The sad first place in the list of the bloodiest conflicts in Russia is firmly occupied by the Great Patriotic War, which lasted from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945. True, at that time Russia was not a sovereign state, but was part of the USSR as the largest republic in terms of area. The victory over the Hitlerite coalition led by Nazi Germany came at the cost of colossal exertion of all forces, mass heroism and self-sacrifice.
The allies (USA, Great Britain, and to a much lesser extent France) also contributed to the overall victory, but the main burden of the war fell on the USSR.
The exact number of victims, including the dead military personnel and civilians, has not yet been determined. According to the latest data, it is about 27 million people - this is the population of a large European state. In the entire Soviet Union, there were almost no families left where there was not or was not a loved one. During this war, the winters were incredible, it was this fact that played into the hands of our country.
Memorable bloody wars of Russia
A very difficult test was also the Civil War, which took place in most of Russia from March 1918 to November 1920 (and in Far East it continued until the autumn of 1922). The war was characterized by extreme bitterness, intransigence of the parties. However, this is a characteristic feature of all civil wars, when the son goes against the father, and the brother against the brother. According to historians, the approximate number of victims of the Civil War (including those who died from starvation and epidemics) is from 8 to 13 million people.
Such a large difference in the estimates is due to the unsatisfactory accounting for losses in the armies of both sides, as well as the loss of many archival documents in subsequent years.
The First World War, in which our country participated from August 1914 to March 1918, also brought enormous damage to Russia. The losses of one army amounted to about 2.5 million people. And according to some historians - about 3.2 million. The exact number of civilian casualties in the combat zone is still unknown.
Also very bloody was the Patriotic War of 1812, when the losses of the Russian army killed and died from wounds and diseases amounted to about 210 thousand people.
And in Russo-Japanese War, which took place from 1904 to 1905, our losses, according to various estimates, ranged from 47 thousand to 70 thousand people.
In the history of mankind, various wars occupy a huge place.
They redrawn maps, gave birth to empires, destroyed peoples and nations. The earth remembers wars that lasted more than a century. We recall the most protracted military conflicts in the history of mankind.
1. War without shots (335 years old)
The longest and most curious of the wars is the war between the Netherlands and the Scilly archipelago, which is part of Great Britain.
Due to the lack of a peace treaty, it formally went on for 335 years without firing a shot, which makes it one of the longest and most curious wars in history, and even the war with the least losses.
Peace was officially declared in 1986.
2. Punic War (118 years)
By the middle of the III century BC. the Romans almost completely subjugated Italy, swung at the entire Mediterranean and wanted Sicily first. But the mighty Carthage also claimed this rich island.
Their claims unleashed 3 wars that stretched (intermittently) from 264 to 146. BC. and got the name from the Latin name of the Phoenicians-Carthaginians (puns).
The first (264-241) - 23 years old (began just because of Sicily).
The second (218-201) - 17 years (after the capture of the Spanish city of Sagunta by Hannibal).
The last (149-146) - 3 years.
It was then that the famous phrase "Carthage must be destroyed!" was born. Pure warfare took 43 years. The conflict in total - 118 years.
Results: Besieged Carthage fell. Rome won.
3. Hundred Years War (116 years)
Went in 4 stages. With pauses for truces (the longest - 10 years) and the fight against the plague (1348) from 1337 to 1453.
Opponents: England and France.
Reasons: France wanted to oust England from the southwestern lands of Aquitaine and complete the unification of the country. England - to strengthen influence in the province of Guyenne and return those lost under John the Landless - Normandy, Maine, Anjou. Complication: Flanders - formally was under the auspices of the French crown, in fact it was free, but depended on English wool for cloth making.
Reason: the claims of the English king Edward III from the Plantagenet-Anjou dynasty (maternal grandson of the French king Philip IV the Handsome of the Capetian family) to the Gallic throne. Allies: England - German feudal lords and Flanders. France - Scotland and the Pope. Army: English - mercenary. under the command of the king. The basis is infantry (archers) and knightly units. French - a knightly militia, led by royal vassals.
Turning point: after the execution of Joan of Arc in 1431 and the Battle of Normandy, the national liberation war of the French people began with the tactics of guerrilla raids.
Results: October 19, 1453 the English army capitulated in Bordeaux. Having lost everything on the continent, except for the port of Calais (it remained English for another 100 years). France switched to regular army, abandoned knightly cavalry, gave preference to infantry, the first firearms appeared.
4. Greco-Persian War (50 years)
Altogether, war. Stretched with lulls from 499 to 449. BC. They are divided into two (the first - 492-490, the second - 480-479) or three (the first - 492, the second - 490, the third - 480-479 (449). For the Greek policies-states - battles for independence. For the Achaeminid Empire - predatory. 
Trigger: Ionian rebellion. The battle of the Spartans at Thermopylae is legendary. The battle of Salamis was a turning point. The point was put by "Kalliev Mir".
