When war broke out between Europe’s imperial powers on 28^th July 1914 it was to lead to one of the deadliest conflicts in human history: By the time the armistice was signed on 11^th November 1918 it had affected most of the world with an estimated loss of 15-22 million military and civilian lives, plus somewhere in the order of 23 million military casualties. The exact figures will never be known, but after the war was over, instead of the Versailles Treaty ensuring that it would be the ‘War to end all Wars’, it contributed to an even more catastrophic one 25 years later.

Those who serve in and survive wars are often, quite rightly, regarded as heroes, but those survivors invariably say that the real heroes are those who didn’t come home. I count my lucky stars that I’ve never been put in that position, but when Remembrance Day comes around I’ll always buy a poppy, regardless of what some people think, because it’s not just about remembering the fallen, but also helping families who have had to endure the consequences of fighting for the freedoms that we still enjoy – but where did the idea of wearing a poppy come from?

There may well be plenty of you who already know the answer, but it wasn’t until I went to Ypres in 2002 that I came to understand the full story. Ypres, for those who aren’t familiar, is located in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium; but to be more precise it’s situated in West Flanders, an area which borders The Netherlands, France and the North-Sea coast, and it’s for this reason that the area became such a fierce battleground during the First World War.

Just for the record all my images in this post were taken in 2002 and scanned from prints, so they aren’t of the highest quality.

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Originally posted 2024-11-05 10:18:02.