World War 1 The Cost of War

From the first gunshot fired in anger in 1914 until the 11^th hour of the 11^th day on the 11^th month in 1918, The Great War took its toll on human life.

Of the 65 million men who fought in World War 1:

8 million men were killed in battle.

2 million died of illness and disease.

21.2 million were wounded.

7.8 million were taken prisoner or went missing in action.

6.6 million civilians were killed.

From every nation who took part in the combat there barley was a family who hadn't lost a relative in the war, a brother a son a father a nephew an uncle, some towns and villages lost all of their male members of fighting age.

The war took its toll on the whole of the European Economy, financially Europe was on it's knees.

Many industries that were thriving in peace time were retooled for war production . When the war was over Governments didn't help them retool back to what they used to produce , therefore many went broke.

Also because of the high death and wounded toll many villages were robbed of skilled tradesman such as printers, smiths , carpenters, skills that took a long time to learn and rebuilding required many of these people .This ruined the infrastructure and business practices of the local villages and crippled many rural areas.

During the war the estimated costs for each combatant nation are listed below

in US DOLLARS

United States : 22,625,253,000

Great Britain : 35,334,012,000

France : 24,265,583,000

Russia : 22,293,950,000

Italy : 12,413,998,000

Belgium : 1,154,468,000

Romania : 1,600,000,000

Japan : 40,000,000

Serbia : 399,400,000

Greece : 270,000,000

Canada : 1,665,576,000

Australia : 1,423,208,000

New Zealand : 378,750,000

India : 601,279,000

South Africa : 300,000,000

British Colonies : 125,000,000

Germany : 37,775,000,000

Austria-Hungary : 20,622,960,000

Turkey : 1,430,000,000

Bulgaria : 815,200,000

The financial cost of war was ongiong for years after the cease fire had been signed, disabled soldiers had to be cared for, the rebuilding of homes and industries became priority and war memorials were built in every town village and city of soldiers who had perished in battle.

Graves had to be cared for and cemeteries had to be built for the soldiers who perished in The Great War, bodies of soldiers who died in the war were removed from their shallow graves at the trenches and taken to the newly created cemetries.