Results: Persia lost the Aegean Sea, the coasts of the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. Recognized the freedom of the cities of Asia Minor. The civilization of the ancient Greeks entered the time of the highest prosperity, laying the culture, which, even after millennia, the world was equal to.
4. Punic war. The battles lasted 43 years. They are divided into three stages of wars between Rome and Carthage. They fought for dominance in the Mediterranean. The Romans won the battle. Basetop.ru
5. Guatemalan War (age 36)
Civil. It proceeded in outbreaks from 1960 to 1996. A provocative decision by US President Eisenhower in 1954 triggered a coup.
Reason: the fight against the "communist infection".
Opponents: Bloc "Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity" and the military junta.
Victims: almost 6 thousand murders were committed annually, only in the 80s - 669 massacres, more than 200 thousand dead (of which 83% were Maya Indians), over 150 thousand went missing. Outcomes: Signing of the "Treaty for a Lasting and Lasting Peace", which protected the rights of 23 groups of Native Americans.
Outcomes: Signing of the "Treaty for a Lasting and Lasting Peace", which protected the rights of 23 groups of Native Americans.
6. War of the Scarlet and White Roses (33 years old)
Confrontation English nobility- supporters of two tribal branches of the Plantagenet dynasty - Lancaster and York. Stretched from 1455 to 1485.
Prerequisites: "bastard feudalism" - the privilege of the English nobility to pay off military service from the lord, in whose hands large funds were concentrated, with which he paid for the army of mercenaries, which became more powerful than the royal one.
The reason: the defeat of England in the Hundred Years War, the impoverishment of the feudal lords, their rejection of the political course of the wife of the feeble-minded king Henry IV, hatred of her favorites.
Opposition: Duke Richard of York - considered the right to power of the Lancasters illegitimate, became regent under an incapacitated monarch, in 1483 - king, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth.
Results: Violated the balance of political forces in Europe. Led to the collapse of the Plantagenets. She placed the Welsh Tudors on the throne, who ruled England for 117 years. Cost the lives of hundreds of English aristocrats.
7. Thirty Years War (30 years)
The first military conflict of a pan-European scale. Lasted from 1618 to 1648. Opponents: two coalitions. The first is the union of the Holy Roman Empire (in fact, Austrian) with Spain and the Catholic principalities of Germany. The second - the German states, where power was in the hands of Protestant princes. They were supported by the armies of reformist Sweden and Denmark and Catholic France.
Reason: The Catholic League was afraid of the spread of the ideas of the Reformation in Europe, the Protestant Evangelical Union was striving for this.
Trigger: Revolt of Czech Protestants against Austrian domination.
Results: The population of Germany has decreased by a third. The French army lost 80 thousand. Austria and Spain - more than 120. After the Treaty of Münster in 1648, a new independent state, the Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (Holland), was finally fixed on the map of Europe.
8. Peloponnesian War (age 27)
There are two of them. The first is the Lesser Peloponnesian (460-445 BC). The second (431-404 BC) is the largest in the history of Ancient Hellas after the first Persian invasion of the territory of Balkan Greece. (492-490 BC).
Opponents: Peloponnesian Union led by Sparta and the First Marine (Delosian) under the auspices of Athens.
Reasons: The desire for hegemony in the Greek world of Athens and the rejection of their claims by Sparta and Corypha.
Contradictions: Athens was ruled by an oligarchy. Sparta is a military aristocracy. Ethnically, the Athenians were Ionians, the Spartans were Dorians. In the second, 2 periods are distinguished.
The first is "Arkhidamov's War". The Spartans made land invasions into the territory of Attica. Athenians - sea raids on the coast of the Peloponnese. It ended in the 421st signing of the Treaty of Nikiev. After 6 years, it was violated by the Athenian side, which was defeated in the battle of Syracuse. The final phase went down in history under the name Dekeley or Ionian. With the support of Persia, Sparta built a fleet and destroyed the Athenian at Aegospotami.
Results: After the conclusion in April 404 BC. Theramenian world of Athens lost the fleet, tore down the Long Walls, lost all the colonies and joined the Spartan alliance.
9. Great Northern War (21 years old)
There was a northern war for 21 years. She was between the northern states and Sweden (1700-1721), the opposition of Peter I to Charles XII. Russia fought mostly on its own.
Reason: Possession of the Baltic lands, control over the Baltic.
Results: With the end of the war in Europe, a new empire arose - the Russian Empire, which has access to the Baltic Sea and has a powerful army and navy. The capital of the empire was St. Petersburg, located at the confluence of the Neva River into the Baltic Sea.
Sweden lost the war.
10 Vietnam War (age 18)
The Second Indochinese War between Vietnam and the United States and one of the most destructive of the second half of the 20th century. Lasted from 1957 to 1975. 3 periods: guerrilla South Vietnamese (1957-1964), from 1965 to 1973 - full-scale US military operations, 1973-1975. - after the withdrawal of American troops from the territories of the Viet Cong. Opponents: South and North Vietnam. On the side of the South - the United States and the military bloc SEATO (Organization of the Treaty South-East Asia). North - China and the USSR.
