This morning, I will share with you a story that is both personal and universal, a story that is both ordinary and extraordinary. Professor John Duncan Mackie was born in 1887 and died in 1978. He enjoyed a long and illustrious academic career which culminated in being appointed to the newly created professorial chair of Scottish History and Literature at Glasgow University. This was a post that he held from 1930 until 1957. Subsequently, he was appointed Her Majesty’s Royal Historiographer for Scotland, a post which he held until his death.

Professor Mackie’s personal papers are now in the care of Glasgow University’s archive services and this voluminous and eclectic collection of documents contains, amongst other things, bundles of letters, photographs, lecture notes, invitations to degree ceremonies and radio broadcast transcripts.

Indeed, it amounts to forty boxes and contains over 200 files. Collectively, these papers provide an interesting insight into an industrious life that was lived out within the intellectually stimulating and closeted confines of some of our most ancient seats of learning; Oxford, St Andrews, London and Glasgow universities. Much of Professor Mackie’s life was dedicated to researching events in the distant past. Anglo-Papal relations in the thirteenth century and obscure aspects of mediaeval feudal administration might strike one as somewhat arcane and totally removed from the day-to-day challenges of contemporary life during the first half of the twentieth century.

However, Professor Mackie’s life was one of extreme contrasts for during the First World War, he served as Captain and Acting Major of the 14th Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Here, he experienced the very worst that humanity has to offer.

At the outbreak of the war, Professor Mackie was a reservist and, on the day that war was declared, in the summer of 1914, he was undertaking his annual military training at Edinburgh University. Apparently, his initial thought upon hearing the declaration of war was that this conflict in some foreign country had very little to do with him personally and yet for so many young men across Europe, the war would not remain at a remote distance.

It was not long before Professor Mackie was thrown into the hellish maelstrom of trench warfare on the Western Front. Physically and emotionally, the impact of what he experienced would live with him for the rest of his life.

Amongst the two hundred files of papers held in John Duncan Mackie’s archives at Glasgow University, there are a couple of sketches which are utterly heartbreaking. The one you see before you is of the freshly dug graves of two young men in ‘C’ Company who fell on 24th April, 1917. Lieutenant Robert Forbes was 23 years old and Lieutenant William Lawson was just 21 years old. They fell together and they were buried together. Why did Professor Mackie elect to keep this sketch amongst his papers when he had long since disposed of the letter that originally accompanied it?

It is impossible for us to know the answer to this with any certainty. However, it is the case that Professor Mackie was on a ridge overlooking the ruined village of Beaucamp at the same time as Robert Forbes and William Lawson were killed. On that day, Professor Mackie was severely wounded when a machine gun bullet passed straight through his abdomen.

Of being wounded he later wrote:

Then a horse kicked me, and I felt a sort of double impact as his hind-leg straightened – absurd – there was no horse there. One of my men perhaps had lost his temper at my cursings and had given me an accidental bang with the butt of his rifle. I was taking some staggering paces in a little curved run, and I fell to the ground rather heavily. Then I got up again and something warm and comforting trickled down my cold thighs – it was a sharp morning – and I knew I was wounded.

For this wound he received pioneering treatment which involved dripping sterilised water through his stomach, for the bullet itself had passed right through his body. Professor Mackie went on to make a full recovery but we do know that several of his comrades were killed during the attack.

It is perfectly possible that the bullet that passed through him was also responsible for the deaths of Forbes and Lawson. Of course, we will never know precisely what happened as the regimental diary does not make it clear, but there was something about the deaths of these two young men that left a very strong impression on Professor Mackie. It might be that their deaths made him reflect upon how close he too came to dying or perhaps he felt their loss particularly keenly on account of a close personal friendship.

William Lawson was the son of a successful Edinburgh solicitor whilst Robert Forbes grew up in Oban where his parents ran a drapers business selling tweed fabric that arrived by steamer from the Hebrides. They both had their lives ahead of them until that fateful day in April 1917.

Professor Mackie was wounded again during the final weeks of the war. This time he sustained a very serious injury to his shoulder. In a last ditch attempt to avoid having his arm amputated, he underwent a procedure that resulted in his nerves being tied. The arm might have been saved but Professor Mackie was forced to live in considerable pain for the rest of his life.

There is an obvious poignancy to Professor Mackie’s purposeful act of carefully preserving these sketches of the graves of his fallen comrades. It is profoundly sad and serves as a reminder of the devastating and lasting impact of warfare. If the bullet had struck a millimetre to the left or a millimetre to the right then Professor Mackie would undoubtedly have died on that day…. just like his comrades Forbes and Lawson. His three children would never have been born and nor would his grandchildren or great grandchildren have existed. Furthermore, I would not be standing here before you today.

Of course, death or survival is often dependent upon the smallest and most unforgiving of margins – a fraction of a millimetre here or a couple hundredths of a second there. In recent months and years we have borne witness to the most desperate suffering in conflict zones around the world. From the crowded suburbs of Beirut to the shelled cities of Kharkiv and Odessa, civilian populations have been forced to live in terror. The events of 7th October 2023 remind us of the inhumanity that we are capable of inflicting upon one another and the people of Gaza and the people of Israel have both experienced unimaginable loss and grief. The impact of war is indiscriminate, rarely proportionate and always inhumane; it is both random and cruel.

Today we remember the enormous sacrifice made by Rossallians during times of war. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that lives that were cut short by war are remembered with pride here in this Chapel. We are incredibly proud that, this year, Rossall’s CCF, the oldest CCF in the country, represented cadet forces at the ceremony at the Cenotaph in London and at the British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance in the Royal Albert Hall.

Of course, it is our moral responsibility to commemorate the lives of those who have given their today for our tomorrow. Many of you, like me, will have great grandparents or perhaps great great grandparents who served in the First World War or the Second World War. There were well over a million British fatalities in these conflicts so it is not an exaggeration to say that many of us would not be here today had the capricious hand of fate taken a different course. Our existence is often more due to luck than design.

For now though, we pray for a world in which as the prophet Isaiah states,

they shall forge their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-knives: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

We pray for a world where peace reigns supreme and no living person will be forced to experience the terror, pain and grief of conflict. Thanks be to God.