A place to remember

They held the line

Millions went into the trenches. This page is for the ones who didn't come back — and for the ones who did, and carried it for life.

Light a candle
In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved and were loved, and now we lieIn Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throwThe torch; be yours to hold it high.If ye break faith with us who dieWe shall not sleep, though poppies growIn Flanders fields.
— John McCrae, 1915
The roll

The cost, nation by nation

Approximate military deaths in the First World War for some of the main belligerents. Behind every bar is a generation of sons, brothers and fathers.

Germany≈ 2,000,000
Russia≈ 1,800,000
France≈ 1,400,000
Austria-Hungary≈ 1,100,000
United Kingdom≈ 890,000
Ottoman Empire≈ 770,000
Italy≈ 650,000
United States≈ 116,000

Estimates vary between historians and sources; figures here are rounded and some include deaths from disease. Civilian deaths, which numbered in the millions, are not shown.

The wall of candles

Light one for them

Click a candle to light it, or dedicate one by name. Your candles are kept on this device only — a private moment, not a public tally.

0candles lit on this device

    At the eleventh hour

    One minute of silence

    Put your phone down. Close your eyes if you like. Give sixty seconds to the ones who gave everything.

    Remembering the living, too

    No veteran left behind

    Remembrance isn't only for the fallen. Those who came home carried the war with them, and too many have ended up homeless in the shadow of the memorials built to honor them.

    Veterans on the Rise was started by four veterans in 1989 and is now a 501(c)(3) charity offering housing, health care and life-skills support to veterans in the Washington, D.C. area. That is the cause behind every fee $TRENCHES earns.

    Visit veteransontherise.org ↗ How the fees flow
    Lest we forget