The reason: when the communists came to power in China, and Ho Chi Minh became the leader of South Vietnam, the White House administration was afraid of the communist "domino effect". After Kennedy's assassination, Congress gave President Lyndon Johnson carte blanche to use military force in the Tonkin Resolution. And already in March 65, two battalions of US Army Navy SEALs left for Vietnam. So the States became part of the civil Vietnam War. They applied the “search and destroy” strategy, burned the jungle with napalm - the Vietnamese went underground and responded with a guerrilla war.
Who benefits: American arms corporations. US losses: 58 thousand in combat (64% under the age of 21) and about 150 thousand suicides of American veterans of the explosives.
Vietnamese victims: over 1 million who fought and more than 2 civilians, only in South Vietnam - 83 thousand amputees, 30 thousand blind, 10 thousand deaf, after the operation "Ranch Hand" (chemical destruction of the jungle) - congenital genetic mutations.
Results: The Tribunal of May 10, 1967 qualified the US actions in Vietnam as a crime against humanity (Article 6 of the Nuremberg Statute) and banned the use of CBU-type thermite bombs as weapons of mass destruction.
(C) different places on the internet
This topic is relevant, despite the seemingly peaceful time in our country, because in addition to open, bloody wars, there are also latent ones that claim no less lives than during battles with spears, swords, tanks, machine guns, bombs.
So, let's analyze which wars were the largest in terms of the number of victims and the scale of destruction in the entire history of mankind known to us. casualties in major wars there were more than 1 million people.
About a million and a little more victims were in wars:
The Biafra War of Independence (1967-1970), the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598), the Siege of Jerusalem (73 AD, an episode of the First Jewish War), the Rwandan Genocide (1994), the Korean War (1953), etc.
About 2-3 million victims were in the wars: the Chaka conquests (South Africa, 19th century), the Koguryeo-Suu wars (598-614), the Mexican revolution (1910-1920).
Religious wars in France (1568-1598) - claimed the lives of more than 4 million people.
The Huguenot Wars, the French Wars of Religion that were fought at the end of the 16th century, were essentially a confrontation between Catholics and Protestant Hugents.
The Wars of Religion or Huguenots are a series of protracted civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots) that tore apart France under the last kings of the Valois dynasty, from 1562 to 1598. The Huguenots were led by the Bourbons (Prince Condé, Henry of Navarre) and Admiral de Coligny, and the Catholics were led by Queen Mother Catherine de Medici and the powerful Giza.
Its neighbors tried to influence the course of events in France - Elizabeth of England supported the Huguenots, and Philip of Spain supported the Catholics. The wars ended with the accession of Henry of Navarre, who converted to Catholicism, to the French throne and the issuance of the compromise Edict of Nantes (1598).
In the 15th-16th century in Europe, religion was not just an outlet for those seeking the eternal, religion was the cause of wars, almost the main one, religion divided society into enemies and friends, into friends and foes, was the essence of the monarchy, the main punitive element of the state, with the blessing of those who had dignity, they married and executed. As we can see, it got to the point that some cut others down just because they had different views on God.
Napoleonic wars (1799-1815) - more than 3.5 million victims.
“The Napoleonic Wars - this name is mainly known for the wars waged by Napoleon I with various states of Europe when he was First Consul and Emperor (November 1799 - June 1815). In a broader sense, this includes both Napoleon's Italian campaign (1796-1797) and his Egyptian expedition (1798-1799), although these (especially the Italian campaign) are usually ranked among the so-called revolutionary wars.
Napoleon created the first french empire, which lasted from 1804 to 1815. Having become, as a result of the coup on 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799), the first consul of France, Napoleon launched an attack with the aim of conquering the whole of Europe, Italy, Austria, Germany, Prussia, etc. were in the plans.
According to official data alone, the battles in the warring countries claimed the lives of 2.2-3.6 million soldiers and civilians. Some historians even double these figures. Having failed in the Spanish-Portuguese war, defeated in the war with Russia (1812) - and Napoleon's empire began to crack.
War of 1812 only in Russian art displayed in paintings, in world works, such as "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy, and the wars of Napoleon - became the subject of inspiration, no matter how cynical it may sound, for many creators around the world.
In terms of the number of victims, the Napoleonic Wars are considered one of the largest and bloodiest.
Second Congo war - 5.4 million victims
« The Second Congolese War (French: Deuxième guerre du Congo), also known as the Great African War (1998-2002) is a war on the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in which more than twenty armed groups representing nine states participated.
By 2008, the war and subsequent events had killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation, making it one of the bloodiest wars in world history and the deadliest conflict since World War II."
