Since there has been some discussion of the poppy as a symbol of remembering the soldiers lost in World War I (or The Great War as it was called prior to World War II), I thought I would post some information about it.
In the United States sometimes people wear one poppy on Veterans Day, which we celebrate on November 11. Many people in the US, however, do not even know that Veterans Day has its roots in Armistice Day and the end of World War I.
World War I was an earth shattering event. So many men were lost that that theirs was referred to as "The Lost Generation". The men were all killed and the women had no one to marry. The War Poets, many of whom died during the conflict, left us a huge legacy of incredibly moving poetry. The excerpt from a British website about the significance of the poppy cites one of those poems, "In Flanders Fields", but there were many more. My favorite is "Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen.
"During WW1, much of the fighting took place in Western Europe. The countryside was blasted, bombed and fought over repeatedly. Previously beautiful landscapes turned to mud; bleak and barren scenes where little or nothing could grow. There was a notable and striking exception to the bleakness - the bright red Flanders poppies. These resilient flowers flourished in the middle of so much chaos and destruction, growing in the thousands upon thousands. Shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, a Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was moved by the sight of these poppies and that inspiration led him to to write the now famous poem 'In Flanders Fields'.
The poem then inspired an American academic named Moina Michael to adopt the poppy in memory of those who had fallen in the war and she campaigned to get it adopted as an official symbol of Remembrance across the United States and worked with others who were trying to do the same in Canada, Australia and the UK.
Also involved with those efforts was a French woman, Anna Guérin who was in the UK in 1921 where she planned to sell the poppies in London.There she met Earl Haig, founder of the Royal British Legion, who was persuaded to adopt the poppy as an emblem for the Legion in the UK. The Legion, which had been formed in 1921, ordered nine million poppies and sold them on 11 November that year. The poppies sold out almost immediately. That first 'Poppy Appeal' raised over £106,000 to help veterans with housing and jobs; a considerable sum at the time. Today's Poppy Appeal? 40,000 volunteers distribute 40 million poppies."
Our red poppy is a symbol of Remembrance and of hope, including hope for a positive future and a peaceful world.
www.britishlegion.org.uk
Link to site about the poetry of World War I
From poems written in the trenches to elegies for the dead, these poems commemorate the Great War.
www.poetryfoundation.org
..Dowager Countess Gloria & Earl Henry Bathurst
