Doiran Memorial, Military memorial in Doirani, Greece.
The Doiran Memorial is a war memorial in Doirani, northern Greece, made up of four square piers arranged around a tall central obelisk. It stands near the shore of Lake Doirani and commemorates British soldiers who fell in Macedonia and Serbia during the First World War.
The memorial was built after the First World War to honor soldiers of the British Salonika Force who served on the Macedonian front between 1915 and 1918. The battles fought around Lake Doirani were among the most difficult on that front, and the site was chosen to mark that sacrifice.
The main inscription, in English and Greek, names 418 officers and 10,282 other ranks of the British Salonika Force and commemorates 1,979 men with no known grave. A second inscription records that the land was a free gift of the Greek people. At the 1926 unveiling, a British Marine band played Abide with Me, buglers sounded the Last Post and Evzones laid a wreath for the President of Greece.
The memorial stands on Colonial Hill beside the Doiran Military Cemetery, near the old Doiran railway station and the south-eastern shore of Lake Doirani. It is reached from the village of Doirani, close to the Greek border with North Macedonia. The ground is a mound, so expect a short climb to the piers and the central pylon.
The carved lions and laurel wreaths on the piers were made by the sculptor Walter Gilbert, who worked on several British memorials from that era. His name is rarely mentioned at the site, even though his designs give the structure much of its character.
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