The traditional holidays in the United Kingdom are based on the agricultural calendar. Beginning with Plough Monday (the first Monday after Epiphany/Twelfth Night), the major celebrations were linked to the farming year – Easter in the Spring, Harvest Festival in the Autumn and Christmas/New Year in the depths of Winter. Most of these festivals have been given a thin Christian veneer but retain many elements of their pagan origin. The only celebration that god botherers don’t seem to have annexed is Halloween, which even in its current Disneyfied, Americanised incarnation seems to have very little to do with Christianity. I am convinced that the British media have a similar calendar and crank out the same stories every year. It’s now late October so it must be time for an argument about poppies.
The Daily Mail – the voice of the 1950s – is particularly fond of running the same scare stories every year. The editorial staff of this absurd rag are obviously trying to cater for people who haven’t got over the fact that Mr Eden isn’t in Downing Street anymore. In between running endless stories about Diana Spencer and upskirt pictures of vacuous celebrities, the Mail loves to run stories about ‘political correctness gone mad.’ Every year they will have stories about manufacturers refusing to put the word ‘Easter’ on chocolate eggs or about how some idiot councilors have replaced ‘Merry Christmas’ with the anemic ‘Happy Holidays.’
Unfortunately, the Daily Mail is fed by an equally annoying group, the perpetually offended. There are some people who, I swear, get up in the morning and ask themselves “What can I be offended by today?” Everything these days is ‘offensive’ to someone; everything is ‘racist’ or ‘sexist’ or ‘transphobic.’ But when it comes to religion, you will find the bizarre spectacle of people being vicariously offended on behalf of other people. As far as I am aware, no Muslim or Hindu has ever complained about celebrations of Easter or Christmas (Jesus is considered a prophet by Muslims); it is always handwringing white people who want to ban these celebrations in case they somehow offend ethnic minorities. The latest fool is a vicar who allegedly banned the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” from a Remembrance service. The type of Muslim who is likely to be ‘offended’ by this song is the type of Muslim who is offended by the mere existence of Christianity or, indeed, by music in general. You are not going to win any friends by these sort of gestures (look at what happened to Asad Shah) but you will fuel the paranoia of the folks who believe what they read in the Mail.
The argument about white poppies is another traditional media spat. I will admit that I stopped wearing a poppy a long time ago. I was irritated by the fact that it was becoming near-compulsory to wear one in the UK in the early 2000s and there were regular arguments about newsreaders not wearing poppies. Some people have already started wearing them three weeks before Remembrance Sunday. This is dangerously close to what the Daily Mail and other right-wing foamers would call ‘virtue signaling’ in a different context. Equally nauseating are the people who sport white poppies as a symbol of their opposition to war. The red poppy has absolutely nothing to do with glorifying war but why let facts get in the way of a good old row?
The First World War is a good example of the historical ignorance that I have posted about here, here, here and here (yes, I feel strongly about this). The most common view of the First World War is the Blackadder one – hopeless slaughter and idiot generals, reducing the whole war to a few events on the Western Front. David Reynolds in his 2013 book The Long Shadow said that for most British people the war had been reduced to the poets, the 1914 Christmas truce and the first day of the Battle of the Somme (01/07/1916). The poets were a completely unrepresentative group, the truce has been blown out of all proportion and the Somme, whilst hideous, was actually a major victory for the Allies. Research over the past twenty years has put many of the clichés about the First World War to bed but has not really affected the public’s views about the war.
Back in the 1990s I met the late military historian Richard Holmes whilst leading a group of Year Nine students on a tour of the Western Front. Holmes was a splendid fellow, happy to chat with me and the kids and have his picture taken with our group. He told me about a taxi driver giving him a hard time about Field Marshal Haig, one of the stereotypical ‘butchers’ of the First World War. This ignores his work for ex-servicemen after the war and the fact that thousands of his soldiers attended his funeral. Like many of the senior officers in the First World War, Haig was not ready for the industrialised warfare of the Western Front. Most of these officers had spent their careers fighting small-scale colonial wars and there had been no general war in Europe for a century. One could argue that the scale of the deaths in the First World War matched the scale of the battles. The “lions led by donkeys” insult was coined by David Lloyd-George – who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Minster of Munitions, Secretary of War and Prime Minister during the First World War – as a way to deflect blame from politicians for some of the calamitous decisions made during the conflict.
I think it is easy to forget too what a traumatic experience the First World War was for the people who experienced it. There is a glib response to people who oppose war, equating pacifism with cowardice. Many of the conscientious objectors in the First World War served as medical personnel; there is an episode of “Dads’ Army” where it turns out Private Godfrey was a conscientious objector. After initially becoming unpopular with the rest of the platoon, it eventually emerges that Godfrey had won the Military Medal for saving lives during the Battle of the Somme. Armchair generals who are quick to dismiss any hint of appeasement usually cite the much-maligned Neville Chamberlain as someone who was cowardly in his approach to Hitler’s Germany. They forget that Chamberlain had lost his best friend in the First World War and was determined to avoid a repeat of the slaughter on the Western Front. He also ordered the acceleration of rearmament after the Munich Agreement, knowing full well that Hitler would not keep his word.
If Remembrance Sunday is to mean something, 99 years after the end of the First World War, it must mean something more than childish point-scoring by the Daily Mail and by ahistorical, white poppy wearers.
Mike's Place 
Depends upon which book is read, and which “historian” one believes. I agree that the wars ( 1&2 ) were a disaster, a failure of politicians , and not necessarily the Generals. There were many at that time eager for warfare, and many who could benefit financially. On the subject matter of the poppy, it meant something to those who saw and fought there. My own Grandfather who fought in all major battles of the Western front as a bombardier in the Artillery, told me of the sight of the poppies amidst the carnage and the horror. It was a memory that was almost spectral, and was embedded deep within the psyche for many.
I was taught to wear a poppy, not only as a mark of respect for those poor unfortunates who fought and died , but to constantly remind me , that the politicians folly would always mean the loss of life for their stupidity.
My Grandfather always attended parades until he died. He always wore a poppy, and he always gave what little he had to the collection tins. The Legion subsidize a Government who failed , and to this day, still fail our servicemen and women. Their limbs often paid for by charity, in the absence of a caring and compassionate Government.
Finally, on the subject of the white poppy ( which is not new ) My Grandfather was outraged that anyone would be so insensitive, so uncaring so contemptuous that they would wear a white poppy, when the white feather had been given as an insult to those young men who were thought to be cowards. In truth ( as you rightly state ) many “concies” served in the horrors of war with great courage. The feather was always an undeserved and hideous stabwound.
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