Introduction

The exact number of Austro-Hungarian military and civilian war losses during the First World War remains unknown to the present day as the successor states did not cooperate with one another to arrive at reliable figures after the war. With respect to military losses, some work has been done to calculate the total number of losses and to classify those losses in categories such as home region, age, branch of service and so on. Much of this work was completed during the war by a number of military statistical institutions.

Civilian losses, however, remained nearly undiscussed. This was not only a problem of missing data. The authors of the Austrian sections of the Carnegie Series “Social and Economic History of the World War” were ministers or high-ranking officials during the war and attempted to justify their own decisions during the war. Essentially, each author strove to prove that the collapse and dissolution of Austria-Hungary was not his fault. One of the few exceptions was Wilhelm Winkler (1884-1984) who was a population-statistician in a military office during the war and worked with civilian losses after the war.[1] His work is more than problematic. Given that the war reduced births to about half of the peacetime average, Winkler counted the non-begotten (he used the term “unborn”) as losses.[2] A non-begotten baby cannot be a loss, but Winkler was thinking from the perspective of a “Leviathan” whom the individual life has to serve. For Winkler, wartime human losses were not suffering humans but rather the reduction of the human power of this “Leviathan,” whether of the state or another collective like the nation.

Military Losses

During the war, two independent institutions registered military losses: the first was the “List of Losses” (Verlustliste), compiled by the Department X/VL (Verlustlistengruppe – Group of the List of Losses) of the Ministry of War (Kriegsministerium), which in August 1917 was transferred to the Office of War Statistics (Kriegsstatistisches Büro) attached to the War Archives (Kriegsarchiv). Independently, the Austro-Hungarian High Command (k.u.k. Armeeoberkommando, or AOK) also recorded losses. Both institutions counted differently and came to different figures: in its last report on losses up to September 1918, the AOK registered 499,203 deaths whereas the Kriegsstatistische Büro noted 363,144 deaths at the front and 324,590 deaths in hospitals, altogether 627,534 deaths for the same time. In both cases, the total dead were calculated to include an unknown number of dead who were classified as missing. At the end of the war about 1 million people were missing.

After the war, three people were active in calculating war losses. The first was Winkler. During the war he had been a member of the Scientific Committee of War Economy (Wissenschaftliches Komitee für Kriegswirtschaft, or WKKW) which was part of the Kriegsministerium. After the war, he worked in the Ministry of Military Affairs (Staatsamt für Heerwesen), but joined the Office of Statistics (Bundesamt für Statistik) in 1921. His publication on war dead in 1919 was based on works of the WKKW undertaken in 1917/18.[3] The WKKW did not try to fix an exact number of deaths. Instead, it estimated the number of deaths at 1.2 million by the end of 1917. A sample of 120,000 deaths from eight different time periods was classified by home regions (sub-categorized by nationality) as well as age and then grossed up to 1.2 million. This work was marked by a German-national view and, in particular, the classification of the fallen soldiers into national groups is tendentious in its derivation and in its conclusion. For Winkler, however, these results could be used to scale the heroism of the different nations of the monarchy: the higher the losses per capita, the “tougher” the nation. Winkler failed to take into account many factors influencing the intensity of losses and his conclusions are highly flawed. For example, according to Winkler, Bosnia had the fewest losses per capita. Yet, during the first years of war Bosnia faced the worst supply situation of the monarchy and its recruiting results were much below average. This was also a time of high losses as shown in table 2. If there are fewer Bosnian soldiers in times of high losses and Bosnia had the least losses per capita, this figure says nothing about the heroism of Bosnian soldiers.

In addition to Winkler, Gaston Bodart (1867-1940), a Viennese statistician and military historian, dealt with war casualties even before the First World War.[4] During the war he worked at the Kriegsstatistische Büro. Afterwards, he tried to calculate as closely as possible the real number of casualties from each year and on each front. In around 1921 he finished his manuscript on Austro-Hungarian war losses, though it was never published. According to Bodart, 1,046,893 soldiers were dead, while 332,950 were still missing. Bodart counted half of these as dead, thus arriving at the number of 1,213,368, rounded to 1.2 million. This figure did not include prisoner of war deaths.

