Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-01-25
The Terrible Havoc OF Wharf.-The Count
less Victims of Great Battles.

.
1t Is dif6cuitto conceive what fearful havoc
the custom of war has made of human life.
Some of its incidental ravages seem 10 defy
belief. 1t has at times entirely depOpulated
immense districts. In modern as well as an
cient times, large tracts have been left so ut
terly desolate, that one might pass from
village to village, even from city to city,
without finding solitary inhabitant The
war Of 1855 waged in the heart of Europe,
left in one Instance no less than twenty
contiguous villages, without single man
or beast. The thirty years war, in the sew
enteenth century, reduced the population of
Germany from 1900, 600 to 8, ,000, 000--three-
fourths; and that Of Wirtemburg from 50O,-
600 to 48,000-more than nine-tenths
Thirty thousand villages were destroyed
in many others the population entirely died
out and in districts, once studded with
towns and cities, there sprang up immense
forests ,...
Look at the havoc of sieges-;;n that Of
Londonderry IL 200 soldiers besides vast
number ofinhabitants; in that of Paris in
he sixteenth century, 30, 600 victims Of mere
hungeri In that ofMalplaquet, "a, 900 soldiers
alone; in that of Ismaii, 100000 of Vienna
10000; of Ostend, 10000; Of Mexico, l5O,-
900 I; OF Acre, 100000; Of Carthage, 7OoiOOOi
of Jerusalem, 1,000,000l
Mark the slaughter of single battles--At
Lepanto, $4,000; at Austerlitz, 10000; at
Eylau, 10000; at Waterloo and Qustre
Bras, one engagement in fact, 100000; at
BOrodino, $4,000; at Fontenoy, 100000 at
AIbela, 100000; at Chalons 100000 Of
Attilla's army alone 100000 Usipetes slain
By Julius Cessr in one battle, and 430, 900
Germans in another.
Take only two cases. The army Of Xerxes,
Gays DR.. Dick, must have amounted to
5,283, 800; and if the attendants were only
one third as great rs common at the present
time in Eastern countries, the sum total
must have reached nearly 100000. Yet in
one year this vast multitude was reduced,
though not entirely by death, to 300, 1000
fighting men; and of these only 900 es-
capped destruction. Jenghiz Khan, the ter
ribe raysger of Asia in the thirteenth cen
tury, shot 90,0 900 on the plains of Nessa, and
massaered 200, 900 at the storming of Chara-
ism. In the Herat district, he butchered
1000, 600, and in two cities with the depend
encies, l,70C, 900. During the last twenty
seven years of his1ong reign, he is said to
have massacred more than half a million
every year; and in the FIRST fourteen years,
| be is supposed by Chinese historians, to have
destroyed not less than l8,000,0 900; a sum
total of $4,000, 900 in forty-one years
In any view, what a fell destroyer is war
| Napoleon's wars sacrificed some 6,0O0, 900,
| and all the wars consequent on the French
Revolution, some nine or ten millions. The
| Spaniards are said to have destroyed in
| foFty-two years more than 120o0,000 ol
| American Indians. GIecian wars sacrificed
| 100000; Jewish wars, 25,OOO,0oO; the
wars of the twelve Caesars, 10000, 900; in al
the wars of the Romans before Julius Caesar
4 co GOO, 900; the wars of the Roman Empire
| OF the Saracens and the Turks, 10000, 00(
each those of the TartaTs, 80, ,0O0 600; those
| of Africa, 100000 000l "If we take into
consideration" says the learned DR.. Dick
the number not only of those who have
| fallen in battle, but of those who have per.
| isbed through the natural consequences o
war, it will not perhaps be overTating the
destruction of human life, if we were to af
iiGm that one tenth of the human race ha'
been destroyed by the ravages of war
and. according to this estimate, more thar
1 ia coo, ,0O0 600 of human beings have beer
slaughtered in war since the beginning o
the world" Edmund Burke went still
further, and Ieckoned the sum total of it
avages, from the first, at no less thar
35OOO,00O,000. ...-..r..