The Monument to the Heroes of the Military Engineers' Army (Romanian: Monumentul Eroilor din Arma Geniului; often called Leul - "the Lion") in Bucharest, Romania is dedicated to the heroism and sacrifice of the military engineers who fought in the Romanian Army during World War I, of whom nearly a thousand were killed in action and many more wounded.
Unveiled in June 1929, it is located at the intersection of Bulevardul Geniului and Bulevardul Iuliu Maniu, across the street from Cotroceni Palace. One of Bucharest's most recognisable monuments, it was financed entirely through donations from veteran officers of the Military Engineers' Army and executed by Spiridon Georgescu.
Set into the pyramidal base are bronze reliefs depicting the engineers in action. Four life-sized bronze statues represent troops from the Military Engineers' Army — a sapper, a pontoon bridge builder, a Signal Corps engineer and a Căile Ferate Române soldier.
But the monument's chief component is a statue of a lion, which stands atop the pedestal. With his front paws he tramples upon the barrel of a cannon (upon which sits a Pickelhaube); a flag flows downward. The lion symbolises the endurance, daring and bravery shown by Romanian troops between 1916 and 1918, especially at the dramatic battles during the summer of 1917 — Mărăşti, Oituz and Mărăşeşti.
Carved into the pedestal in relief is the inscription, "Spuneţi generaţiilor viitoare că noi am făcut suprema jertfă pe câmpurile de bătaie pentru întregirea neamului" - "Tell succeeding generations that we made the supreme sacrifice on the fields of battle for the union of the people". A medallion on the steps at the bottom reads, "" - "To the heroes of the Military Engineers' Army 1916-1919".
Famous quotes containing the words monument, heroes, military and/or army:
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“All great heroes think alike.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Nothing changes my twenty-six years in the military. I continue to love it and everything it stands for and everything I was able to accomplish in it. To put up a wall against the military because of one regulation would be doing the same thing that the regulation does in terms of negating people.”
—Margarethe Cammermeyer (b. 1942)
“I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this side of the country. His life is in some respects more adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and there is a greater interval of time at least between him and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines; there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and other improvements come steadily rushing after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)