Edmund Glaise-Horstenau (1882-1946), a regular officer throughout First World War and an active Nazi between 1938 and 1945, headed a staff to publicize an official Austrian history of the First World War, which appeared in 1930-1938 in seven volumes.[5] This work includes tables of losses. The “losses at the front” differs slightly from the results of the lists of the AOK and Bodart (539,633 instead of 499,203 fixed by the AOK, and of 521,146 given by Bodart). Including rear areas, “Österreich-Ungarns letzter Krieg” gives a total of 1,016,200 dead, whereas Bodart counted 1,046,893. But only Bodart took into account the estimated number of deaths of those still missing in 1921.

The number of deceased prisoners of war (POWs) can be estimated roughly at 450,000: 385,000 died in Russian captivity; 35,000 in Italian POW camps; 30,000 in Serbia, especially during the great retreat of the Serbian army in autumn 1915; and 3,000 died in Romania. With exception of Italy, the data was very crude, especially that of Russia which only ranged until the beginning of November 1917.[6]

Casualties
Losses at the Front
Died in Rear Area
Navy
Missing until 1918, clarified as Dead afterwards
Estimated Deaths of Those Still Missing in 1921
Wartime Total
Officers
14,709
5,486
50
2,275
2,131
24,651
Soldiers
506,437
344,514
571
172,851
164,344
1,188,717
Total
521,146
350,000
621
175,126
166,475
1,213,368

Table 1: Total Deaths of the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces[7]

Losses at the Front
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
Wartime Total
Eastern Front
Officers
3.443
3,285
1,369
376
64
8,537
Soldiers
101,904
138,345
46,572
14,613
2,560
303,994
Total
105,347
141,630
47,941
14,989
2,624
312,531
Balkan Front
Officers
1,060
136
38
44
103
1,381
Soldiers
27,216
4,212
2,451
2,612
4,540
41,031
Total
28,276
4,348
2,489
2,656
4,643
42,412
Italian Front
Officers
no front
739
957
1,323
1,519
4,538
Soldiers
30,396
37,562
40,986
41,868
150,812
Total
31,135
38,519
42,309
43,387
155,350
Romanian Front
Officers
no front
94
146
7
247
Soldiers
3,892
5,612
843
10,347
Total
3,986
5,758
850
10,594
Western Front
Officers
no reported losses of Austro-Hungarian troops
6
6
Soldiers
253
253
Total
259
259
Total
Officers
4,503
4,160
2,458
1,889
1,699
14,709
Soldiers
129,120
172,953
90,477
63,823
50,064
506,437
Total
133,623
177,113
92,935
65,712
51,763
521,146

Table 2: Reported Deaths at the Fronts by Year (according to Bodart)[8]

Crown Land (Austria), Country’s Part (Hungary), Bosnia-Herzegovina
Civilian 1910
Male Civilian 1910
Estimated Casualties at the End of 1917
Absolute
Per Thousand of Male Civilians
Percent of Casualties
Absolute
Percent
Absolute
Percent
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
50,967,728
100.00
24,985,470
100.00
1,199,973
48.03
100.00
 
AUSTRIA
28,324,940
55.57
13,787,028
55.18
649,882
47.14
54.16
Lower Austria
3,493,233
6.85
1,687,668
6.75
59,143
35.04
4.93
Upper Austria
845,292
1.66
415,108
1.66
24,793
59.73
2.07
Salzburg
212,737
0.42
105,639
0.42
5,535
52.40
0.46
Styria
1,433,696
2.81
709,499
2.84
42,202
59.48
3.52
Carinthia
389,740
0.76
191,800
0.77
14,833
77.34
1.24
Carniola
522,773
1.03
247,355
0.99
13,589
54.94
1.13
Coastland
868,926
1.70
431,659
1.73
12,086
28.00
1.01
Tyrol
928,787
1.82
457,703
1.83
23,931
52.28
1.99
Vorarlberg
144,776
0.28
71,639
0.29
4,003
55.88
0.33
Bohemia
6,730,130
13.20
3,268,275
13.08
189,015
57.83
15.75
Moravia
2,607,601
5.12
1,254,762
5.02
80,248
63.95
6.69
Silesia
752,041
1.48
365,090
1.46
19,018
52.09
1.58
Galicia
7,962,426
15.62
3,875,066
15.51
134,948
34.82
11.25
Bukovina
796,104
1.56
391,969
1.57
14,970
38.19
1.25
Dalmatia
636,700
1.25
313,797
1.26
11,568
36.86
0.96
 
