In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
We
are the Dead.....
-- John McCrae, 1915
At eleven in
the morning on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the
guns on the Western Front fell silent, as an armistice between the
allied powers and Germany took effect.
Millions of soldiers
died in the horrific combat of World War I, including 1.3 million
French; 1 million British; 2 million German; and 100,000 Americans.
In the nations allied against Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman
Empire, November 11th--Armistice Day--became a national holiday to
commemorate the war dead. The symbol of martial sacrifice was the
poppy, which after bombardments had torn up the earth, bloomed in red
profusion in the no man's land between the trenches.
The
flower became an icon of remembrance due, importantly, to John McCrae's
In Flanders Fields which was written after the second battle of Ypres
in 1915 and became one of the most famous poems of World War I.
(McCrae, a Canadian doctor, commanded a field hospital until his death
from pneumonia in January, 1918.)
After the war, paper
poppies were sold on street corners in Britain, France, Italy, and
America to aid veterans. People wore them for as much as week before
Armistice Day itself.
Yet, Flanders fields, the armistice that
ended "the war to end all wars" and the Great War itself are largely
forgotten in America today. I was reminded of this vividly when I was
at a meeting in Europe last weekend, and participants from Britain had
poppies pinned to their lapels, 92 years after war's end. But not a
poppy was to be seen at at a meeting I attended in Washington this week
of people from government, business and academia. And, for a reason:
poppies have not been sold on the streets in the United States for
years.
After World War II, Armistice Day became Veterans Day
to honor the dead from another tumultuous conflict. But many people
were still of an age when World War I was a living memory (I remember my
mother buying a poppy for me on a cold afternoon in downtown Chicago
when I was child in the early '50s). Then, over time, Memorial Day,
which had its origins in the American Civil War, became the main
national holiday commemorating all our fallen soldiers.
Today,
Veterans Day is an excuse for merchants to hawk their wares. "Veterans
Day Sale, 25% to 50% Off Storewide" shouted the Macy's full-page ad in
The New York Times. Somehow, I doubt that at 11 a.m. the store will
ask shoppers to observe a two minute moment of silence in honor of the
war dead (as is the tradition in other nations). Although Veteran's Day
is a holiday for federal workers, stock markets are open and most
businesses do not give their employees the day off.
Of course,
for students of history, World War I is a momentous event which echoed
down the 20th century. The cataclysmic conflict led to the collapse
of four empires (German, Austria-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman) and
weakened a fifth (British). The Versailles Treaty redrew the map of
Europe and the Middle East and helped sow the seeds of the Second World
War . The legacy of the Great War is still felt in contemporary
conflicts (for example, in Iraq, which became the British mandate of
Mesopotamia after World War I and the end of Ottoman rule).
Yet, for Americans today, it is the poppy fields of Aghanistan, not of
Flanders, which are front of mind---fields that supply vast
quantities of opium to the world, feed pervasive Afghan corruption and
help finance the Taliban.
The days of venerating the poppy
as a symbol of remembrance are long past. On November 11, most
Americans will go about their business dead to the memory of the day the
guns were silenced in Europe and a new and terrifying epoch of
conflict was born.
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
