In modern times, they were first chronicled in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th Century. Poppies were noticed growing heavily on the fields of Flanders in Belgium after a battle, and remarked on by commanders of the time. This was particularly noted, as the Flanders region was not one friendly to the red flower, as the soils there and in northern France are relatively poor.
However, poppy seeds can lie dormant for many years. They can grow once the soil they are in are disturbed and churned up. This explains why they appear on battlefields after a major conflagration. The heavy artillery, which was beginning to be used in Napoleon’s time, would dredge seeds up. One hundred years later, when a greater battle would return to this gateway of war in northern Europe, the poppies would come with them.
Of course, sadly, battles and wars would provide plenty of fertilizer for the flowers to flourish as well, with the blood and bones of men and animals enriching the soil.
It was in 1915, the second year of the First World War that the masses of poppies, given an opportunity to grow, were first noticed by soldiers in the region. In their letters home, they often commented on both the numbers and the startling beauty of the scarlet flower that were appearing in the fields around them. They also began to appear in the writings of battlefield poets, including Lt. Col. W. Campbell Galbraith with his “Red Poppies in the Corn”.
For most of us across the world, the poppy is strongly associated with the Canadian John McCrae. A medical officer, Lt. Col. McCrae was working on the wounded after the Second Battle of Ypres. On May 2, his friend, Lt. Alexis Helmer of the Canadian Field Artillery was killed by a German shell. McCrae stepped in for the chaplain and held the service. Afterward, he sat on the back of an ambulance, gazed at the bright red poppies in the field, and wrote the poignant “In Flander’s Fields”.
It is a poem most of us learned and recited as children. It tells the story of the dead so far in the war, with the poppies blowing between the crosses. It speaks of their loss of youth and exhorts the reader to always remember, to take up the “quarrel with the foe” or else, the dead will not sleep “though poppies blow in Flanders’ fields”.
The poem made its way to Punch magazine in England, where it was published on December 8, 1915. It was an instant sensation, returning to Canada and becoming easily the best-known poem of that ghastly war.
The poppy made its appearance on other First World War battlefields. The Gallipoli Peninsula in particular saw the flower appear as trench warfare took over and there were heavy artillery exchanges. In many ways, it would become a perfect symbol of war, as it is gentle but also strong, being able to survive or regenerate after even gas attacks.
When the war ended in 1918, people wanted to remember the dead, and the poppy became a symbol. There is some question about exactly how it was chosen and by whom first. In a BBC article, it points to an American Moina Michael, who was inspired by McCrae’s poem. She wrote “We Shall Keep Faith” in response. She vowed to always wear a poppy, and after the war, she began making and selling them to raise money for veterans. In 1920, she was able to get the Georgia branch of the American Legion to adopt it as a symbol and it later spread to the national organization.
In France, Anna Guerin championed the flower as well, and attended the American Legion gathering. She also organized French women, children and veterans to make artificial poppies to fund the restoration of her country, destroyed by war. Most significantly for us, she campaigned for the poppy to be adopted as a symbol in Britain and the Commonwealth. The British Legion took it on in 1921, with other Commonwealth nations like Canada, Australia and New Zealand doing the same, and the annual poppy appeals began, with citizens purchasing and wearing them around Remembrance Day on November 11 ever since. They often have a different appearance in the many nations.
Ironically, in the US, the poppy has become less popular on November 11, instead being worn more on Memorial Day in the spring. In France, the blue cornflower, which grows in a similar way to the poppy, has become the more commonly worn flower.
Sadly, the man who inspired this did not live to see it. John McCrae died of pneumonia and meningitis in 1918. As almost a sign of the future, his grave was decorated by artificial poppies. His poem still resonates at Remembrance Day services to this day.
The poppy was later extended, as the services themselves were, beyond the First World War to the Second, Korea and more recent conflicts. It continues to be the perfect symbol of sacrifice, resilience and remembrance.

by PAUL RAYNER, Recorder staff