More Jacob's Room tips: Flanders and the Great War (World War I)
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Many critics have commented on the fact that Flanders
itself is a name that means death. Flanders Field was a battleground where
many died in World War I. Canadian Author John McCrae's poem "In Flanders
Fields" first appeared in Punch in 1915, as Mark Hussey points out.
It was very well known. Mrs. Flanders thus is said to represent all mothers
whose sons were killed in the war.
| In the middle stanza of the poem the dead soldiers
speak:
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved, and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. |
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For the text of the entire poem, see http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/mccrae1.html
For the text of the poem, and more information, see http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/8054/
For more information about the circumstances of the poem and its author, Canadian John McRae, see http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/general/sub.cfm?source=history/firstwar/mccrae/flanders
or http://www.arlingtoncemetery.com/flanders.htm
To find out more about the American monument at Flanders, http://www.abmc.gov/ff.htm
For a timeline of World War I (The Great War) battles, including several battles that took place in the Flanders region, see http://www.infosites.net/general/the-great-war/events.htm
(From Oct. 11, 1914 to Nov. 20 1914, there were three battles in Flanders. Battle of Flanders: the Battle of La Bassée, the Battle of Yser and the First Battle of Ypres. The second battle of Ypres took place in April and May 1915. The third battle of Ypres took place in 1917.)
Of the nearly nine million men mobilized by Britain for
World War I, over a third were injured, killed or missing in action (over
three million casualties). Russia had over nine million casualties, and
France over six million. The U.S. mobilized not quite four and a half million
men and suffered about 350,000 casualities.
the dead in trench warfare in W W I |
flooded trenches during WW I |
And all this madness, all this rage, all this flaming
death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because
a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid,
and all without imagination or heart, have chosen that it should
occur rather than that any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal
rebuff to his country's pride. --Bertrand Russell
For more about the antiwar sentiment of Jacob's Room,
go back to the Jacob's room tips page.
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