In 1918, Finland's Socialist government attempted to hand the country over to the Communist *Union* of Socialist Republics, Russia having divested itself of its' Finniah duchy/colony. The Finns would not have it, and the eventual result was a four-month bloodletting known as the Finnish Civil War, the term the Communists/Socialists preferred.
Once most of the bloodletting was done, the butcher's bill was around 1.5% of the nation's population dead; in the American Civil War of 1861-1865, four years of battle left a percentage of about 2% of the male population dead, so it is clear that the Finns on both sides played the game very determinedly, indeed. Only about one death in six was what we would call a combat casualty; the rest were shot or bayonetted immediately after capture, died while being interrogated, or were executed or froze or starved to death in the fairly makeshift prison camps.
Assuming a current US population of around 320,000,000 you can figure the number of casualties in such an event in the USA, assuming, of course, that we quit after only 4 months. And, of course, in 1918 the primary weapons at hand were the rifle and bayonet, the bayonet useful for introducing new soldiers to the realities of their new profession by dispatching former enemy soldiers or their supporters who were deemed no longer needed as food or supply consumers.
Like these new soldiers, now decorated, trained and experienced soldiers. BTW, the decorations they are wearing appears to be the German Iron Cross, Second Class. I do not think they got them for penmanship or getting their library books back on time.