Many historians see the genocide in Rwanda as the beginning of the conflict, then the Tutsi refugees moved to Zaire, then, after the Rwandan Patriotic Front came to power in Rwanda, and some of the Hutu refugees rushed to seek refuge in Zaire, in connection with which an unfinished war in Rwanda unfolded in the territory of the former Republic of the Congo (now Zaire). Hutu radicals began to use Zaire as a rear for attacks on Rwanda.
Chinese Civil War(1927-1950) - 8 million victims
“Civil War in China (Chinese trad.國共内戰, ex.国共内战, pinyin: guógòng neìzhàn, pall.: gogong neizhan, literally: "internal war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party") - a series of armed conflicts in China between the forces of the Republic of China and the Chinese Communists in 1927 - 1950 (with interruptions).
The war began in 1927 after the Northern Expedition, when, by decision of the right wing of the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek, the alliance between the Kuomintang and the CCP was broken.
A war that lasted 23 years and claimed millions of lives ... Periods, such as in 1936, when China united in the fight against the Japanese invaders, the battle weakened, but after the completion of the events for which there was rallying, it began again with renewed vigor.
The war continued until 1950, in 1949 the formation of the People's Republic of China was proclaimed in Beijing, and in May 1951, by signing an agreement on the peaceful end of the conflict, the last captured stronghold, Tibet, was liberated.
Thirty Years' War - 11.5 million dead
“The Thirty Years' War is a military conflict for hegemony in the Holy Roman Empire and Europe, which lasted from 1618 to 1648 and affected almost all European countries to one degree or another.
The war began as a religious clash between the Protestants and Catholics of the empire, but then escalated into a fight against Habsburg dominance in Europe. The conflict was the last major religious war in Europe and gave rise to the Westphalian system of international relations.
This war affected all segments of the population - as the story goes, the most affected country is Germany, more than 5 million people died there, the economic, productive system was destroyed, only a century later the country's population began to recover. Sweden and Germany fought.
Civil war in Russia (1917-1922) - 12 million dead (taking into account the accompanying losses - more than 25 million people)
"The Civil War in Russia (October 25 (November 7), 1917 - October 25, 1922 / July 16, 1923) - a series of armed conflicts between various political, ethnic, social groups And state entities on the territory of the former Russian Empire following the coming to power of the Bolsheviks as a result of the October Revolution of 1917.
The civil war of the "Reds" and "Whites" was the natural result of the revolution of 1904-1907, also the First World War, ended with the victory of the Bolsheviks.
Perhaps this is one of the most cruel and memorable wars for the Russian people, not only in the 20th century, but in general throughout history, because the war was fought not with external, foreign enemies, but with Russians ... The population of the homeland was divided into two camps and "interrupted" their own.
The horrors of that era are described in many literary works, captured in rare photos, many legendary films based on works and that war were shot, the ruthlessness of their own compatriots, blinded by the idea, is amazing. The bodies of the shot people were taken by trucks from the base of the Chekists to the burial places. One of the works banned at that time - Zazubrin's story "Sliver" vividly tells about the revolution - "a beautiful and cruel mistress, powerless, sparingly, rigidly imposing her own order of life on us, clearing her way with corpses ... By the way, the author himself - Vladimir Zazubrin - was shot in 1937 for belonging to a sabotage-terrorist organization of the right. The novel was first published only in 1989.
The "Reds" - the Bolsheviks - won. The confrontation between the "reds" and "whites" grew into a bloody massacre, a characteristic feature of the civil war was that the enemy sides achieved their goal exclusively by violent measures.
Historians explain this situation by saying that
“The social and class confrontation that has reached the stage of civil war divides society into “us” and “them”, into “us” and “them”. Enemies and opponents are generally taken out of the sphere of morality at such moments, they are perceived as “subhumans”, who are not subject to universal norms. This is what creates the opportunity to turn immoral terror into terror that is morally justified…”.
Even during the unfinished war, Russia was defeated.
“The territories of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Western Ukraine, Belarus, the Kars region (in Armenia) and Bessarabia departed from the former Russian Empire. According to experts, the population in the remaining territories barely reached 135 million people.
Since 1914, losses in these territories as a result of wars, epidemics, emigration, and a reduction in the birth rate have amounted to at least 25 million people.
The level of production fell, factories were destroyed, the country was swallowed up by chaos, poverty and devastation.
The number of street children ranged from 4.5 to 7 million people.
"The First World War (July 28, 1914 - November 11, 1918) is one of the largest armed conflicts in the history of mankind."
The actual beginning of the already brewing conflict was the so-called “Sarajevo Murder” on June 28, 1914, when the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who advocated the creation of national autonomies in Austria-Hungary, was killed by a young Serbian terrorist.
“As a result of the military conflict, four empires ceased to exist: Russian, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and German (although the Weimar Republic that arose instead of Kaiser Germany formally continued to be called the German Empire). The participating countries lost more than 10 million soldiers and about 12 million civilians killed, about 55 million people were injured.
The participants in the war were:
Quadruple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria.
