LANCE CORPORAL ALEXANDER GIBBON STRACHAN
WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT
9TH OCTOBER 1917 AGE 20
BURIED: TYNE COT CEMETERY, BELGIUM
Yesterday's inscription expressed the hope/belief that this would be the war to end all wars. But this was a hope that was as old as the hills, certainly as old as the Old Testament book of Isaiah, which dates from the 8th Century BC.
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
More than 2,500 years later man was and is still 'learning war'.
Alexander Strachan, born in Islington the son of a former artillery man, enlisted in York and served with the 1st/8th Battalion West Riding Regiment. He was killed in action on the opening day of the battle of Poelcapelle. His mother chose his inscription.