Flanders Fields
English term for World War I battlefields
Flanders Fields (Dutch: Vlanderens Velden; French: Les Champs de Flandre) is a common English name of the World War I battlefields in an area straddling the Belgian provinces of West Flanders and East Flanders as well as the French department of Nord, part of which makes up the area known as French Flanders.
01Description
The name Flanders Fields is particularly associated with battles that took place in the Ypres Salient, including the Second Battle of Ypres and the Battle of Passchendaele. For most of the war, the front line ran continuously from south of Nieuwpoort on the Belgian coast, across Flanders Fields into the centre of Northern France before moving eastwards and it was known as the Western Front.
The phrase was popularized by a poem, "In Flanders Fields", by Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae which was inspired by his service during the Second Battle of Ypres.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Flanders Fields”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- InFlandersFields.JPG by MarnixR, CC BY-SA 3.0
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