During the First World War (1914–1918), about a thousand soldiers of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire who died in Maribor were buried in the Pobrežje Cemetery.
In the early 1930s, the military graves were exhumed and the remains of 970 soldiers (928 with names and surnames, and 42 unknown) were transferred to a common tomb, which was arranged between 1932 and 1937. The tomb contains soldiers from numerous Austro-Hungarian regiments and all branches of the military: infantry, cavalry, artillery, aviation, and the navy.
Among them are members of almost all nations of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire: Austrians, Bosniaks, Czechs, Montenegrins, Croats, Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Slovaks, Slovenes, Serbs, Ukrainians, and Germans.
In addition, the remains of prisoners of war from the former Tsarist Russia, the Kingdom of Serbia, and the Kingdom of Italy, who were buried at the Pobrežje cemetery, were also transferred to the tomb. They died between 1914 and 1918 during the construction of the Fala power plant, as prisoners from the Šterntal camp near Kidričevo.
In 1933, the remains of 119 Italian prisoners of war were transferred to a tomb in Ljubljana.
Among the prisoners of the Tsarist Russian army buried in the Pobrežje Cemetery are soldiers from Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, and Moldova.