Places > Loyal Lewis roll of honour, 1914 and after

PREFACE.
IX-
superiority, lately revealed fully to the world, has been more
than successfully defied by her opponents, and there is much
reason to believe that she is now surely, if secretly, laying to
heart the stern lessons of a national collapse unparalleled in
the history of mankind. She is certainly reaping the whirl-
wind where she sowed in many long years of insidious prepara-
tion against the liberties of peaceful nations. Social revolt
and disorder for the time reign within her borders, and the
Allies are unexpectedly confronted with the gravest anxiety
as to the existence of a competent Governmental authority with
which to treat in the final stages of the negotiations. In the
paramount general interests of Europe they must exact the
most binding guarantees from her if — what many weighty
minds consider a practicable ideal — a United States of
Europe, or a reasonable approximation thereto, is to displace
the secret distrust and uncertainty of the old days-. The
glimmerings of a genuine democratic tendency on the part
of a few of her present temporary rulers appear to give some
faint hope that a repentant feeling is taking root. A change
of heart is the necessary forerunner of a radical change in her
domestic and international outlook and policy, and the very
visible evidence of the overwhelming military resources of the
victors will foster, if it does not enforce, this desirable orienta-
tion. Stricken Germany and the weaker narions that, to
their own undoing, so disastrously backed her, cannot forget
the awful past, however loud their present evasions and
protests As for the Allies iheir proper mood seems that
reflected in the words of the "Recessional": —
"The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart :
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!"
and when Germany and her associates respond to this spirit,
the noonday of a better world is approaching.
In this short- note the main chronicle of the war cannot find
even a modest summary. For our own Empire the out-
standing facts are the heroic and resistless valour of our
soldiers and sailors, the marvellous resource and stability of
our own nation and our comrade dominions and colonies, and
our restraint and determination, alike in victory and casual
defeat. In the darkest hours, and they were not few, faith in
the justice of our ideals and in a victorious issue never really
faltered, and never in our annals have the high purpose and
material might of the Empire been more acclaimed through-
out the world.
The story of the achievement of the Island of Lewis by
land and sea is a glorious one. The recital of its losses in the
finest of its manhood is, alas, harrowing ! and in no
phase of the war was the cry of lamentation nor the agony of
anxious hearts absent in any village in the land. The fact
that out of a population of less than 30,000 over 1000 gave
up their lives, not to reckon the distressingly large proportion
of wounded and permanently disabled who have been
straggling back to their mourning homes, has stirred the
hearts and won the admiration of our kinsmen everywhere,
and of the nation at large.
The crowning sorrow of the "Iolaire," that inexplicable
calamity of last New Year's Day, only remained to fill to over-
flowing the cup of universal grief for this Island. Verily,
Lewis by its sacrifices has raised an imperishable monument
to itself in the saddened hearts of our countrymen.
May the following pages be a widespread memorial, now
and henceforth, of the days of high emprise, and, unhappily,
of sore trial and affliction.
J. L. R.
Stornoway, April, 1919.