Perhaps one was/is sometimes a stretch, but starvation and famine were a thing:
> Over two million people died in two famines in France between 1693 and 1710. Both famines were made worse by ongoing wars.[127]
> As late as the 1690s, Scotland experienced famine which reduced the population of parts of Scotland by at least 15%.[128]
> The Great Famine of 1695–1697 may have killed a third of the Finnish population.[129] and roughly 10% of Norway's population.[130]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine#17th_century
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1695–1697
But even a single year is not unreasonable:
> The Great Famine, which lasted from 1770 until 1771, killed about one tenth of Czech lands' population, or 250,000 inhabitants, and radicalised countrysides leading to peasant uprisings.[135]