HUNGARIAN KINGDOM
20,744,744
40.70
10,204,121
40.84
516,075
50.58
43.01
HUNGARY
18,142,200
35.60
8,941,133
35.79
464,708
51.97
38.73
Right Bank of Danube
3,063,369
6.01
1,523,492
6.10
104,707
68.73
8.73
Left Bank of Danube
2,162,774
4.24
1,046,143
4.19
55,079
52.65
4.59
Danube-Tisza-Betwixt
3,740,647
7.34
1,846,609
7.39
98,322
53.24
8.19
Right Bank of Tisza
1,757,165
3.45
836,050
3.35
26,318
31.48
2.19
Left Bank of Tisza
2,583,640
5.07
1,278,334
5.12
56,273
44.02
4.69
Tisza-Maros-Betwixt
2,127,954
4.18
1,056,177
4.23
57,173
54.13
4.76
Transylvania
2,658,159
5.22
1,330,272
5.32
66,409
49.92
5.53
City of Fiume and Her Area
48,492
0.10
24,056
0.10
427
17.75
0.04
CROATIA-SLAVONIA
2,602,544
5.11
1,262,988
5.05
51,367
40.67
4.28
 
BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
1,898,044
3.72
994,852
3.98
34,016
34.19
2.83

Table 3: Deaths by Home Region up to the End of 1917 (according to Winkler)[9]

Civilian Dead

Direct Losses

There are four groups of direct civilian deaths. The first and smallest group includes those who served in the army as civilians. According to the Verlustliste, 107 were killed, 269 were wounded, 374 went missing, and 1,123 were taken as prisoners of war. The second group includes the population of war zones. An unknown number died during the fighting, especially during the first months of the war in Galicia; these losses were neither counted nor estimated during war. Even the statistic about the movement of population (births and deaths) for Galicia, Bucovina and Dalmatia was not compiled after 1913.

The third group includes those murdered or – if one accepts the legal distinction – executed by soldiers or judicial organs, whether military or civil. The Austro-Hungarian army was extremely brutal in Galicia and Bosnia and civilians were executed often without any legal procedures. Estimates during the war ranged up to 80,000 victims.[10] In addition to spontaneous massacres by soldiers, the highest military ranks were also involved in war crimes. During the reoccupation of Galicia in 1915 the commander of the Fourth Army, Joseph Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (1872-1942), ordered that civilians be hung as a warning to the population that was allegedly cooperating with the enemy.[11] In fact, these civilians died because Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf (1852-1925), Chief of AOK 1906-1911 and 1912-1917, needed scapegoats for his erroneous decisions, especially in 1914 on the Eastern Front. In his (and his staff’s) place, his sub-commanders, Czech soldiers, and the population (Ukrainians and Poles) were made responsible for military disasters.

Refugees (including the evacuated) were not considered a group of losses. But during flight and shelter in the hinterland, they suffered more than others due to undersupply and health epidemics. During war, there permanently were about 500,000 Austrian refugees; Bosnia-Herzegovina had about 50,000 refugees in 1915.[12]

Area
Administrative Part in 1920/21
1910
1920/21
Male
Female
Total
Male
Female
Total
Absolute
In-/ decrease
Absolute
In-/ decrease
Absolute
In-/ decrease
Austria
total whole Territory
14,034,489
14,537,871
28,572,360
 
 
 