Entente: Russia, France, Great Britain.
Allies of the Entente (supported the Entente in the war): USA, Japan, Serbia, Italy (participated in the war on the side of the Entente since 1915, despite being a member of the Triple Alliance), Montenegro, Belgium, Egypt, Portugal, Romania, Greece, Brazil, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Siam, Haiti, Liberia, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador.
In 1919, Germany was forced to sign the Versailles Treaty on the peaceful end of the conflict with the victorious countries.
As a result, Germany lost more, in Russia the first World War led to revolutions, civil war, for all participants - to the liquidation of several empires. For Germany, the defeat in this war led to the collapse of the monarchy, the weakening of economic and territorial positions, the subsequent humiliation led to the Nazis coming to power, who later unleashed the Second World War.
Any war is always not just a conflict, it is a cause of something and a consequence of something, often another war.
Conquests of Tamerlane (Tuesday half of the 14th century) - 20 million dead
Dungan uprising (19th century) - 20.5 million victims
The Qing Dynasty conquered the Ming Dynasty - 25 million dead
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) - 30 million victims
Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864, China) - 30 million victims
An Lushan Rebellion (755-763, China) - 36 million victims
Mongol conquests (13th century) - 70 million dead
There is evidence that as a result of the conquest of Northern and South America(for several centuries) - more than 138 million people died.
During the development of the territory of North and South America, that is, from the period of 1491 to 1691, although in fact the development began in the 10th century, during all this time more than one hundred million people died in battles with the colonialists and indigenous people.
World War II (1939 - 1945) - 85 million dead
“The Second World War (September 1, 1939 [- September 2, 1945) is a war of two world military-political coalitions, which has become the largest armed conflict in the history of mankind.
It was attended by 62 states out of 73 that existed at that time (80% of the world's population). fighting conducted on the territory of three continents and in the waters of four oceans. This is the only conflict in which nuclear weapons have been used.”
The Second World War, both in terms of the number of victims and the number of participating countries, the scale of destruction, became one of the largest world battles in the history of mankind. It was attended by 72 states, which is 80% of the world's population, military operations were conducted on the territory of 40 states. Human losses - at least 65 million people. The military losses and expenses incurred were colossal.
After the war weakened the role Western Europe, the USSR and the USA became the main ones in the world. Nazi and fascist ideologies were recognized as criminal and banned at the Nuremberg trials.
And although more than 70 years have passed since the end of the battles, many Russians know what the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War are.
Perhaps, so many creations of art are not dedicated to any military battle - literary works, masterpieces of cinema, etc. There are a lot of photographs of the victims of Nazi camps, battles, fragments of the war, soldiers, the Nazis themselves.
A lot of documentation and testimonies of the horrors of those times have been preserved about the inhuman, cruel experiments of the Nazis on prisoners, about gas chambers and tons of victims, about tens of thousands of healthy babies who were born by Russian women in captivity, drowned in a bucket for slops by German guards, about Jews killed during the Holocaust ...
The main warring powers were Germany, the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, the USA, and Japan. The bloodiest civil war is nothing compared to World War II, which engulfed the territories of forty states on three continents and all oceans. In total, 110 million people were mobilized in all these countries, tens of millions participated in guerrilla warfare and in the resistance movement, the rest worked in military factories and built fortifications. In general, the war covered 3/4 of the population of the entire Earth.
World War II - the bloodiest war in world history
The destruction and losses caused by the Second World War were very great and practically unparalleled. They are simply impossible to calculate even approximately. In this hellish war, human losses approached 55 million people. In World War I, five times fewer people died, and material damage was estimated 12 times less. This war was of colossal proportions, as it was the most immeasurable event in world history.
In the Second, as in the First World War, the reasons lay in the redistribution of the world, territorial acquisitions, raw materials, markets. However, the ideological content was more pronounced. Fascist and anti-fascist coalitions opposed each other. The Nazis unleashed a war, they wanted to dominate the whole world, to establish their own rules and regulations. The states belonging to the anti-fascist coalition defended themselves as best they could. They fought for freedom and independence, for democratic rights and freedoms. This war was of a liberating nature. The resistance movement became the main feature of World War II. An anti-fascist and national liberation movement arose in the states of the bloc of aggressors and in the occupied countries.
War Literature. Reliability of the facts
Many books and articles have been written about the most bloody war, a large number of films have been shot in all countries. The literary works written about this are immense, hardly anyone will be able to read them in their entirety. However, the flow of various kinds of publications does not come to an end even today. The history of the bloodiest war has not yet been fully explored and is closely connected with heated problems. modern world. And all because this interpretation of military events still serves as a kind of justification and rationale for revising borders, creating new states in order to positively or negatively evaluate the role of nations, parties, classes, rulers and political regimes. Such situations constantly agitate national interests and feelings. A lot of time has passed and so far, along with serious historical research, a large number of absolutely unreliable fabrications, writings and falsifications are being written.
real story The Second World War was already overgrown with some myths and legends, supported by government propaganda, which had a stable character and was widely disseminated.
