It’s 4:55 a.m., and you’ve just been pulled awake again by your officer’s order.
“Stand to!”
You rub your aching eyes and ready your rifle. You’re standing in a trench with slimy sandbags in front of your face, mud oozing up your ankles, and the bodies of the soldiers who stood here before you littering the ground.
Except for your snatches of sleep between the officer’s hourly call, you’ve been awake for over 48 hours. Through your head play the things you’ve seen and heard.
You see again the march to Kitcheners Wood, when another soldier told you how he would get to meet his new son when the war was over. His war ended that night.
You see again faces of your companions, some dead, some living in a nightmare, and faces of the men you’ve killed.
You hear again the insane jabbering of a soldier whose mind has gone over the edge.
You feel again the burning defeat and numb resignation as you retreat from the enemy, running in plain sight through the woods and field. Funny you didn’t get shot, doing that. A lot of other people did.
Nausea sits deep inside you, aggravated by your reeking surroundings.
“Hanging in there, chum?” asks the soldier to your right, hidden in the darkness.
You clear your clogged throat. “Yeah.” You hardly recognise your own voice through the pounding of your head.
You see again the column of bedraggled men threading through the blackened countryside, going to headquarters to find out the next orders. You see the silent misery in the soldiers’ shifting feet as the Major says that you’re to take part of the line near Locality C.
That’s where you stand now, waiting.
Why did you even decide to come? What happened to the adventure and quick victory spoken of by so many?
You try to pray, but your mind can’t form any words in the shifting confusion.
Someone begins sobbing a little way down the trench, overcome by the known and the unknown, the past trauma and whatever is coming.
Then the enemy guns belch out the first of their shells, making you jolt. Your ears ring and you swallow the bitterness that comes up your throat. This is what you’re here for: another attack.
And you might not make it through this time.
Words come at last to the desperate feelings swelling inside you.
God, have mercy on us.
Often called the Canadian force’s “baptism by fire”, The Second Battle of Ypres took place over several weeks, with major attacks on April 22-25.
Those 72 hours began with the Germans bombarding the city of Ypres, Belgium, and then sending the first cloud of chlorine gas into the French and Algerian troops. They climaxed with the Germans sending a second wave of gas into the Canadian lines.
Between the shelling, rifle fire, and gas, thousands died and thousands more suffered injury.
From this moment in history came John MaCrae’s famous poem In Flanders Fields. A medical officer, he worked to save the lives of the injured, some with unspeakable wounds. In a brief moment of rest the day after one of his best friends was killed, he ‘sat outside his dugout and scratched a fifteen-line poem in almost as many minutes.’[1]
… 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 …[2]
In this sin-broken, self-boasting, sorrow-battered world … wars steal, kill, and destroy. Which is exactly what the true enemy, Satan, wants them to do. He delights in death and destruction.
And God’s Word tells us:
‘.. we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’ Ephesians 6:12
There is a greater battle happening, but unlike the horror called World War I, in which so many died for so little gain, we know triumphant victory is coming.
‘And the devil … was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone … and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.’ Revelation 20:10
‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain …’ Revelation 21:4
As one hymn beautifully declares:
Our call to war—to love the captive soul,
But to rage against the captor;
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole,
We will fight with faith and valour.
When faced with trials on every side,
We know the outcome is secure;
And Christ will have the prize for which He died:
An inheritance of nations.[3]
To the victorious King be all glory, both now and forevermore!
TRQT
For further research, check out:
Baptism of Fire: The Second Battle of Ypres and the Forging of Canada, April 1915 by Nathan M. Greenfield
At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War 1914-1916 by Tim Cook
Official History of the Canadian Forces in the Great War by A. Fortescue Duguid
Please note: My sharing of these resources does not mean I condone everything they contain. Please read with discretion, and remember that certain points of history can’t be proven, so differing opinions abound. When I wrote this article, I had to trust that the sources from which I had gained information were factual.
[1] Tim Cook, At the Sharp End (Penguin Group 2007)
[2] John MaCrae, In Flanders Fields (Public domain)
[3] Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, O Church, Arise (Thankyou Music 2005)
