Lets take the Siege of Leningrad / St. Petersberg, well accepted by historians to be an attempted Genocide against the Slavs. Hitler's plan was to kill everyone in the city, and Hitler's methodology was starvation (cut off the food supply, and watch everyone die inside the city).
No matter how you look at it, Leningrad was an atrocity on a massive scale. With over 3-million dead in this singular siege alone, I think we can safely declare the Siege of Leningrad to be the biggest loss-of-life in a __singular__ military operation ever... albeit spread over multiple years (it was a big campaign), but a singular operation nonetheless.
Nothing else in history compares. Not the atomic bombs in Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Not the Toyko firebomings. Not even Holocaust (because the "Operation Barbarossa" was ~20-million dead, far dwarfing the Holocaust. Leningrad was just one piece of the overall plan).
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That's what I mean by total war. War on a scale and scope so massive, it makes the rest of history look puny in comparison.
Arguably the attacks on say, Nanking or Manila, are more akin to historical (with soldiers raping and pillaging as they see fit). I can find historical examples similar to Nanking / Manila for certain (Mongols or whatever). But not even the Mongols starved 3+ million to death in an explicit campaign of genocide in a singular military operation (The Mongols, as "evil" as they were, sought conquest and not genocide on this scale)
And we've got all sorts of bad examples to choose from WW2. Tokyo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dresden, Berlin, Leningrad, Stalingrad.
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You won't see Joan of Arc destroying cities on this scale... nor William , nor King Henry. Some of the Crusades were known to be bloody... but even the Siege of Jerusalem (1st Crusade) resulted in "only" 70,000 deaths, a number that is far smaller than the total-warfare of the WW2 era.
Well... maybe William the Conqueror did destroy a few towns actually, if I recall. But not on anything approaching WW2 scales.
> With over 3-million dead in this singular siege alone, I think we can safely declare the Siege of Leningrad to be the biggest loss-of-life in a __singular__ military operation ever... [...]
> Nothing else in history compares.
That's what I mean by total war. War on a scale and scope so massive, it makes the rest of history look puny in comparison.
> Mongols or whatever [...] but not even the Mongols starved 3+ million to death in an explicit campaign of genocide in a singular military operation.
> The mongols killed up to 2 million people in less than two weeks
I very much doubt that account. The Holocaust was 15,000 deaths-per-day at its peak, and that was a fully industrialized gas-and-bury operation.
2-million in 2 weeks is 140,000 people killed per day, or roughly 10x "more efficient" than the Holocaust at its peak.
I have severe doubts that the Mongols in the 1200s had the efficiency of the Nazi genocide operation. Just from technology alone: the Nazis were able to use poison gas and bullets to quickly and efficiently kill, as well as the use of fully loaded Trains and logistics to ensure that these death-machines were operating at maximum efficiency.
Lets take the Siege of Leningrad / St. Petersberg, well accepted by historians to be an attempted Genocide against the Slavs. Hitler's plan was to kill everyone in the city, and Hitler's methodology was starvation (cut off the food supply, and watch everyone die inside the city).
No matter how you look at it, Leningrad was an atrocity on a massive scale. With over 3-million dead in this singular siege alone, I think we can safely declare the Siege of Leningrad to be the biggest loss-of-life in a __singular__ military operation ever... albeit spread over multiple years (it was a big campaign), but a singular operation nonetheless.
Nothing else in history compares. Not the atomic bombs in Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Not the Toyko firebomings. Not even Holocaust (because the "Operation Barbarossa" was ~20-million dead, far dwarfing the Holocaust. Leningrad was just one piece of the overall plan).
------
That's what I mean by total war. War on a scale and scope so massive, it makes the rest of history look puny in comparison.
Arguably the attacks on say, Nanking or Manila, are more akin to historical (with soldiers raping and pillaging as they see fit). I can find historical examples similar to Nanking / Manila for certain (Mongols or whatever). But not even the Mongols starved 3+ million to death in an explicit campaign of genocide in a singular military operation (The Mongols, as "evil" as they were, sought conquest and not genocide on this scale)
And we've got all sorts of bad examples to choose from WW2. Tokyo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dresden, Berlin, Leningrad, Stalingrad.
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You won't see Joan of Arc destroying cities on this scale... nor William , nor King Henry. Some of the Crusades were known to be bloody... but even the Siege of Jerusalem (1st Crusade) resulted in "only" 70,000 deaths, a number that is far smaller than the total-warfare of the WW2 era.
Well... maybe William the Conqueror did destroy a few towns actually, if I recall. But not on anything approaching WW2 scales.