War films
In Russia, few people know about the maneuvers of the Anglo-American troops in Africa and in the waters of the Pacific Ocean during this period. And in the USA and England, people also have a poor idea of the huge range of military battles on the Soviet-German front.
It is not surprising that the Soviet-American multi-part documentary about the bloodiest war in history (released in 1978) in America was given the name "Unknown War", because they really know almost nothing about it. One of the French films about World War II was also called "Unknown War". It is a pity that a public opinion poll in different countries (including Russia) showed that the generation born in the post-war period sometimes simply lacks the most ordinary knowledge about the war. The respondents sometimes do not really know when the war began, who Hitler, Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill were.
Beginning, causes and preparation
The bloodiest war in the history of mankind began on September 1, 1939, and formally ended on September 2, 1945. It was unleashed by Nazi Germany (in alliance with Italy and Japan) with the anti-fascist coalition. The fighting took place in Europe, Asia and Africa. At the end of the war, at the final stage, atomic bombs were used against Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) on September 6 and 9. Japan capitulated.
For the defeat in the First World War (1914-1918), Germany, with the support of its allies, wanted revenge. In the 1930s, two military centers were deployed in Europe and the Far East. The excessive restrictions and reparations imposed on Germany by the victors contributed to the development of a powerful nationalist impulse in the country, where extremely radical currents took power into their own hands.
Hitler and his plans
In 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power and turned Germany into a militaristic country dangerous to the whole world. The scale and pace of growth was impressive in its scope. The volume of military production increased 22 times. By 1935, Germany had 29 military divisions. The plans of the Nazis included the conquest of the whole world and absolute domination in it. Their main targets were Great Britain, France, the USA were also included in this list. However, the most important and most important goal was the destruction of the USSR. The Germans longed for a redivision of the world, created their own coalition, and did a great deal of work on this issue.
First period
On September 1, 1939, Germany treacherously invaded Poland. The most bloody war has begun. By that time, the armed forces of Germany had reached 4 million people and possessed a huge amount of various kinds of equipment - tanks, ships, aircraft, guns, mortars, etc. In response, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, but did not come to the aid of Poland. Polish rulers flee to Romania.
On September 17 of the same year, the Soviet Union sends troops into the territory of Western Ukraine and Belarus (which became part of the USSR since 1917), so that, with the collapse of the Polish state, in the event of an attack, the Germans would not be allowed to move further to the east. This was stated in their secret documents. Along the way, the Germans took possession of Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, then took Bulgaria, the Balkans, Greece and about. Crete.
Mistakes
At this time, Italian troops, fighting on the side of Germany, captured British Somalia, parts of Sudan, Kenya, Libya and Egypt. In the Far East, Japan occupied the southern regions of China and the northern part of Indochina. September 27, 1940 was signed by the Berlin Pact of the three powers - Germany, Italy and Japan. The military leaders in Germany at that time were A. Hitler, G. Himmler, G. Goering, V Keitel.
In August 1940, the Nazis bombarded Great Britain. In the first period of the bloodiest war in history, Germany's military successes were due to the fact that her opponents acted in isolation and were unable to develop a unified system of leadership for the joint conduct of the war, to draw up effective plans for military operations. Now the economy and resources from the occupied European countries were preparing for war with the Soviet Union.
Second period of the war
The Soviet-German non-aggression pacts of 1939 did not play their role, so on June 22, 1941, Germany (together with Italy, Hungary, Romania, Finland, Slovakia) attacked the Soviet Union. The Great Patriotic War began with the most bloody battles and the heaviest human losses.
It was a new phase of the war. The governments of Great Britain and the USA supported the USSR, signed an agreement on joint actions and military-economic cooperation. The USSR and Great Britain sent their troops to Iran in order to prevent the possibility of the Nazis creating strongholds in the Middle East.
First steps to victory
The Soviet-German front took on forms of an exceptionally fierce character. All the most powerful armed forces of the Nazis, according to the Barbarossa plan, were sent to the USSR.
The Red Army suffered huge losses, but it was able to thwart the plans for a "blitzkrieg" (blitzkrieg) in the summer of 1941. There were heavy battles that exhausted and bled the enemy groups. As a result, the Germans were unable to capture Leningrad, they were held back for a long time by the Odessa defense of 1941 and the Sevastopol defense of 1941-1942. The defeat in the Moscow battle of 1941-1942 dispelled the myths about the omnipotence and omnipotence of the Wehrmacht. This fact inspired the occupied peoples to fight against the oppression of enemies and create the Resistance Movement.
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US military base at Pearl Harbor and launched a war against America. On December 8, the United States and Great Britain, along with their allies, declared war on Japan. On December 11, Germany, together with Italy, declared war on America.
