dual personalities

January 28th was the 100th anniversary of the death of John McCrae, the handsome Canadian doctor and artilleryman who wrote the famous poem, “In Flanders Fields”.

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.

First published in Punch in 1915, the poem was written during the early days of the second battle of Ypres. It became something of an overnight sensation and remained one of the war’s most popular poems. After serving throughout the war, McCrae contracted pneumonia and died in France in 1918. He is buried at Wimereux, France.

John McCrae  had an interesting career, although in some ways he was typical of his time: the family was hard-working, intelligent, and dedicated. His grandparents emigrated from Scotland, his father was a Lt. Colonel in the army, his sister married a lawyer, and he and his brother both became doctors, the latter eventually becoming a professor at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.  Despite his training as a physician, John McCrae joined the army in 1900 and served in the artillery during both the first and second Boer Wars. When WWI broke out, he returned to active duty as a Medical Officer and Major of the 1st Brigade Canadian Field Artillery, eventually reaching the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was a dutiful and patriotic man, who, one can’t help feeling, gave more for his country than he got in return.

McCrae’s personal diary from 1915, more of which you can read here, has this to say about the way the Canadian press covered 2nd Ypres:

Newspapers which arrive show that up to May 7th, the Canadian public has made no guess at the extent of the battle of Ypres. The Canadian papers seem to have lost interest in it after the first four days; this regardless of the fact that the artillery, numerically a quarter of the division, was in all the time. One correspondent writes from the Canadian rest camp, and never mentions Ypres. Others say they hear heavy bombarding which appears to come from Armentieres.

McCrae is much celebrated in Canada where statues, plaques and museum displays attest to his achievements. When the French held a ceremony at his grave to mark the centennial of his death, according to the Ottawa Citizen, “about two dozen visitors stood as a French band played O Canada, and the French town supplied a Canadian flag. French veterans stood with their banners. The town council of Wimereux laid a wreath. So did the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. So did one visitor from Britain,” but no Canadians attended.  I guess they were too busy voting to neuter their national anthem.

So it goes.

Still, we can lift a glass to the good doctor and to all those men who died in the mud of Flanders fields. A hundred years isn’t so long ago that we should forget. Who will remember you in a hundred years and what will they remember?