2014Memory of Victims of the First World War - First Day Cover

In 2014 many countries commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. Memories of that War, however, differ greatly. War hardships, from until then unseen saturation of battlefields with bolt action firearms of different barrel calibres, over always more powerful air force, battleships and employment of poisoned arms to hunger and diseases, make part of the experience of the majority of war parties, which however continued on different political, social and cultural foundations in those countries.
Soldiers from divided Croatian territories fought mostly in Austro-Hungarian armed forces and most often against Serbian, Russian or Italian armies and had different opinions about official war goals, survival or reorganisation of the Dual Monarchy, or creation of the new Yugoslav state. For ideological prohibitions and considerations in the decades after 1918 not enough attention was paid to their destinies so that today we dispose only over approximate estimations on the total number of fallen soldiers, which ranges mostly between 70 and 140 thousand. Monuments to their memory were neglected, equally as the numerous burial locations, from Piave to Dniester River.
Although the battles and confrontations took place only in the farthest east of today's Croatia and Slavonia, around some Dalmatian islands and costal installations and at open sea in the Adriatic, the war was nonetheless easier for the civilian population, who has also suffered hard times.
Political disputes connected with the outbreak and outcome of the First World War are partly still actual. Therefore, as the motif for this postage stamp the irenic monument - work by distinguished Croatian sculptors Vanja Radauš and Jozo Turkalj - dedicated to the fallen in the First World War and erected in 1940 in Mirogoj - central cemetery of Zagreb, above the ossuary with remains of about 3300 soldiers from the ex-Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Serbia and other countries, has been chosen.