From the Memorial to the road runs a little roughly-flagged pathway. The pipers took their stand on either side of this, while the procession halted, turned left, and stood aligned in the road, facing the Memorial, which was veiled in three flags—the Union Jack, the Tricolour of France, and the Royal Standard of Scotland. Each unit was duly played into its place by familiar music—the members of the Highland Brigade by “Highland Laddie,” of the Lowland by “Blue Bonnets over the Border,” and of the South African by “The Atholl Highlanders.”
And here let a word be said about the rest of the assembly. Naturally there were present representatives of France—General Huguenot, commanding the First Division of the French Army; M. Delatouche, Sous-Prefet; Mm. Leroy and Dupage, Maires of Arras and St Laurent-Blangy, and certain others. There were numerous little processions and deputations come to wish us well and bear us company. There was a body of French Comrades of the Great War, most of them partially disabled, who had marched out from Arras to take their stand beside us. There was a procession of young boys, Military Cadets in uniform. There was a procession of very small children, tramping sturdily up the hill from their shattered city, carrying bright-coloured flowers, a pleasant foil to the sombre distinction of our own laurel wreaths. There was a half-troop of French Cavalry. There was a detachment of French Infantry, standing in the road, an immovable wall of horizon blue, just behind our own line of khaki. And behind these and all round, banked up on every eminence, stood a crowd—an extraordinarily attentive and reverent crowd—of some hundreds of French civilians. Their demeanour throughout was a most memorable feature of a memorable afternoon. Standing for more than an hour in solid masses, listening to a language which they could not understand and words which they could barely hear, they never once by sound or movement disturbed for a moment the course of our simple ceremony.
When all were in position, and the visiting delegates made welcome, the service of dedication began. It was conducted by the ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland and Dean of the Thistle, Dr A. Wallace Williamson, assisted by the Rev. C. N. de Vine, M.C., and concluded with the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, in which all joined. Then suddenly the pipes broke into “Lochaber No More.” General Furse stepped forward and touched a cord. The unveiling flags slipped to the ground, and the inscription stood revealed, carved on a great block of granite set in the base of the cairn:—
REMEMBER
WITH HONOUR THE
9TH
SCOTTISH DIVISION
WHO ON THE FIELDS
OF FRANCE
AND FLANDERS
1915-1918
SERVED WELL
Above the inscription, cut deep into nine lesser blocks set one above another and reaching to the very summit, came the tale of the battle honours of the Division—Loos, Delville Wood and Longueval, the Butte de Warlencourt, Arras, Passchendaele, Gauche Wood to Albert, Wytschaete and Messines, Meteren, and Ypres to the Scheldt.
By kind permission of] [“The Daily Mirror.”
With such a record to inspire both speaker and audience, General Furse’s spoken tribute, which followed, could not fail to be profoundly impressive. His words, which are recorded fully below, were of the simplest, and that very fact enhanced the nobility of his theme. His text, obviously, was written on the cairn behind him. His first words were most appropriately devoted to setting forth the difficulty experienced by the Committee in selecting the most fitting spot upon which to erect the Divisional Memorial. Finally Arras had been chosen. “The reason,” said the General, “why we finally settled on this spot was that five years ago to-day the Ninth Division covered itself with conspicuous glory over the battle-ground we see to the west of us. Its success on that day was complete and convincing. This was indeed its ‘Point du Jour.’ It was its third and final objective. It was won on the hour ordered. The Division on that day made a further advance, took more prisoners, and at a comparatively smaller loss to itself, than had fallen to the lot of any single Division in any single day up to that date in the War.”
Yet, as General Furse most justly pointed out, the passer-by had merely to glance up at the list of battlefields upon the cairn to realise that the service of the Division had not been limited to the Arras district, or indeed to any particular point in France or Flanders. Its record ran gloriously from end to end of the Western Front.
Next, in setting forth the reasons which influenced the Committee in their choice of this particular form of memorial, the speaker enlarged upon the composition of the Division—the fact that it contained units from England, The Channel Islands, South Africa, and Newfoundland, which rendered it more truly Imperial in its composition than any other Division in the British Army. “But,” he added, “it was born in Scotland; it was named after Scotland; it was fed throughout the four years of its active life in the main from Scotland; its symbol was the thistle of Scotland; and it is but right, therefore, that its monument should be fashioned in the form beloved of Scotland.”