Civilian casualty ratio
Some 7 million combatants on both sides are estimated to have died during World War I, along with an estimated 10 million non-combatants, including 6.6 million civilians. The civilian casualty ratio in this estimate would be about 59%. Boris Urlanis notes a lack of data on civilian losses in the Ottoman Empire, but estimates 8.6 million military killed and dead and 6 million civilians killed and dead in the other warring countries. The civilian casualty ratio in this estimate would be about 42%. Most of the civilian fatalities were due to famine, typhus, or Spanish flu rather than combat action. The relatively low ratio of civilian casualties in this war is due to the fact that the front lines on the main battlefront, the Western Front, were static for most of the war, so that civilians were able to avoid the combat zones.
World War I casualties
First World War civilian deaths are "hazardous to estimate" according to Michael Clodfelter who maintains that "the generally accepted figure of noncombatant deaths is 6.5 million." The figures listed below include about 6 million excess civilian deaths due to war related privations, that are often omitted from other compilations of World War I casualties. The war brought about malnutrition and disease caused by the U-boat Campaign and the Blockade of Germany which disrupted trade resulting in food shortages. The civilian deaths in the Ottoman Empire include the Armenian Genocide, Assyrian Genocide, and Greek Genocide. Civilian deaths due to the Spanish flu have been excluded from these figures, whenever possible. The figures do not include deaths during the Russian Civil War and the Turkish War of Independence.