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.
Canadian John McCrae wrote the poem after presiding over the funeral of his friend Alexis Helmer after the second battle of Ypres in 1915. It was later that year published in Punch and after the war it’s references to poppies that grew on the graves of the fallen, resulted in the Remembrance poppy becoming the symbol of those that have died in conflict. McCrae himself died in January 1918 of pneumonia and is buried not far from Boulogne.
What I didn’t realise until today that the first mention of poppies growing on the bodies of the fallen was a letter from Lord Perth to his sister in 1694 a year after the battle of Landen which was part of the Nine Years War. He says “The ground that’s cultivated has two stalks of popie which you call cock poses… and where it is lying untilled a scarlet sheet is not of a deeper dye nor seems more smooth than all the ground is with those flowers, as if last year’s blood has taken root and has appeared as this year in flowers” He goes on to describe the field still scatted with bones and clothing of the slain.
Crusty old Victorian historian Lord Macaulay picks up on this letter and writes it into his lengthy History of England, and it was here perhaps that John McCrae gets his inspiration from to write his beautiful poem.
What point am I trying to make? Nothing other than Landen is not much more than a spit away from Sint Truiden a couple of miles at most. (About 19,000 died or were taken prisoner that day on the English Scottish and Dutch side lead by William III in the battle against the French which we lost on 29/7/1693)
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