"Three Great Wars"

AM returning from a trip to Bavaria, where I stayed at the mountain town of Bischofsgrün.

It is a ski resort in winter, and the focus of several well-waymarked hiking trails especially popular in summer.

One trail, the Bischofsgrün Panormaweg, is rather disappointing as panoramwegs go - it never gains enough height to give extensive views of the surrounding countryside.

But it passes a site of military and historic interest - a former sanatorium that was turned into a military hospital from 1914-20.

Entrance to the part of the grounds used as a cemetery

Memorial near the entrance, which bears the inscription (roughly translated): From 1914-20 the sanatorium was a military hospital. Of the soldiers who died there, 21 were buried in the grounds. The small cemetery was redesigned in 1954 and expanded as a soldiers' memorial by Paul Dürrbeck. Since then it has been a discreet place of pilgrimage to dead soldiers.

A search on the internet reveals Dürrbeck was the chief physician of the sanatorium, and that in 1954 he had a bell-tower memorial erected for the dead of "the three great wars since 1870," ie the Franco-Prussian War, WW1 and WW2.

Bell-tower memorial

The roundel at the bottom of the bell tower appears to list the number of soldiers from the town killed in each of those three wars

A specifically WW2 memorial

"The stone tent of the dead soldiers" (a literal translation that probably does not capture the true spirit of the wording)

Inside the "stone tent" - perhaps "tabernacle" is a less literal but better translation

Visitors, at least those from Germany, are presumably expected to know the identity of "the three great wars since 1870."

It made me wonder what wars would be thought of by other nationalities, given the same wording.

The two world conflicts would be cited by Brits, I am sure, but which would be the third?

Older people would probably name the Korean War, but younger ones might well instead say the Falklands War.

Americans would certainly include WW2, but perhaps the Korean and Vietnam Wars would squeeze out WW1.