Scots Anzacs, Lemnos and Pericles at the Scottish National War Memorial

 

Scots Anzacs
No doubt thousands of Scottish-born Australians served with the Anzacs and seven of these are buried in Lemnos' Military Cemeteries - Private James Edgar from Lithgow, Colonel Richard Linton from Dalton, Private John Park from Orkney, Private Eric Blomqvist from Aberdeen, Private Kenneth Cameron from Conon, Private Ernest Dingwall fron Inverness and Lance Corporal John McPhail from Dingwall. And of course the 3rd Australian General Hospital's Regimental Piper Archibald Monk was born in Benbecula in the Western Isles. More of the Scottish Anzac link to Lemnos and Gallipoli later.
In memory of the service of these Scottish Australian diggers, I read this story from the war memorial in Edinburgh and a link to Greece and Pericles.

The Scottish National War Memorial, Edinburgh
In the heart of Edinburgh, within its wonderful Castle environs, lies the impressive Scottish National War Memorial. It was erected in the 1920's, following public subscriptions.
It honours the 150,000 soldiers from Scotland who died in the First World War, as well as those from subsequent conflicts.
It contains specific memorials to the various famous Scottish regiments that have fought in these conflicts, as well as specific memorials to nurses and women.

 

 

It specifically memorialises the Scottish Women's Hospital that served on the Salonika Front - with a number of Australian medical and ancillary staff, including Myles Franklin.
One of the Scottish Regiments honored is the Royal Scots Fusiliers. They served in Greece - on Lemnos, during the Gallipoli campaign and in the long Salonika campaign.

 

 

A guide book produced in the 1930 records that the memorial to the Royal Scots Fusillers contains at its centre a carved wreath of laurel, inscribed with the words from Pericles' historic oration, quored by Thucydides, upon theAthenians who had perished in the Peloponnesian War:

                                   "The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men, and
                                     Their story is not graven in stone over their clay,
                                     but abides everywhere without visible symbol,
                                     woven into the stuff of other men's lives."


The Memorial holds an annual Anzac/Gallipoli Day service on 25th April, to commemorate the landings at Gallipoli, organised by the Royal British Legion Scotland.
For more information on this memorial, click here.
If you are visiting Scotland, make sure you visit this memorial.
Jim Claven
Secretary
Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee