Flanders is a region of Belgium where some of the most costly battles of the First World War- those at Ypres- were fought. McCrae wrote the poem following the second battle of Ypres.
John McCrae was a Canadian soldier, doctor, and poet. Due to his age- he was 42- and because he was a physician, he had been offered a position in the medical corps. Instead, he volunteered to join a fighting unit as a gunner and medical officer.
On May 2, McCrae's good friend and former student Alexis Helmer was killed. As they buried him, there was no chaplain available, so McCrae recited what passages he could remember from the Church of England's "Order of the Burial of the Dead" in the Common Prayer Book. The next morning, Sergeant- Major Cyril Allinson was delivering mail and found McCrae sitting by an ambulance, writing: "His face was very tired but calm as he wrote. He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave." When he was done, McCrae silently took his mail and handed Allinson the paper he'd been writing on... it was In Flanders Fields:
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amidst 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.
The third section of In Flanders Fields is not, as some would have it, a glorification of war. Rather, it is a statement that there are principles and values worth fighting- and sometimes, dying- for. And it's a reminder that we owe it to them, the fallen, to stand up for those things, as well as to ourselves and those who will come after us.