Commemorating World War I Soldiers as Martyrs

Jan Willen van Henten takes a speech by the English Bishop Arthur Winnington Ingram from 1914 for the bereaved families of fallen soldiers as point of departure for a survey of the commenemoration of soldiers who died in World War 1 as martyrs. Winnington Ingram characterises the soldiers whom he commemorates as martyrs and links them to Stephen, the proto-martyr of the Church (Acts 7). Van Henten explores whether Winnington Ingram's speech is an isolated case or if others also commemorated soldiers who were killed during the Great War as martyrs, indirectly of explicitly. Van Henten concentrates on several case studies about German and British soldiers: a mosaic reffering to the soldiers, a chapel at two German military cemeteries in Belgium (Hooglede and Menen), and a stained glass window and a table with names of the fallen at the All Saints Church at Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire). This chapter discusses the partiularities of the commemorations as well as how the soldiers are associated with martyrdom and the reward of martyrs with the help of Christian pictorial traditions and specific biblical passages.