The Monument
of the First World War
"So
many people could not shed their blood in vain" - these words can be read
on the plinth.
The Muse of poetry listens to her emotions and hopes while the Muse of
history listens to reality.
So many years after the 1920 peace treaty was signed in Versailles' Trianon
Palace we have to realize that the war in which these 202 men from Tata
died was beyond all reason for us as well as for them...
Even the monument itself caused unrest. In 1926, when the statue, a prizewinner
at the War Veteran Artists' Exhibition created by Elemér Fülöp, was erected
Tóváros did not yet have any war monument of its own. However, according
to Hungarian bravado, it is impossible for us to lack what our neightbour
does have. That is why another war monument was set up, although five years
later, in Tóváros: a two-figured sculpture created by Tata born Béla Lajos.
The inhabitants of Tóváros could at last calm down. They had the following
words engraved on the plinth: "We paid for all we were bound to pay..."