Morts Pour la France: A database of French fatalities of the Great War

Abstract

This article describes the construction and content of the Morts pour la France database. This database contains individual-level data on the universe of the 1.3 million French fatalities of the Great War who were officially recognized as war victims. It provides information on each soldier’s first and last names, dates of birth and death, circumstances of death, recruitment status, military rank and unit, and locations of birth and recruitment. We further provide datasets of military death rates at the level of 87 départements and 35 thousand municipalities along with relevant shapefiles and discuss potential applications of this database.