Third period of the war
At the same time, the main events were taking place on the Soviet-German front. It was here that all the military power of the Germans was concentrated. The bloodiest battle of the Great Patriotic War began on November 19. It was a counteroffensive near Stalingrad (1942-1943), which ended with the encirclement and destruction of the 330,000th group German troops. The victory at Stalingrad of the Red Army was a fundamental turning point in the Great Patriotic War. Then the Germans themselves already had doubts about victory. From that moment began the mass expulsion of enemy troops from the Soviet Union.
Mutual Aid
The turning point in victory occurred in Battle of Kursk 1943. The battles for the Dnieper in 1943 led the enemy to a protracted defensive war. When all German forces participated in the Battle of Kursk, British and American troops (July 25, 1943) destroyed the fascist regime in Italy, she withdrew from the fascist coalition. Great victories were demonstrated by the allies in Africa, Sicily, in the south of the Apennine Peninsula.
In 1943, at the request of the Soviet delegation, the Tehran Conference was held, at which it was decided to open a second front no later than 1944. In the third period, the Nazi army could not win a single victory. The war in Europe has entered its final stage.
The fourth period
In January, the Red Army launched a new offensive. Crushing blows fell on the enemy, by May the USSR managed to drive the Nazis out of the country. During the ongoing offensive, the territories of Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria, northern Norway were liberated. Finland, Albania and Greece withdrew from the war. The Allied troops, having carried out Operation Overlord, launched an offensive against Germany and this opened a second front.
In February 1945, a conference of leaders of three countries - the USA, Great Britain and the USSR - was held in Yalta. At this meeting, plans for the defeat of the Nazi army were finally agreed upon, political decisions were made on the control and reparation of Germany.
Fifth period
Three months after the victory at the Berlin Conference, the USSR agrees to wage war on Japan. At the 1945 conference in San Francisco, representatives from fifty countries drafted the UN Charter. The United States wanted to demonstrate its power and new weapons by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9) in 1945.
The USSR, having entered the war with Japan, defeated its Kwantung Army, liberated part of China, North Korea, South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. On September 2, Japan surrendered. World War II is over.
Losses
In the most bloody war, approximately 55 million people died at the hands of the Nazis. The Soviet Union bore the brunt of the war, losing 27 million people, receiving huge damage from the destruction of material values. For Soviet people, the Great Patriotic War is the bloodiest and most monstrous in its cruelty.
Large casualties were suffered by Poland - 6 million, China - 5 million, Yugoslavia - 1.7 million, and other states. The total losses of Germany and its allies amounted to about 14 million. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, died of wounds or went missing.
Results
The main outcome of the war was the defeat of the reactionary aggression on the part of Germany and its allies. Since that time, the alignment of political forces in the world has changed. Many peoples of “non-Aryan origin” were saved from physical destruction, which, according to the plan of the Nazis, were to die in concentration camps or become slaves. The Nuremberg trials of 1945-1949 and the Tokyo trials of 1946-1948 gave legal assessments to the perpetrators of misanthropic plans and the conquest of world domination.
Now, I think, the question of which war is the most bloody should no longer arise. This must always be remembered and not let our descendants forget about it, because "whoever does not know history is doomed to repeat it."
War is not only scary, but also stupid. Here are the stories of five conflicts that brought nothing but death and decline.
Since history began to be documented, there have been over 15,000 wars on Earth. Centuries later, many of them seem absurd, most of them useless.
3600 years
BC e.
1. The first catastrophic
Several hundred skeletons with broken bones and piles of shells for slings among the fragments of three-meter clay walls. This is all that remains of Hamukar - one of the first, if not the very first, city on Earth. Before the assault by the southerners from Uruk, he occupied more than 100 hectares in the north of modern Syria.
The Uruks controlled the irrigation system and the wheat trade in Mesopotamia. Hamukar's economy grew from the export of obsidian and copper tools. In the last hours of the battle, the inhabitants of a wealthy and poorly defended city tried to convert clay seals, which denoted the ownership of their property, into sling bullets.
The reasons for the conflict are unknown. There were no winners. The desert swallowed up the artisan quarters for thousands of years. In the process, the Uruks destroyed a colony of their fellow merchants in Hamukar. The copper production technology in this area was lost for a long time.
Great civilization of antiquity. It existed in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Sling shells from the ruins of Hamukara. Photo: University of Chicago Plan of the ruins of Hamukara. Photo: University of Chicago The remains of a resident of Hamukar. Photo: University of Chicago
1st century
2. Tax Holocaust
In AD 66, the Roman Empire was at the height of its military power and had no rivals in the Mediterranean. Recruits for the best army of that time were prepared by the first drill system. First on Earth engineering troops did not know what an "impregnable fortress" was. And the province of Judea still rebelled.
The high priests seethed with the need to make daily sacrifices for the health of the emperor. The inhabitants resented the rudeness of the Roman soldiers and the greed of the officials. Jerusalem rebelled when the procurator confiscated a large amount of silver from the Temple, allegedly on account of unpaid taxes by the inhabitants of the city. The Roman garrison was destroyed.
