A war grave is a burial place for members of the

armed force A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

s or

civilians Civilians under international humanitarian law are "persons who are not members of the armed forces" and they are not " combatants if they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". It is slightly different from a non-combatant ...

who died during

military campaign A military campaign is large-scale long-duration significant military strategy plan incorporating a series of interrelated military operations or battles forming a distinct part of a larger conflict often called a war. The term derives from the ...

s or operations.

Definition

The term "war grave" does not only apply to graves: ships sunk during

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

time are often considered to be war graves, as are

military aircraft A military aircraft is any Fixed-wing aircraft, fixed-wing or rotorcraft, rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat: * Combat aircraft are ...

that crash into water; this is particularly true if crewmen perished inside the vehicle. Classification of a war grave is not limited to the occupier's death in combat but includes

military personnel Military personnel are members of the state's armed forces. Their roles, pay, and obligations differ according to their military branch (army, navy, marines, air force, space force, and coast guard), rank ( officer, non-commissioned office ...

who die while in

active service Active may refer to: Music * ''Active'' (album), a 1992 album by Casiopea * Active Records, a record label Ships * ''Active'' (ship), several commercial ships by that name * HMS ''Active'', the name of various ships of the British Royal ...

: for example, during the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

, more military personnel died of disease than as a result of enemy action. A common difference between

cemeteries A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a bu ...

of war graves and those of civilian

peacetime Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...

graves is the uniformity of those interred. They generally died during a relatively short period, in a small geographic area and consist of service members from the few military units involved. When it comes to the two World Wars, the large number of casualties means that the war graves can take up very large areas. For example, the

Brookwood Military Cemetery Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Regis ...

in the UK is the largest of its kind in the country, with graves for more than 1,600 servicemen from the First World War and over 3,400 from the Second World War and covers an area of 15 hectares (37 acres). By contrast, Finnish war graves are generally small because the Finnish government decided following the Second World War that every dead soldier or service person would be returned to their home parish, meaning that virtually all Finnish churchyards contain a war grave.

Jurisdiction

Australia

In Australia, the

Office of Australian War Graves The Office of Australian War Graves (OAWG) is a branch within the Australian Government Department of Veterans' Affairs. The branch was initially a stand-alone agency, formed 1 January 1975. In 1980, the ''War Graves Act 1980 (Cth)'' formalised t ...

controls the maintenance of war cemeteries, plots, individual graves, post-war commemorations and battle exploit memorials.

Commonwealth

In the

Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the C ...

, the

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations m ...

is responsible for the commemoration of 1.7 million deceased Commonwealth military service members at over 23,000 separate burial sites in 153 countries. It operates through the financial support of six member states (United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa).

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, 67 ship wrecks and all underwater military aircraft are "protected places" under the

Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...

which imposes restrictions on their exploration and

marine salvage Marine salvage is the process of recovering a ship and its cargo after a shipwreck or other maritime casualty. Salvage may encompass towing, re-floating a vessel, or effecting repairs to a ship. Today, protecting the coastal environment from s ...

Spain

In Spain, war graves are protected by the Law 60/1962.

United States

In the United States, war graves are managed within the

United States National Cemetery System The United States National Cemetery System is a system of 164 cemeteries in the United States and its territories. The authority to create military burial places came during the American Civil War, in an act passed by the U.S. Congress ...

and

American Battle Monuments Commission The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) is an independent agency of the United States government that administers, operates, and maintains permanent U.S. military cemeteries, memorials and monuments primarily outside the United States. ...

Germany

In Germany the state is responsible for the war graves. In addition to soldiers, victims of

National Socialism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...

and the GDR also fall under the definition of "war grave". Abroad, the

German War Graves Commission The German War Graves Commission ( in German) is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of German war graves in Europe and North Africa. Its objectives are acquisition, maintenance and care of German war graves; tending to next of kin; youth ...

(Volksbund deutscher Kriegsgräberfürsorge) takes over the care of German war dead. War graves are under legal protection and have permanent resting rights. The war grave sites are mostly integrated in civil cemeteries and can be found on almost all graveyards.