 
 
 
with Census 1920/21
13,490,353
13,986,350
27,476,703
12,750,014
-5.49
13,827,087
-1.14
26,577,101
-3.27
Eastern Front Voivodship Krakow
986,103
1,046,774
2,032,877
926,956
-6.00
1,043,211
-0.34
1,970,167
-3.08
Voivodship Lviv
1,413,363
1,452,958
2,866,321
1,294,792
-8.39
1,423,222
-2.05
2,718,014
-5.17
Voivodship Stanislav
748,312
765,078
1,513,390
640,712
-14.38
698,479
-8.70
1,339,191
-11.51
Voivodship Tarnopol
790,537
822,550
1,613,087
682,795
-13.63
745,725
-9.34
1,428,520
-11.44
total (Galicia)
3,938,315
4,087,360
8,025,675
3,545,255
-9.98
3,910,637
-4.32
7,455,892
-7.10
Italian Front Venezia Tridentina
321,687
320,210
641,897
321,719
0.01
325,984
1.80
647,703
0.90
Venezia Giulia
485,247
463,278
948,525
464,768
-4.22
455,219
-1.74
919,987
-3.01
Carinthia
185,278
186,095
371,373
176,846
-4.55
189,743
1.96
366,589
-1.29
total
992,212
969,583
1,961,795
963,333
-2.91
970,946
0.14
1,934,279
-1.40
Hungary
Total whole Territory
10,345,333
10,541,154
20,886,487
 
 
 
 
 
 
with Census 1920/21
7,685,098
7,898,165
15,583,263
7,809,985
1.63
8,245,180
4.39
16,055,165
3.03
Balkan Front Croatia
1,282,398
1,339,556
2,621,954
1,274,081
-0.65
1,340,297
0.06
2,614,378
-0.29
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Balkan Front
1,028,610
903,192
1,931,802
966,209
-6.07
924,231
2.33
1,890,440
-2.14

Table 4: Population of the Territory of Austria-Hungary 1910 and 1920/21, highlighting Front Areas[13]

Indirect Losses

Indirect losses are caused by war but not military actions, resulting mainly from famine, cold, and health epidemics. Thanks to its dual political structure, Austria-Hungary had three rather than one unified civilian statistics. The Hungarian Statistical Central Office published its data up to 1915 during the war and from 1916 to 1918 after the war, covering the old Hungarian territory with the exception of Croatia-Slavonia.[14] The Austrian Statistical Central Commission (k.k. Statistische Zentralkommission) published during the war all available and allowed numbers.[15] Depending on the topic, this data covered more or less the whole Austrian part of the monarchy and included the period from 1914 to 1917. Like some other successor states, Austrian Republic’s statistics tried to connect the old and the new republican statistics starting in 1919. But these “link-statistics” only reflected the area of the later Austrian Republic. Data on the Bosnian-Herzegovinan population ended in 1915.[16]

The total population of Austria, Hungary, and Bosnia-Herzegovina during war is completely unknown. Therefore, calculating a death rate is impossible. Data exists for the natural population movement (births and deaths) of Hungary (with 1914 borders, excluding Croatia), that of the area of the later Republic of Austria (without Burgenland) and Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. The Hungarian annual data is subdivided by month, that of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia by quarter and the area of the Austrian Republic by quarter only for the years 1917 and 1918.[17]

To get meaningful information about indirect civilian war losses from the total number of deaths, one has to exclude deaths of babies from the total. About 15 to 20 percent of all children died during their first year before the war. In peacetime, this was about 20 to 25 percent of all deaths. Nine months after the beginning of war, births were rapidly decreasing to half or less. The shrinking birth rate was reducing the total number of deaths as shown in table 5. Therefore, deceased babies distorted the death rate. Only the statistics of Hungary and the Austrian Republic reported the babies that died throughout the war, in both cases by month.