In the early years, the uprising was a success. Jerusalem was ruled by priests, the XII Legion was defeated, the rebel pirate fleet disrupted the supply of grain from Egypt to Rome. However, in 70 AD, a 60,000-strong army invaded Judea under the command of Titus, the son of Emperor Vespasian. Radicals burned food supplies so that people fought to the last, moderate citizens were cut with daggers in the streets.
Jerusalem fell when the Romans broke through the walls with cars, set fire to and stormed the Temple. As a result of hostilities, famine and epidemics, more than a million people died - half of the inhabitants of Judea. Jews for centuries lost the chance to build their own state. From their main shrine, only a fragment of the supporting wall remained - the Wailing Wall.
Formerly the Center for Jewish Religious Life. An object of pilgrimage, the only permitted place for sacrifices to God.
"The siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under the command of Titus", painting by David Roberts, 1850 / Wikipedia "Catapult". Painting by Edward Poynter, 1868 / Wikipedia
8th century
3. Vocation of nomads
In 755, An Lushan, a commander from Central Asia in the service of the Chinese, rushed to success. When the first minister died under the weak emperor Xuan Zong, he already controlled 3 out of 10 border provinces. Having recruited an army of nomads, Lushan played on the contempt of the imperial court for the "barbarians from the north" and led them to the capital of the Tang dynasty. Soon the commander declared himself the first emperor of the new Yan dynasty.
Turkic nomads helped An Lushan utterly defeat two armies of the ruling clan with a total of 150,000 people, force the current emperor to abdicate and split the country into two parts. As opposed to son former emperor Lee Hyun called for the state detachments of Uyghurs, Burmese, Arabs and Tibetans.
The war went on for 17 years and cost 36 million inhabitants. Not all of them died. Most fled or were taken prisoner, but the loss of life in 1/6 of the world's population could not but undermine the country's strength. The cities were depopulated, and for hundreds of years the history of China was not written by the Chinese.
An Lushan and Emperor Xuan Zong's escape from the capital of Chang'an to Sichuan. Image: Imperial Palace Museum / Wikipedia Ceramic figurines from the Tang Dynasty, 618-906. Photo: British Museum
19th century
4. Massacre for the coast
To export timber, minerals, cotton and mate, import technology and weapons, Paraguay badly needed its own port on the Atlantic coast. The country deliberately prepared for the massacre: it fired cannons, converted civilian steamships. 400 guns and 60,000 trained fighters - a formidable army for this time and region.
In 1864, Paraguay began a six-year confrontation with a coalition of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil for access to the ocean. The Triple Alliance at first had only 30,000 regular troops, but significantly outnumbered the enemy in artillery and ships. This determined the end of the conflict. Paraguay invaded Argentina, raided Brazil. But relying on the supply and fire support of numerous river vessels, the allied forces moved along the La Plata basin with a steam roller. Bypassing the enemy's fortresses and cutting off the fortified areas, they defeated the Paraguayan fleet and, in 5 years of the hardest campaign, took the capital Asuncion.
90% of the male population of Paraguay died at the front, and because of the cholera epidemic, women and children were drafted into the troops. In the fight, the president of the state was killed. The country never completed industrialization, and even now its main export is cotton. The bloodbath was in vain.
Uruguayan artillery, July 18, 1866. Photo: Ricardo Salles, “War in Paraguay: memories and pictures”, Rio de Janeiro, National Library / Wikipedia Brazilian soldiers, May 30, 1868 Photo: Ricardo Salles, “War in Paraguay: memories and pictures”. Rio de Janeiro, National Library / Wikipedia A trench of the Uruguayan soldiers. Photo: Ricardo Salles, Paraguayan War: Memories and Pictures. Rio de Janeiro, National Library / Wikipedia Remains of Paraguayan soldiers on the battlefield. Photo: Bia Corrêa do Lago / Wikipedia
20th century
5. Export Revolution
After defeating the dictator Batista, Castro's team devised a strategy to export the revolution. Che Guevara fought in the Congo and Bolivia, members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba were captured in Guinea. There were legends about the fighting qualities of the Cuban contingent in Angola. Cuban cells, rebel groups and missions operated in Chile, the Caribbean, and throughout Latin America.
Up to 70,000 Cuban fighters and instructors were on "foreign missions" at the same time. Impressive numbers, considering that the size of the Cuban army rarely exceeded 45,000. While the men were dying abroad, their families at home received rice, minced meat, surrogate coffee and soy milk on coupons.
Fierce battles on two continents, opposition to the elite units of South Africa, endless losses in guerrilla wars, the death of Che in Bolivia, the suffocating American blockade. There was nothing left - only old sick people in the presidium, thousands of dead and maimed, poverty and the death of hopes.
Che Guevara holding a baby during the Congo Crisis, 1965. Photo: Che Guevara Museum in Cuba / Wikipedia