OK. Few words of introduction first

It's a war cemetery and monument. One of four in a small village alone, one of ten in just few kilometer radius, one of few hundreds left by a single battle. Wildly inaccurate estimations range up to half million killed, wounded and missing soldiers; no one counted civilians. It was no static "meatgrinder" like Verdun; the battle resulted in shifting front for hundreds of kilometers and changed balance in this theatre for the rest of war. It's almost completely forgotten now, although it took place not even hundred years ago.

Belligerents were three empires; the battle took place on land of former Commonwealth, that those empires once united against, defeated and parted. I hope it links the photo and story to the topic well enough. On the cemeteries lie soldiers of at least seven nationalities; some graves have names on them, many bear only colored flag-like ribbons, many say nothig. None of the empires survived the war; they changed their forms of government, fell into civil wars, broke apart back into smaller national states; the states were usually content to live on their own and became quite allergic to the term "empire" Sometimes falling is the best empire can do.

Enough; here's photo. No EXIF (will I be finally expelled from contest for that?), for it was again took with "HDR camera", this time used solely for bracket (I was there somehow by accident, late, light was poor). Minimal geometry and levels correction in the GIMP.



Original: http://lemur.hg.pl/i/p/213qvm.jpeg

Taken with N9. It's the war cemetery in Staszkówka, Poland; the battle was fought by German and Austro-Hungarian Empires against the Russian Empire in spring of 1915 and it's called the battle of Gorlice.