What do you think is the bloodiest battle in World War 1

Verdun

Once again, we have a poll that has a correct answer. The Somme saw more casualties and a greater loss of human life than any WW1 battle. Verdun was a strong second.

"The total bill for Verdun was between 315,000 and 377,000 French killed or wounded. These were matched by 337,000 Germans. Of the dead, 150,000 were never buried ..."

"At the Somme was suffered a holocaust of misery and dying equal to that of Verfun, and the casualties were even higher: 650,000 Germans, 420,000 Britons and 195,000 Frenchmen."
-- World War I by David Shermer

If each soldier at the somme got his traditional burial plot...not counting depth of the plot in the first or second calculation...

6 feet x 2 feet x (650,000 Germans, 420,000 Britons and 195,000 Frenchmen) 1,265,000 or 15,180,000 square feet of earth, if you divide by 43,560 square feet per acre, it comes to about 350 acres of land if you did not include space around each grave.

now if you buried them vertically instead of horizontally.with no seperation..like what happened with most of the french dead in verdum (they were buried alive by the artillary barrages collapsing their trenches, by the way..they died slightly crouched, standing mostly upright. Most just suffacated. In some places the tips of the bayonets would poke above the ground to mark the spot where they were)

2 feet by 2 feet x 1,265,000 divide by 43,560 sqaure feet to the acre would equal 116 acres.


thats just if you didnt bother to send them home for burial..and you wonder why graves registration has a hard time...

Not to get to terribly off topic..im just glad i have my plot reserved, and they wont stack anyone on top of me...

The Battle of the Somme is not only the bloodiest battle in World War I, but it is also documented as the bloodiest battle throughout world history. Let’s not forget that more than a million lives were lost (on both sides).

Yeah, the Somme was the bloodiest ever so long as you remember that several battles of WW2 on the Ostfront would come close. Because the casualties were severely misreported by the Soviets, we may never know if they surpassed the Somme or not. Probably not, but its hard to be certain.

I am sure that the Soviets lost more men in Stalingrad and Leningrad than died on the Somme, they were lying little commies.

Passchendaele (3rd ypres). wasn't the bloddiest but but may well of been close to the worst conditons soldiers had to fight thru in that war? due to the rain and the bloody mud.

One thing that surprises me is that Gallipoli is listed, but no other Eastern Front battles are listed. Where's Tannenburg?

For the Marines, it was Bellau Wood. But it was also the greatest ass whoopin' ever administered to the Germans in WWI.