Year
Area of Austrian Republic (without Burgenland)
Hungary (without Croatia)
Total Deaths
Deaths, Age > 1
Total Deaths
Deaths, Age > 1
Absolute
Percent of 1914
Absolute
Percent of 1914
Absolute
Percent of 1914
Absolute
Percent of 1914
1914
117,104
100.00
91,044
100.00
439,924
100.00
312,150
100.00
1915
132,799
113.40
106,895
117.41
474,972
107.97
357,586
114.56
1916
126,014
107.61
108,018
118.64
391,820
89.07
323,205
103.54
1917
135,968
116.11
119,751
131.53
384,628
87.43
320,609
102.71
1918
154,471
131.91
137,543
151.07
473,364
107.60
412,192
132.05

Table 5: Deaths in the Area of Austrian Republic and Hungary 1914-1918[18]

Food supply contributed to the number of indirect deaths in wartime Austria-Hungary. A self-supplier before war, Austria-Hungary had problems with food supply from the very beginning of war. However, the situation differed drastically in Austria and Hungary. Hungary was strong in agricultural production. During the war, the harvest of wheat and rye (for Hungary without Croatia) decreased from 5.4 million tons in 1913 to 3.4 million tons in 1918 (62.9 percent of 1913). The harvests were also uneven: those of 1914, 1916 and 1918 were worse, while those of 1915 and 1917 better than the previous year. Furthermore, the Hungarian net export of grain and flour to Austria continuously decreased from 2.1 million tons in 1913 to about 50,000 tons in 1917 (the figure increased in 1918). Statistically, Hungary had more grain per year of war and capita than before the war. With the exception of December 1914 to May 1915, when the wartime system of grain distribution was established, and the time of the Spanish flu in the autumn of 1918, the number of deaths remained at the peacetime level.

Austria faced a completely different situation. Austria lost her main grain producing area, Galicia, quickly and for the entire war. Furthermore, the statistically recorded Austrian harvest showed a shrinking of crop year by year, from 3.1 million tons of wheat and rye in 1913 to less than 1.4 million tons in 1917, 45 percent of 1913.[19] In January 1918 the Office of National Nutrition (Amt für Volksernährung) had to reduce the insufficient daily rations of flour per capita from 200 grams to about 160 grams and even this could not be distributed completely. The amount of flour available went down to less than half. Instead of 104,000 tons needed in July 1918 only 43,000 tons could be distributed.[20]

In contrast to Austria, the Hungarian crop of 1917 was at 81 percent of 1913. Neither a continuous decrease in the Austrian harvest nor the difference in reduction in Hungary seems to be plausible, as both areas suffered similarly under wartime conditions. In fact, the Austrian statistical data did not reflect the decreasing harvest itself but rather the increasing incompetence of the Austrian administration to record production. Hungarian statistics, which differed from the Austrian ones, produced much more reliable results, but they were compiled too late to control the harvest trade.[21] Especially in 1916/17 and again in 1917/18 Austrian food production was shifting from the controlled and legal sphere into an illegal and uncontrolled one and was bartered on black markets.[22]

Compared to the base figure of 100 in 1914, deaths increased to 117 inside the area of the later Austrian Republic in 1915, 119 in 1916, 132 in 1917 and 151 in 1918. This was one of the worse-supplied regions of Austria. The increase of deaths in 1918, however, was compiled only the last quarter when the Spanish flu had struck. During the previous quarters, deaths were stagnating for the first time during the war. The same result is shown by nearly all death-statistics of larger Austrian cities.[23]

Indirect war losses were also caused by the cold, at its worst in February. In Hungary there was an extremely high death rate in the first quarter of 1916: 30 percent above the average of the following three quarters. In peacetime, the figure was only 10 percent above the average. The first quarter of 1917 also had a high death-rate, 20 percent above the average. In both cases, the following second quarter was also significantly above the average. Austria’s (the later Republic) quarterly data for 1914 to 1916 is missing. 1917’s rate was similar to Hungary’s, though the absolute number was higher in terms of percentage. The data for 1916 – published during war, including infant mortality – showed high death rates during the first two quarters of 1916.

In general, Austria-Hungary seems to have had enough heating material – mainly coal – for the population. However, in 1915 coal production reached its lowest point as the demands of the war industry were growing rapidly. A second crisis occurred in February/March 1917. Beginning with the Brussilov Offensive in June 1916, all main railway lines were closed for hinterland traffic for more than half a year. Romania’s declaration of war followed in August. Afterwards, the Central Powers began an offensive to conquer Romania that lasted until January 1917. In February/March, when a very hard winter hit Europe, Austro-Hungarian coal stocks were empty, though this seems to have been a question of distribution and not one of quantity.

