Estimation of Transcarpathian losses in the World War I (archival and statistical research)

Abstract

Introduction. The issue of the military casualties of Transcarpathian citizens in hands of the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I is not explored yet. Objective. To establish the most probable admissible losses of Transcarpathia’s population in the World War I on the basis of bibliographic and archival materials, science-based mathematical calculations. Materials and methods. The analysis was carried out on the reliability of source bases with calculation of military losses. The authors, based on reliable sources, provide approximate calculations of admissible losses of Transcarpathi-ans in three directions: 1. based on the population of the Transcarpathia region and Austria-Hungary; 2. analyzing the territorial principle of mobilization in Austria-Hungary; 3. based on the archival data of the Czech State Military Ar-chive (Prague). Results and discussions. Based on the introduction on the concept of scale of military casualties authors obtained a wide range of casualties, namely 9,775 – 33,204 killed Austro-Hungarian soldiers, which were mobilized from the territory of nowadays Transcarpathia region. The narrowed interval estimates 13,596 – 17,594 – 23,889, although, according to the authors, the real losses are more likely to be 17,500 – 18,000. Conclusions. For the first time the authors published scientifically substantiated figures of the most probable mili-tary losses of transcarpathians in the World War I, which was a dramatic page in the history of our region.