In popular culture

Rupert Brooke Rupert Chawner Brooke (3 August 1887 – 23 April 1915)The date of Brooke's death and burial under the Julian calendar that applied in Greece at the time was 10 April. The Julian calendar was 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. was an En ...

's 1914 poem, '' The Soldier'' – "If I should die, think only this of me: / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England", is a patriotic poem about the possibility of dying abroad during a war. Brooke is himself buried in a war grave on

Skyros Skyros ( el, Σκύρος, ), in some historical contexts Latinized Scyros ( grc, Σκῦρος, ), is an island in Greece, the southernmost of the Sporades, an archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Around the 2nd millennium BC and slightly later, the ...

in the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi ( Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans ...

, having died while en route to fight in the Gallipoli Campaign. The War Graves Photographic Project, founded in 2008, aims to create an archive of names and photographs of all military graves and memorials from 1914 to the present day from any nationality, although focus on

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

soldiers.''Major and Mrs Holt's battlefield guide to the Ypres Salient''

Gallery

File:Civil War graves.JPG,

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

graves,

Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery is an American military cemetery located in St. Louis County, Missouri, just on the banks of the Mississippi River. The cemetery was established after the American Civil War in an attempt to put together a fo ...

File:View from top of Tyne Cot.JPG, A

CWGC The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mi ...

cemetery from the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Tyne Cot Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) burial ground for the dead of the First World War in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. It is the largest cemetery for Common ...

in the

Ypres Salient The Ypres Salient around Ypres in Belgium was the scene of several battles and an extremely important part of the Western front during the First World War. Ypres district Ypres lies at the junction of the Ypres–Comines Canal and the Ieperlee. ...

File:Moorsele - Military Cemetery 1.jpg, ''Moorseele Military Cemetery'' from the First world War in

Moorsele Wevelgem () is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the towns of Gullegem, Moorsele and Wevelgem proper. On January 1, 2006, Wevelgem had a total population of 31,020. The total area is 38.7 ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

File:MountScopusHeadstone2.JPG, ''His last message: No more wars for me'' – A headstone in the

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

British

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Cemetery on

Mount Scopus Mount Scopus ( he, הַר הַצּוֹפִים ', "Mount of the Watchmen/ Sentinels"; ar, جبل المشارف ', lit. "Mount Lookout", or ' "Mount of the Scene/Burial Site", or ) is a mountain (elevation: above sea level) in northeast Je ...

File:East Prussia war grave 1914.jpg, German World War I war grave on the eastern front. File:SovietGravesSaaremaa.JPG, Soviet

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

graves,

Tehumardi Tehumardi is a village in Saaremaa Parish, Saare County, Estonia, on the island of Saaremaa. As of 2011 Census, the settlement's population was 77. During World War II on 8 October 1944, the Battle of Tehumardi took place near the village. A m ...

Saaremaa Saaremaa is the largest island in Estonia, measuring . The main island of Saare County, it is located in the Baltic Sea, south of Hiiumaa island and west of Muhu island, and belongs to the West Estonian Archipelago. The capital of the isla ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...

File:German military graveyard - panoramio.jpg, German World War II graves, Sologubovka,

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

File:Soldatenfriedhof Allentsteig (2017-08-23) P1260755.jpg, Allentsteig War Cemetery,

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

File: Graves_of_British_and_American_soldiers_killed_at_the_Battle_of_Paoli_in_1777.jpg, Shared war graves of British and American soldiers killed in the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

, located in the churchyard of

St. Peter's Church in the Great Valley St. Peter's Church in the Great Valley is a historic Episcopal church. It began in 1704 as a missionary parish of the Church of England in the colonial Province of Pennsylvania. The church is located in suburban Philadelphia, in East Whiteland ...

Chester County, Pennsylvania Chester County (Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Tscheschter Kaundi''), colloquially known as Chesco, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in the Delaware Valley region of the state. As of the 2020 census, the population was 53 ...

References

External links

SI 2009/3380
The Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 Order no 2009/3380 {{Authority control Burials .