TRUE LOVE BY LIFE
TRUE LOVE BY DEATH IS TRIED
LIVE THOU FOR BRITAIN
WE FOR BRITAIN DIED

CORPORAL CHARLES ALEXANDER BOGIE

CANADIAN INFANTRY

21ST SEPTEMBER 1917 AGE 34

BURIED: BRUAY COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, DENMARK


There's an interesting variation from the original in this inscription, was it misremembered or was it intentional?
On 16 February 1918 The Times published this suggestion:

For a Memorial Tablet
True love by life - true love by death - is tried:
Live thou for England - we for England died.

It was signed A.C.A. who is thought to have been Arthur Campbell Ainger (1841-1919) a Classics master at Eton and the author of a number of hymns including, 'God Moves in a Mysterious Way'. Ainger's word was England, whoever chose Corporal Bogie's inscription and it looks like a Mrs NA Flower, Sinlalula, Saskatchewan, used the word Britain.
Charles Alexander Bogie was born in Dumfries, Scotland in 1882; he was a Scotsman not an Englishman. At some point he emigrated to Canada from where he enlisted on 12 November 1914. Some Canadians already felt Canadian but many simply felt that they were Britons, even 'better Britons', abroad. I would suggest that this is how Bogie felt.
Bogie served with the 10th Battalion Canadian Infantry and died at No. 22 Casualty Clearing Station of wounds - "shrapnel wounds, left leg, left foot, left hand and face" ... for Britain.