Remembrance Day

From 1914 to 1918, Flanders Fields was a major battle ground on the Western Front during the First World War.

A million soldiers from more than fifty different countries were wounded, missing or killed in

action there. Entire cities and villages were destroyed, their population scattered.

The destruction of the city of Ypres and the brutal conditions endured during the Battle of

Passchendaele became worldwide symbols for the senselessness of war.

Remembrance of the First World War lives on in Flanders. In places such as the Menin Gate, Tyne Cot Memorial and Cemetery (the largest Commonwealth military cemetery in the world) and the many, many memorials dedicated to the fallen and the missing. The poem, ‘In Flanders Fields’, by John McCrae, went on to inspire the use of the poppy, which once grew on the battlefields of Flanders Fields, to become an enduring symbol of remembrance across the world.