World War II
Great article by Paul Sheehan in the Sydney Morning Herald a couple of days ago about the realities of World War II:
Australia lost 40,101 war dead in a nation of 6.9 million (0.6 per cent of the population), twice as many, per capita, as the United States, which lost 410,662 war dead from a population of 129 million (0.3 per cent). Australia even suffered loss almost as much as Great Britain, 366,000 war dead out of 47.5 million people (0.77 per cent).
then:
In Western Europe, at its peak the war was fought between 15 Allied and 15 Wehrmacht divisions. On the Russian front, more than 400 Red Army and German divisions clashed for four years. This is where the Nazis lost 88 per cent of their military dead.
and:
So ruthless was Russia's scorched-earth policy that the Soviet Union lost about 35 million war dead, including 18 million soldiers, from a population of 195 million - 18 per cent. Almost one person in five. Compare this with the 5.6 million German war dead (7 per cent) or the British, Australian and American war death rates.