War trophy

War trophies decorating the vault of the chapel of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides, in Paris.
Flag, trophy of the Winter War
A war trophy from the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965 at Longewala, India (a Pakistani M4 Sherman)
Russian flags and standards taken as trophies by the Swedish navy at the Battle of Svensksund being carried into Storkyrkan (1790), painting by Pehr Hilleström.

A war trophy is an item taken during warfare by an invading force. Common war trophies include flags, weapons, vehicles, and art.

History

In ancient Greece and ancient Rome, military victories were commemorated with a display of captured arms and standards. A trophy (from the Greek tropaion) was originally a war memorial assembled from such items on a battlefield. The Roman triumph also displayed these items as well as cultural objects, which later came to be called war trophies. Body parts of slain enemies have sometimes served as trophies since antiquity, in a practice called human trophy collecting. The recovery of Roman eagles taken as trophies by enemy forces sometimes inspired years of added warfare.

Having emerged victorious from the Russo-Japanese War, Japan looted the Honglujing Stele from occupied China as a war trophy it remains within the grounds of the Tokyo Imperial Palace to this day.

In more recent times,[ambiguous] it has been common for soldiers to return home with souvenirs, such as enemy weapons and flags, while larger military items captured in battle, particularly weaponry such as machine guns and artillery pieces, became the property of the state to which the soldiers responsible for the capture belonged.

In the 20th century, the victorious alliance states removed large quantities of property, including cultural objects. After the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles authorized the removal of large amounts of property from Germany, which it termed "reparations".

In medieval South Indian wars, there are accounts of victorious rulers taking statues and other objects from the enemy territories as war booty. Following the Vatapi campaign of 642 CE, local tradition holds that the Pallava commander Paranjothi brought back a Ganesha statue. The Mahavamsa states that during the Pandyan king Sri Mara Sri Vallabha’s invasion of Sri Lanka, he carried away wealth, including a golden Buddha statue, as booty. Furthermore, Chola sources state that following the Kalyani campaign of the Chola emperor Rajadhiraja, a door-guardian statue was brought back to the Chola country. In 1284 AD, during the reign of the Pandyan king Kulasekara I, a Pandyan expedition was sent to Sri Lanka under the command of Ariya Chakravarti. The expedition reached Subhagiri, the capital of Sinhalese and returned with war booty that reportedly included the Tooth Relic of the Buddha.

After the Second World War, the United States Army's 28th Infantry Division's 5,000 men left the European Theater of Operations with 20,000 war trophies. The Potsdam Conference authorized the removal of certain property from Germany, such as the merchant marine fleet. Germany, during the war, had removed large quantities of property from the countries that it had occupied. In some cases, for example the Soviet "trophy brigades", official looting was euphemised as the taking of "trophies".

In the present day, the taking of war trophies continues, but weapons that are taken home as souvenirs are often deactivated first. According to Julian Thompson, only a small number of soldiers will take home war trophies, to avoid trouble – in a highly publicized case in 2012, British soldier Danny Nightingale was subject to a court-martial for illegally bringing a Glock with him after his tour in Iraq.

Cultural objects

Article 56 of the Hague Convention of 1907, stated:

The property of municipalities, that of institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, even when State property, shall be treated as private property.

All seizure of, destruction or wilful damage done to institutions of this character, historic monuments, works of art and science, is forbidden, and should be made the subject of legal proceedings.

However, the article was not much respected during the remainder of the century.

In 1954, a further convention was signed at the Hague: Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and two protocols have strengthened its force.

Many works of art moved from their pre-war locations during the turmoils of the 20th century. UNESCO, the United Nations agency responsible for culture has been seeking to resolve issues relating to cultural objects displaced in connection with the Second World War. However, the conference in Spring 2007 failed to reach a consensus on a draft non-binding declaration.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "国宝級・唐の石碑「鴻臚井碑」はなぜ皇居に眠っているのか…中国の市民団体が訴える「返還」を考える：東京新聞デジタル". 東京新聞デジタル (in Japanese). Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  2. ↑ "Japan urged to 'correct historical errors', return Tang dynasty stele to China". South China Morning Post. 2026-01-17. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  3. ↑ Feng, Jane Perlez and Bree (2014-08-21). "Chinese Group Calls on Japan to Hand Over Tang-Era Stele". Sinosphere Blog. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  4. ↑ To The Victor Belongs the Spoils provides an academic perspective of Australian war trophy practices during the twentieth century. Major R. S. Billett, "War Trophies from the First World War", 1999, provides an illustrated history of Australia's World War One trophies of war, while A. P. Fox, "Silent Sentinels: The War Trophies of the First New Zealand Expeditionary Force in War and Peace", B. A. Hons, Otago University 1987, examines the story of New Zealand's World War One war trophy collection (available on-line at www.kiamatetoa.com[link removed]).
  5. ↑ Some of these removals, are listed in Looted art.
  6. ↑ Jain, Meenakshi (2019). Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples. Aryan Books International. p. 9.
  7. ↑ Kanisetti, Anirudh (2022). Lords of the Deccan. New Delhi: Juggernaut Books. p. 112. ISBN 9789391165055.
  8. ↑ Sastri, H. Krishna (1916). South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses (PDF). Government Press, Madras. p. 254.
  9. ↑ Ramakrishna Rao, K. V. (2019). "Rajendra Chola's Marches Through Andhra, Karnataka and Maharastra". Proceedings of the Tamilnadu History Congress: 49.
  10. ↑ Davis, Richard H. (1999). Lives of Indian Images. Princeton University Press. p. 63.
  11. ↑ Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. (1929). The Pandyan Kingdom: From the Earliest to the Sixteenth Century. London: Luzac. pp. 184–185.
  12. ↑ Ziemke, Earl F. (1975). The US Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944-1946. Washington DC: Center of Military History, United States Army. p. 328. LCCN 75-619027. Archived from the original on 2007-12-13.
  13. ↑ "Danny Nightingale case: Is the era of the war trophy over?". BBC News. 28 November 2012.
  14. ↑ Avalon Project – Yale Law School.
  15. ↑ 1954 Convention – Summary on UNESCO website
  16. ↑ This followed a recommendation from the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation (Paris, 7–10 February 2005) referred to in No.45 of Resolutions of UNESCO General Conference, October 2005.
  17. ↑ Paper (117 X 17) for the agenda of the UNESCO General Conference "REPORT BY THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL ON THE PREPARATION OF A DRAFT DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES RELATING TO CULTURAL OBJECTS DISPLACED IN CONNECTION WITH THE SECOND WORLD WAR" (Paris, 17 September 2007).