THE REMEMBRANCE POPPYi
By Allan Fuaryii
Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, which falls on 11 November each year, is the day when we as a nation pause to remember all those who have paid the supreme sacrifice in wartime to secure and protect our freedom. The two minutes silence we observe on the 11thhour of the 11thday of the 11thmonth marks the end of the First World War. Its significance and tradition arose from the following letter penned in early November 1919 by King George V:
To all my people,
Tuesday next, November the 11th, is the first anniversary of the Armistice which stayed the world-wide carnage of the four preceding years, and marked the victory of right and freedom. I believe that my people in every part of the Empire fervently wish to perpetuate the memory of that great deliverance and of those who laid down their lives to achieve it.
To afford an opportunity for the universal expression of this feeling it is my desire and hope that at the hour when the Armistice came into force, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, there may be for the brief space of two minutes a complete suspension of all our normal activities. During that time, except in rare cases where this might be impractical, all work, all sound, all locomotion should cease, so that in perfect stillness the thoughts of every one may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.
No elaborate organisation appears to be necessary. At a given signal, which can be easily arranged to suit the circumstances of each locality, I believe that we shall all gladly interrupt our business and pleasure whatever it may be and unite in this simple service of silence and remembrance.
George R.I.
Today we use the time and date, not only remember the sacrifices of our First World War participants, but to acknowledge all those who have paid the supreme sacrifice in all wars the Commonwealth has been involved in. The poppy is a well-known symbol of support for remembrance and its sale by volunteers raises funds for the Returned and Services League of Australia to help support those veterans of our armed forces community who may need it.
The most common form of the Remembrance Poppy is either a plastic or paper petal and leaf mounted on a plastic stalk, but when it was first conceived the RSL’s poppy took on a very different form and the story behind it goes right back to the First World War.
During the savage fighting on the Western Front during the First World War much of the fighting took place on barren ground destroyed by the constant pounding of artillery shells and the digging or countless miles of trenches and dug-outs. This previously beautiful countryside was blasted, cratered, bombed and fought over, day after day and night after night.
Where parks, woodland and rolling greens once stood, nothing remained in vast plains of mud and barbed wire apart from the occasional tortured tree stumps. However, bright red poppies managed to grow and these delicate yet resilient flowers provided some colour in the middle of all the waste and destruction.
In May 1915, shortly after losing a friend to one of the many savage actions around Ypres, Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae felt so inspired by the sight of so many poppies growing despite the devastation all around them that he felt compelled to write the following poem:iii
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.
John McCrae’s poem inspired an American academic, Miss Moina Belle Michael, to make and sell red silk poppies to support the injured and the families of fallen soldiers. These poppies were brought to England by Madame Anna Gue’rin, a French lady who went on to be known as The Poppy Lady of France.
Madame Anna Gue’rin visited the President of the Royal British Legion, the equivalent of our RSL in Australia, Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, and convinced him of the benefit of selling poppies. The Legion ordered nine million of them, which were made in France and sold on 11 November that same year. The poppies completely sold out and that first ever Poppy Appeal raised over one hundred thousand pounds, a considerable amount of money at that time! These much needed funds were used to help war veterans with employment and housing.
The following year, Major George Howson set up the Poppy Factory which employed disabled ex-servicemen. The demand for poppies was so high that few were reaching Scotland, so Earl Haig’s wife established the Lady Haig Poppy Factory in Edinburgh in 1926 to produce poppies exclusively for Scotland. Over five million Scottish Poppies are still made by hand by disabled ex-servicemen at Lady Haig’s Poppy Factory to this day.
Artificial red poppy made from red silk, wire, green wax and green paper. The poppy stamens are formed from black cotton thread dipped in green wax.
The poppy soon became widely accepted throughout the allied nations as the flower of remembrance to be worn on Armistice Day.
The Australian Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League, the forerunner to the RSL, first sold poppies for Armistice Day in 1921. For this drive the league imported one million silk poppies which were made in French orphanages. Each poppy was sold for a shilling: five pence was donated to a charity for French children, six pence went to the League’s own welfare work, and one penny went to the League’s national coffers. Today the RSL continues to sell poppies for Remembrance Day to raise funds for its welfare work.
Unlike Anzac Day, Remembrance Day is not a public holiday in Australia but services are held at 11.00am at War Memorials and cenotaphs in suburbs and towns across the country. Traditionally, the Last Post is sounded by a bugler followed by one minute of silence. After the minute of silence, flags are raised from half-mast to masthead as Rouse is played.
Photo by Graeme and Linda Beveridge 15 March 2015
The poppy has also become very popular in wreaths used on Anzac Day. An early instance took place in Palestine, where poppies grow abundantly in the spring. At the Dawn Service in 1940 each soldier dropped a poppy as he filed past the Stone of Remembrance. A senior Australian officer also a laid a wreath of poppies picked from the slopes of Mt Scopus.
Poppies adorn the panels of the Australian War Memorial’s Roll of Honour, placed beside names as a small personal tribute to the memory of a particular person, or to any of the thousands of individuals commemorated there. This practice began at the interment of the Unknown Australian Soldier on 11 November 1993. As people waited to lay a single flower by his tomb in the Hall of Memory they had to queue along the cloisters beside the Roll of Honour. By the end of the day hundreds of RSL poppies had been pushed into the cracks between the panels bearing the names of the fallen.
The Poppy Appeal contributes significantly to the fundraising work of the RSL. The largest fundraising activity of the Appeal is the sale of poppies beginning in late October each year. Poppies are available in various denominations from $1 to
$50 and the money raised is used to assist both current and former serving members of the Australian and Allied defence forces and their dependents when in need.
The RSL encourages all Australians to purchase a poppy and to Remember in November.
i This article was first presented in the October 2017 edition ofThe Queensland Crusader.
iiAt the time that the article was presented, author Allan Fuary was Vice President of the MHSA(Q)
iiiSeehttp://www.flandersfieldsmusic.com/johnmccrae-bio.htmlfor an excellent biography of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. This site provides anof the writing ofIn Flanders’ Fieldsathttp://www.flandersfieldsmusic.com/thepoem.html and a range of other worthwhilelinks.
ivSeehttps://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1231634for a full explanation of the provenance of this 1921 poppy.
vHerwig Verleyen:In Flanders Fields: The story of John McCrae, his poem and the poppy. Brugge, Belgium. De Klaproos. Editions, January 2008, page 24
This edition translated by Bertin Deneire and Ian Connerty.