MAJOR HENRY FRANCIS FARQUHARSON MURRAY
BLACK WATCH
23RD AUGUST 1917 AGE 36
BURIED: BRANDHOEK NEW MILITARY CEMETERY NO. 3, BELGIUM
"At 11 a.m. nothing less than a tragedy to the Battalion occurred. The Commanding Officer, Major H.F.F. Murray, temporarily in command owing to Lieutenant-Colonel Innes having been ordered not to take part in the attack, on account of the necessity for keeping at least one senior officer to replace a possible casualty, had made his headquarters in a captured German concrete dug-out. Unfortunately the entrance faced the enemy, and a shell entered it, killing 12 of the Battalion Headquarters staff and wounding nine others, among the former being Major Murray ... "
A History of the Black Watch in the Great War 1914-1918 Volume III
Major Murray's fate was the result of previous success, the German dug-out had been captured by the British but its entrance now faced the wrong way making it vulnerable to its previous owners' shells.
Henry Murray, a professional soldier who had fought in the South African War, was the son of a soldier. He married Madeline Elizabeth Giles in January 1915 and it was she who chose his inscription. The line "who dies if England live(s)" comes from the last verse of the poem Rudyard Kipling wrote in September 1914 in response to the outbreak of war, For All We Have and Are. However, Kipling didn't write the other line of the inscription, 'Who lives if England dies'. Kipling's associated line was, 'What stands if Freedom fall'. This is the last verse:
No easy hope or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.
There is but one task for all -
One life for each to give.
What stands if Freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?
Murray's inscription as written forms the text on the final frame of an official film made in 1916 showing preparations for an attack on the Somme, 'Sons of Empire' Episode 4. This is what will have given the saying prominence. That and a deeply romantic painting by Charles Spencelayh, painted in 1914, which shows a dying soldier on a virtually empty battlefield with the rays of the setting sun lighting up a phantom Union Jack in the sky. It's called 'Who dies if England live'.
Before I finish let me just show you that the sentiments of Murray's inscription and Kipling's verse were common to both sides. In 1914 the German poet Heinrich Lersch published own poetic response to the outbreak of war - 'Soldaten Abschied', the Soldier's Farewell. Each of the five verses ends with the same words - "Deutschland muss leben, und wenn wir sterben mussen", Germany must live even if we must die.