With the exception of the very end of the war, medical progress prevented the spread of health epidemics. Most illnesses such as typhus, typhoid fever, smallpox, and cholera had their peak in 1915. Dysentery spread in 1917, decreasing rapidly in 1918. The most famous epidemic was the global pandemic called the Spanish flu in 1918. In Austria-Hungary nearly all monthly statistical data of larger administrative areas or cities indicates a slight increase in September, a massive increase in October and November, and a decrease in December, though still much above the normal level. From October to December 1918 in Hungary the average of quarterly deaths of the preceding nine months was exceeded by 100,000 persons (80,000 to 180,000). This number corresponds exactly with the increase of pneumonia (+47,000) and of flu (+53,000) from 1917 to 1918. Within the area of the later Republic of Austria in the last quarter 1918, some 26,000 persons died above the average of the preceding three quarters (30,000 to 56,000). There was an increase of pneumonia (+10,000) and of “other infections” (+15,000). During the last three months of 1918 in Austria-Hungary, the Spanish flu approximately doubled the deaths of a “normal” quarter.

In wartime Hungary (until September 1918), about 70,000 civilians died above the average of the years before the First World War, which was 22.6 percent of all civilian deaths in 1914. This figure includes deaths caused by famine and cold as well as all epidemics, but excluding the Spanish flu. In the area of the later Republic of Austria, the number was 90,000 civilians or 100 percent of all civilian deaths in 1914. If we suppose a similar death rate of babies in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia as in the area of the Austrian Republic, these lands had 80,000 civilian deaths above average, which was 60 percent of the deaths in 1914. During the last quarter of 1918 about 50,000 persons died above the average of the preceding quarters (+113 percent).

Conclusion

To produce a vague estimate for the indirect civilian losses of Austria-Hungary, we should assume a similar supply situation in Croatia as in Hungary and a similar situation in the remaining Austrian lands and Bosnia as in the area of the later Austrian Republic. Taking the deaths of 1914 minus 20 percent of births (estimated deaths of babies) we get an approximate minimum of 465,000 civilian indirect war deaths (351,000 from Austria, 82,000 from Hungary[24] and 32,000 from Bosnia). This is very close to Winkler’s result of 467,000 deaths, though his figure included the fallout from the Spanish flu.[25] If we also suppose a similar effect of Spanish flu as in the area of the Austrian Republic and Hungary (one-quarter of the deaths in the latter years of the war), this pandemic produced about 260,000 victims: 135,000 from Austria, 115,000 from Hungary, and 10,000 from Bosnia. Altogether the losses of Austria-Hungary can be estimated at 2 million (excluding direct civilian war deaths), in addition to deceased prisoners of war, in all with about 2.4 million or 46.1 per thousand of the population in 1910.

Military Deaths* (rounded to full 1,000) excluding POW
Civilian Deaths until September 1918
Spanish flu (Extraordinary Deaths October to December 1918)
Total (including Spanish flu until December 1918)
Absolute
Per Thousand of Population 1910
Absolute
Per Thousand of Population 1910
Absolute
Per Thousand of Population 1910
Absolute
Per Thousand of Population 1910
Austria
650,000
22.9
351,000
12.4
135,000
4.8
1,136,000
40.1
Hungary
516,000
24.9
82,000
4.0
115,000
5.5
713,000
34.4
Bosnia-Herzegovina
34,000
17.9
32,000
16.9
10,000
5.3
76,000
40.1
Austria-Hungary
1,200,000
23.5
465,000
9.1
260,000
5.1
1,925,000
37.7

*Military Losses according to Winkler.

Table 6: Estimated total Austro-Hungarian War Deaths excluding prisoners of war (which cannot be divided by region) and direct civilian losses


Anatol Schmied-Kowarzik, Austrian Academy of Science

Section Editors: Gunda Barth-Scalmani; Oswald Überegger