TOTAL British dead and/or missing

Total Napoleonic Wars dead and missing

~2,500,000 military personnel in Europe
~1,000,000 civilians were killed in Europe & in rebellious French overseas colonies

[Source] of the figures

It is worth noting that these numbers are subject to considerable variation - Erik Durschmied in his book, The Hinge Factor gives a figure of 1.4 million French military deaths of all causes. Furthermore Adam Zamoyski estimates around 400,000 Russian soldiers died in the 1812 campaign alone - this figure is backed up by other sources as well. Civilian casualties in the 1812 campaign were probably comparable. Alan Schom estimates a figure of some 3 million military deaths in the wars and this figure, once again, is supported elsewhere. Common estimates of more than 500,000 French dead in Russia in 1812 and 250,000-300,000 French dead in Iberia between 1808 and 1814 give a total of at least 750,000 and to this must be added hundreds of thousands of more French dead in other campaigns - probably around 150,000 to 200,000 French dead in the German campaign of 1813, for example. Thus it is fair to say the numbers provided above are highly conservative estimates.

Civilian deaths are impossible to accurately estimate. Whilst military deaths are invariably put at between 2.5 million and 3.5 million, civilian death tolls vary from 750,000 to 3 million. Thus estimates of total dead, both military and civilian, can reasonably go from 3,250,000 dead to 6,500,000 dead.

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