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<\/a><\/p>\nIn a park between the castle and the train station there was a statue honoring the volunteers who answered “the call.” \u00a0At its foot, were wreaths of poppies (artificial in this case), which is the British flower of remembrance.<\/p>\n
A relief depicted people of all ages and walks of life falling in behind the soldiers, doing their part. \u00a0(The Moscow subway is full of similar iconography, except the soldiers it honors are those of the Great Patriotic War, which is the Russian name for World War II.)<\/p>\n I took some pictures of monuments to the Great War dead during my time in Scotland. \u00a0This is one I walked past in Tarfside; I wrote about it in one of the posts from the hike. \u00a0You can click on this picture (and others) to enlarge it and read the inscription. \u00a0It says: \u00a0“They Did Their Duty and Their Bit”.<\/p>\n Some monuments are in the middle of nowhere. \u00a0This one is between Campbeltown and Southend, on the Kintyre peninsula, surrounded by farm fields.<\/p>\n Many are large, elaborate, regimented, and information-dense. \u00a0This one is in Dunoon, a town with a ferry terminal where I landed on my way to visit Paul and Deborah Richard in Argyll. \u00a0It honors the dead from the whole Cowal Peninsula. There are 130 names on the left-hand column and 90 on the right-hand column. \u00a0Paul and I didn’t count the middle two columns.<\/p>\n You don’t have to look hard to find people with the same last names. \u00a0What the monuments don’t tell you is their relation to each other–if there was one–that might hint further of a family’s loss.<\/p>\n Most, but not all, of the monuments list the dead by rank–officers above NCOs above enlisted men. \u00a0Some towns and villages objected to this. \u00a0They wanted the dead listed by name only, with no hint of caste or implied importance. \u00a0Because many monuments were paid for “by subscription”–with money from contributors–that effort sometimes succeeded. \u00a0But not here.<\/p>\n Scotland had a huge diaspora in the early 20th Century. \u00a0Some immigrants fought under other flags. \u00a0The Dunoon tablet lists soldiers serving in the U.S. Army, the Indian Army, the Australian Expeditionary Force, the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. \u00a0But they were remembered as Scotsmen. \u00a0In the lower right-hand corner are the names of two nurses: \u00a0A. A. Scott and Helen Yeats.<\/p>\n Along the bottom of the tablet are the words, “Death is Swallowed Up in Victory.” \u00a0It’s hard to know what to make of this sentiment. \u00a0You have to believe something.<\/p>\n There are private monuments to the Great War’s victims, as well.<\/p>\n This one is at the water’s edge a few hundred yards from Paul and Deborah’s house. \u00a0 They bought the property from a man whose mother had two brothers killed in the war. \u00a0The monument appears to have been a fountain as well, catching water from the slope behind it. \u00a0There’s a lion’s head over a giant clam shell, with a copper drinking cup on a chain, at the base. \u00a0But the water no longer runs.<\/p>\n The brothers died\u00a0in the disastrous attempt to control the Dardanelles strait and go on and capture Constantinople, the seat of the Ottoman Empire. \u00a0The campaign failed. \u00a0Thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops were slaughtered running into machine gun fire. \u00a0The start of the campaign, April 25, is Anzac Day, a national day of mourning and remembrance in both countries.<\/p>\n For me, the most touching memorial was in Skipness, a village with a row of houses and a church halfway up the east coast of the Kintyre Peninsula. \u00a0It kind of says it all.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n