In all combatant countries, remembering the two world wars was not a choice; it was a ubiquitous and enduring necessity. Given the staggering toll that the wars took in life and limb, this fact is hardly surprising. While commemoration was an integral part of mourning practices, it went beyond the personal level – the accommodation of individuals and families to loss – to shape in fundamental ways the physical, political, and cultural landscapes of the world in which we live.

No one has an accurate count of the number of memorials in Europe and beyond that commemorate the two world wars. This chapter considers only those that were constructed in the period 1914–45. In Britain and France alone, over sixty thousand local memorials adorn public squares and other sites. Similar monuments were built in towns and villages in Belgium, Italy, Yugoslavia, and throughout central and eastern Europe. These memorials were carefully built and tended in politically stable countries. In unstable states – in Ireland, for instance – they were destroyed, displaced, or simply left to be hidden by overgrown weeds.