"In Flanders Fields" is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it. "In Flanders Fields" was first published on December 8 of that year in the London magazine Punch. Flanders Fields is a common English name of the World War I battlefields in Belgium and France.
The Menin Gate, officially the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, is a war memorial in Ypres, Belgium, dedicated to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient of World War I and whose graves are unknown. The memorial is located at the eastern exit of the town and marks the starting point for one of the main roads that led Allied soldiers to the front line.
Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae was a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier during the World War I and a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres, in Belgium. He is best known for writing the famous war memorial poem "In Flanders Fields". McCrae died of pneumonia near the end of the war. His famous poem is a threnody, a genre of lament.
Events from the year 1915 in Canada.
The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen who died in the Battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918, with no known grave. It is near the village of Thiepval, Picardy in France. A visitors' centre opened in 2004. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Thiepval has been described as "the greatest executed British work of monumental architecture of the twentieth century".
Green Island in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, is an island at the junction of the Rideau River, just off Sussex Drive in Ottawa at the Rideau Falls at the confluence with the Ottawa River. It is situated near the neighbourhood of New Edinburgh.
The Peace Tower is a focal bell and clock tower sitting on the central axis of the Centre Block of the Canadian parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario. The present incarnation replaced the 55-metre (180 ft) Victoria Tower, after the latter burned down in 1916, along with most of the Centre Block; only the Library of Parliament survived. It serves as a Canadian icon and had been featured prominently on the Canadian twenty-dollar bill, directly adjacent to the depiction of Queen Elizabeth II, until the change to polymer.
Colonel Lawrence Vincent Moore Cosgrave, was a Canadian soldier, author, diplomat and trade commissioner. He was the Canadian signatory to the Japanese Instrument of Surrender at the end of World War II.
Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial is a World War I cemetery in the city of Waregem, Belgium. Originally a temporary battlefield burial ground, Flanders Field American Cemetery later became the only permanent American World War I cemetery in Belgium. The Flanders Field American Cemetery commemorates 411 service members of the United States Armed Forces of which 368 are interred. The Walls of the Missing inside the chapel venerates 43 missing service members.
Cowansville is a town in south-central Quebec, Canada, located on Lac Davignon 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of the U.S. border. It is the seat of Brome-Missisquoi, a regional county municipality. The population as of the Canada 2021 Census was 15,234.
Soldiers' Tower is a bell and clock tower at the University of Toronto that commemorates members of the university who served in the World Wars. Designed by architects Henry Sproatt and Ernest Ross Rolph, the Gothic Revival tower stands at 143 feet tall and houses a carillon of 51 bells.
Neil James Archibald Primrose was a British Liberal politician and soldier. The second son of Prime Minister Lord Rosebery, he represented Wisbech in parliament from 1910 to 1917 and served as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1915 and as joint-Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury from 1916 to 1917. He died from wounds received in action in Palestine in 1917.
The 87th Battalion, CEF was a Household Foot Guards infantry unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War.
William Warren Lynch was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and judge in the province of Quebec.
The 13th Scottish Light Dragoons was a cavalry regiment of the Non-Permanent Active Militia of the Canadian Militia.
Colonel Sir George McCrae was a Scottish textile merchant and Liberal Party politician. In Scotland he is best remembered for the creation of McCrae's Battalion, also known as the Second Edinburgh Pals Battalion and (officially) the 16th Battalion Royal Scots.
Lt-Col. Samuel Simpson Sharpe, M.P. was a lawyer, political figure, and soldier from Ontario, Canada. He represented Ontario North in the House of Commons of Canada from 1909 to 1917 as a Conservative and from 1917 to 1918 as a Unionist Party member.
Essex Farm Cemetery is a World War I, Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground within the John McCrae Memorial Site near Ypres, Belgium. There are 1,204 dead commemorated, of which 104 are unidentified. The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and has an area of 6,032 square metres (64,930 sq ft).
Site John McCrae is a World War I memorial site near Ypres, Belgium. It is named after the Canadian physician Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872–1918), author of the famous poem "In Flanders Fields", which he composed while serving at this site in 1915.
Alexis Hannum Helmer was killed in battle during the Great War while serving with the 2nd Battery, 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery. He is known as being part of the inspiration for "In Flanders Fields" through his friendship with John McCrae.
Glenmere, East Bolton, September 1911
Camp Valcartier, July 1915
Baker's grave in Belgium
Baker memorial statue
