During the springtime in France, brilliant red/orange poppies appear by the millions. May is the best month to find them in fields, creeping up through crevices, in back yards, ditches, and otherwise empty spaces. Poppies are magnificent flowers the world around.
In 1915, a poem titled “In Flanders Fields’ captured the imagery of poppies blowing in the wind on a foreign battlefield. The setting was Belgium during World War I.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
The poet, John McCrae, a Canadian soldier/poet fought in the second battle in a series of brutal battles known collectively as The Battle of Ypres in 1915. The conflict was between the Germans and the Allied Armies (Belgian, British, French, and a mostly volunteer Canadian Expeditionary Force). America did not enter the war until 2017.
McCrea, who was also a physician, survived the battle and spent several days afterward tending to the wounded. During the five engagements of the Battle of Ypres, estimated casualties may have surpassed one million.
McCrea does not describe what was likely a horrific scenario. The Germans had just begun using poisonous gas that caused death by painful asphyxiation. The allied soldiers had no forewarning or protective equipment. Much of the combat was hand to hand and took place in a somewhat confined area.
Rather than providing graphic detail, McCrea’s poem is a very emotional tribute to fallen soldiers and an appeal never to forget them or the cause for which they fought. Although declined by the first publisher, the poem went on to become enormously influential.
In 1918, an American college professor from the University of Georgia, Moira Michael was so inspired by McCrae’s poem she wrote and published a poignant response. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Shall_Keep_the_Faith
Michael began a movement to manufacture silk poppies and sell them. The proceeds would go to help disabled veterans. She appeared at a YMCA Overseas War Secretaries’ conference with a silk poppy pinned to her lapel. Michael then handed out silk poppies to several of the attendees. Thus began her campaign to turn the common poppy into a symbol for those who have died or suffered loss in war.
The National American Legion adopted the poppy as their official symbol of remembrance in 1920. Meanwhile in France Madame Guérin a French teacher and humanitarian proposed that all World War I Allied countries use artificial poppies, made by French widows and orphans, as an emblem for remembering those who gave their lives during World War I. Sales of the poppies would raise money to support the French survivors and their families. Today, the Remembrance Poppy encompasses all conflicts that have occurred since. The first American Poppy Day was organized by Madame Guérin the week before Memorial Day in May 1921. Silk poppies were made by the widows and children of the devastated regions of France were used.
Unfortunately, John McCrea died from meningitis in 1918 and never learned the magnitude of the poem’s influence. No doubt he would be pleased to know that the world has listened.
