You don’t have to be in Flanders very long before you start to breathe in the history of the area. Horrible things have happened in the fields across Northern France and Belgium, like the Battle of Waterloo and the Battle of the Bulge. These are the kinds of things that hang in the air for centuries; they seep into your blood.
There is a famous poem written by John McCrae that is worth reading. Its also been put to music by my favorite band, Big Head Todd and the Monsters.
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
Take a moment to remember the fallen with us.
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Keepers & Followers - my jealously has simply turned into wishing I was there, but getting a big kick out of experiencing some of it via your words & photos. Enjoy the week!
Battle fields are powerful places. I finally visited Gettysburg, which I've been through often, but never stopped. To consider what took place not long ago can put any current life situations in a new perspective.
Spending two full months in Prague last spring gave me an even deeper appreciation for the power of history...and I'm a historian! European history makes U.S. history seem so new. And then again, what happened in the streets of Prague in 1989 is quite recent.
Good one, Frank!
As a Canadian, I am honoured that Frank has choosen LCol McCrae's poem. Well, maybe it goes without saying, with Frank's strong ties to his ancestral homeland, the Low Countries. And all of our reverence for region and its long history in our choosen sport. Just as hockey is for Canada, cycling is for France and Flanders.
Quick sidebar before I continue, when I graduated from the school of hard knocks (the Princess Patrica's Canadian Light Infantry Battle School) in 1988, I was in Korea Platoon. Our brother platoon on grad parade that day was France & Flanders Platoon. The PPCLI Battle School continues to name basic infantry training platoons after our battle honours. Later on in my career as a Lt in 2001, I commanded The Gully Platoon during thier basic course.
Here is the CBC's rendition...
To be honest, as a soldier & war vet, I actually have mixed feelings towards "In Flanders Fields. It stands and was used as a rally cry during the war. And it is read/recited every year on Remembrance Day, so I hear it often. I have always thought that Lemmy Kilmister's "1916" would make a more poignant message.
@Ron
+1, well said Fronk.
Really hits home to me as Lt McCrae was a Battlefield Doc and, if I remember correctly, he died during the war.
What they lived through day after day in both WWI and WWII is unimaginable to me. I experienced only a few days of true conflict during my three deployments and it shakes you to the core but to have to live through it day after day, never knowing when it will end, or if you will live to see the end, and being in the combat zone for "the duration", not just 6 months or 10 months, just cannot wrap my mind around it.
@Dan_R
Wow. I had never heard "1916" before. Very powerful. Reminds me of the saying that the only ones who "love" war or want war are those that have never experienced war.
@Buck Rogers
Yes, well put. And I couldn't imagine 4 or 5 years of surviving in a war zone. 6-7 months at a time is more than enough for this cowboy.
Not to lower the significance, but I thought of the many wars I have had with v-brakes when reading that...especially cheap brakes. Drive me nuts.
This was written by Eric Bogle after a visit to cemeteries in Flanders and France. Strong stuff. To put things in perspective, more men were killed and wounded on the first day of the Battle of the Somme than were killed during the entire Vietnam war. Yet the war went on for almost 30 more months. The phrase "The war to end all wars" wasn't a promise, but a phrase used to justify the ongoing slaughter.
NO MAN'S LAND (THE GREEN FIELDS OF FRANCE)
Eric Bogle
Well how do you do, young Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun
I've been working all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the dead heroes of nineteen-sixteen.
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene.
Chorus :
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down.
Did the bugles play the Last Post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the 'Flooers o' the Forest'.
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
Although you died back there in nineteen-sixteen
In that faithful heart are you ever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed and forgotten behind the glass frame
In a old photograph, torn and battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.
The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
The warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard it's still no-man's-land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generaation that were butchered and damned.
Now young Willie McBride I can't help but wonder why
Do all those who lie here know why they died
And did they believe when they answered the cause
Did they really believe that this war would end wars
Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying was all done in vain
For young Willie McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.
@Dan_R
Not at all what I was expecting from "MotorHead" Lemmy. Really touching song. that part of the world has been bled over for centuries, it has to been an honor to ride there and suffer.
@wiscot
Yeah - if you ever get a chance to browse photos taken before/after (mainly after) the Somme, it is very sobering.
Recently read Wade Davis's Into the Silence, which placed the 1920s British Everest Expeditions against the backdrop of WWI -- basically every man on those expeditions who was a veteran was impossibly lucky to have survived the war in good enough shape to head off to the Himalayas. And every time a new character is introduced, you get to read about the incredible horrors he went through in the trenches. Some of the place names I recognized as a fan of de Ronde and Paris-Roubaix, which gave me a new perspective on that part of the world.