A century has passed since John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields.
McCrae, a Montreal doctor born in Guelph, wrote the poem in one sitting, driven by despair and anger, following the death of his friend, Lt. Alexis Helmer on May 1, 1915 during the Second Battle of Ypres.
Helmer was grievously wounded when an artillery shell exploded in front of him. He died at McCrae’s medical post, located at alongside the Yser Canal just north of the ancient trade city of Ypres (Ieper) in the Belgium region of Flanders.
The poem was published in London-based Punch magazine on Dec. 8, 1915 and it quickly became the synonymous with the carnage of the First World War.
Today, as Canadians have for nearly a century, we recite it as part of Remembrance Day as an act of remembrance, as a way to pay homage to veterans, especially those who died. Over 62,000 Canadians were killed in the First World War, according to the Canadian War Museum.
McCrae was born in Guelph in 1872 into a military family. His father, David McCrae, served with the 47th Foot, Lancashire Regiment in 1865 during the U.S-based Fenian invasions. McCrae senior organized an artillery battery at the start of the First World War and accompanied it overseas. He did not, however, reach the front lines like his son.
Prior to the First World War, John McCrae had already had a lengthy military career. He served as a cadet, and then a gunner as second lieutenant with the No. 2 Battery of Provisional Brigade, Field Artillery based out of Guelph. He was later appointed captain of the Queen’s Own Rifles varsity company while attending the University of Toronto. Then, in 1900, McCrae put his medical career on hold to join the Canadian Field Artillery (CFA), volunteering to serve in South Africa during the Boer War where he was promoted to major and given command of the 16th Battery.
McCrae completed his medical training after the Boer War and by 1902 he was resident pathologist at Montreal General Hospital. He joined the staff of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Infectious Diseases in 1908 before moving to Montreal General Hospital where he worked as a pathologist. Tireless and dedicated to his work, McCrae also lectured in medicine at McGill University and at the University of Vermont. He had his own practice, as well.
When the First World War began in 1914, McCrae, now 41, enlisted with the 1st Brigade Artillery as a front-line surgeon. McCrae, however, did not survive the war. He died on Jan. 28, 1918 in France after developing pneumonia and meningitis.
Along with being a doctor and a soldier, McCrae was an accomplished poet. In all, 28 of his poems were published, with the first in 1894. A compilation of his poems, In Flanders Fields and Other Poems, published in 1919 became an international best seller.
While In Flanders Fields was not the only poem written during and about the First World War, none have commanded the same attention or had the same effect. McCrae’s poem led to the adoption of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance and inspired a generation to fight and to remember.
This ability In Flanders Fields has to inspire remembrance has also ensured that it is a staple in education from elementary schools right up to universities. And in one such university, the University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, discussions about the poem in the English classes taught by Nancy Holmes, an associate professor with the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, are always spirited affairs.
“Every time I taught it we ended up talking so much about In Flanders Fields and I realized it is really worth us thinking about because of its place in our culture and the familiarity of the students with it coming into the class,” she said during an interview with the Outlook from her home in Kelowna.
This led Holmes in 2005 to take a good, hard look at the meaning of In Flanders Fields, resulting in her essay In Flanders Fields – Canada’s Official Poem: Breaking Faith, published in Studies in Canadian Literature, in 2005.
Holmes tried to look clearly at the poem rather than see it through “the glaze of cultural artifact.” She also tried not to be biased or dismissive of the poem as other critics have been.
“I ended up still being critical in many ways, but still seeing its promise or potential to really unite us in grief and mourning and remembrance,” she said.
The poem, Holmes said, is powerful but divided. It begins strongly by speaking of the suffering soldiers experienced and the numerous deaths, but then half-way through, she said it shifts towards the strong, forceful language of patriotism.
In that sense, she said it is the quintessential Canadian poem.
“It is amazing how it gazes at the horror and then swerves away. We tend to do that a lot. We don’t like to face what is uncomfortable in our culture. We’re a country, I think, like the poem, that has incredible potential,” she said.
“At times our political culture has built upon that strength, whether it is peacekeeping or peacemaking, or our enlightened policies such as health care.
“We have this potential to be the best and brightest, but over and over again we are intimidated by this huge colonial heritage we have.”
And that quintessential Canadian quality to the poem, shifting from its thoughtful and powerful opening to flag-waving patriotic rhetoric, is what makes it unique and powerful.
“That is its strength,” she said. “We can see ahead of us two paths in which we can think about wars of the past, wars of the future and wars we are in now. We can think that there are options. We can think about ways to respond to these terrible deaths and in a way, that is its curious strength.”
She added it’s not surprising the poem operates on two levels, as it also mirrors what was occurring in Canadian society during the war years.
“The more you go back and look at the World War One literature, you see how very difficult it was for people to live with this schizophrenic vision of ‘we are doing the right thing. We are supporting our country. We are supporting Mother England.’ At the same time, we are in a terrible position to recruit brothers, sons, lovers, husbands even as the news of the war becomes more and more appalling.’ ”
Holmes has been accused of being anti-military and anti-soldier for taking a critical look at the poem, however, she said she is not against the poem, the military, or soldiers, but rather how McCrae’s poem is often used as propaganda, given its patriotic rhetoric.
“Remembrance is absolutely important. We have to remember what we did and … it is particularly important in a democracy because we’re the ones with our hands on the steering wheels,” she said. “We’re the ones responsible for the deaths of those soldiers in a democracy. We are the ones who give the consent. It’s really important we understand what we are doing when we send soldiers to die for us. If we’re going to have blood on our hands, we had better make sure it is worth it.
“I’ve met many young soldiers and they’re so well meaning and well intentioned and think that what they are doing is important for our country and I think it is a terrible betrayal if we send them to a place or into a situation and they die for no reason, or if they kill for no reason.”
