World War I was one of the most destructive events in human history, killing 16 million soldiers and civilians worldwide, including 116,000 Americans. The Great War also destroyed much of the next generation: those who would have provided leadership to Europe in the 1920s and '30s, when once again the continent began sliding toward annihilation.
World War I also happens to be the most spectacularly memorialized war in history. In Britain alone, there are more than 50,000 war memorials dedicated to it. What many Americans may not know is that three of the greatest World War I memorials in the world are located in the Midwestern United States: in St Louis, Kansas City and Indianapolis.
The Soldiers' Memorial Museum, in the heart of downtown St. Louis, is a huge and impressive building, all mosaics and marble, dedicated in 1936 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a memorial to the 1,075 men from St. Louis who died in World War I. Its centerpiece is a vast black granite cenotaph — Greek for "empty tomb" — covered with names of the fallen in neat rows.
The second particularly impressive World War I site in the Midwest is the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, dedicated on November 11 (Armistice Day), 1926, after a remarkable fundraising campaign. In less than a year, $2.5 million was raised through donations from over 83,000 separate contributors. It is centered on a 268-foot-tall tower that still dominates the skyline of this part of the city. A "flame of inspiration" burns from the tower each evening. Below this is the "Great Frieze" depicting the optimistic story of humanity's march from war to peace. The names of the 441 Kansas City war dead are listed inside one of the two temple-like buildings that sit on either side of the tower. There are also two huge sphinxes: "Memory," which faces the east toward the battlefields of Europe. And "Future," which faces the west, toward an uncertain horizon.
Third, in Indianapolis, sits War Memorial Plaza, the biggest war memorial project ever undertaken in the United States. Five downtown blocks were razed to make space for Its three distinct elements: a cenotaph, an obelisk, and a war memorial shrine. The cenotaph — which memorializes James Bethel Gresham of Evansville, the very first American casualty of the war — is surrounded by four columns, topped by eagles. General John Pershing laid the cornerstone of the memorial shrine on July 4, 1927. Near the base of its 100-foot black granite obelisk are four-by-eight-foot panels to represent law, science, religion and education; the sculptor said, "upon these four fundamentals are built the foundation of our nation, without any one of which it could not long survive." Then there is the memorial's "shrine room" — a huge American flag hangs over an empty tomb, blue lights shine from above, with light coming from an ornate chandelier known as "Star of Destiny." The massive ceiling is supported by dramatic, blood-red marble columns. American historian Jared Mayo said: "Among American war memorials, there is no equivalent to the shrine room."
Like all war memorials, these three represent a paradox — they are elaborate celebrations of nationalism and military success that focus on the dead and the cost of war. For all their splendor, these memorials, like Memorial Day itself, draw our minds back to the men and women who fight the wars, and who pay the price for our freedoms.
Mayor Bernard Dickmann of St. Louis, at the public opening of the St. Louis Soldiers' Memorial in 1938, said: "We who live, because others have died, should make of this shrine a place of love and a monument of peace."
These are fitting words for any Memorial Day.
James MacLeod, professor of history at the University of Evansville, has researched, written and lectured on war memorials. His book "Evansville in World War II: A City Transformed" will be published by The History Press later this year. He wrote this for What It Means to Be American (whatitmeanstobeamerican.org), a national conversation hosted by the Smithsonian and Zocalo Public Square (zocalopublicsquare.org).