Napoleonic Wars · War Crimes & Atrocities
The Napoleonic Wars brought industrialized violence to a continent-wide scale, and alongside the celebrated battles lay a darker record of atrocity. French imperial expansion into Spain triggered one of history's first modern insurgencies, and both occupiers and occupied committed systematic brutality. Goya's series 'The Disasters of War' stands as the era's most searing testament to what armies did to civilians.
3,000+
deaths
Victims: Ottoman prisoners of war(Estimates range from 2,000 to 4,000)
500+
deaths
Victims: Madrid civilians(Approximately 500 killed in the uprising and subsequent reprisals; exact figures disputed)
50,000+
deaths
Victims: Spanish civilians(Estimated civilian deaths from French reprisals and counter-insurgency operations across the six-year occupation; total war deaths including guerrilla fighting were far higher)
4,000+
deaths
Victims: Spanish civilians (allied population)(Estimated civilian casualties from the three-day sack; British soldiers also killed each other and destroyed property)
200,000+
deaths
Victims: Russian civilians(Estimated civilian deaths from the entire 1812 campaign including the burning of Moscow, forced displacement, starvation, and violence; total deaths (military and civilian, all sides) exceeded 500,000)