The origins of the White Poppy worn on Armistice Day, later called Remembrance Day.

After I posted an article about the Red Poppy early this week, a number of people contacted me to ask about the White Poppy. Terry L directed me to the Peace Pledge Union's web site , whilst not a pacifist myself the PPU web site has some interesting articles about WW1 and the origins of the White Poppy and where they can be purchased today.

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WHITE POPPIES ARE FOR PEACE
The idea of decoupling Armistice Day , the red poppy and later Remembrance Day from their military culture dates back to 1926, just a few years after the British Legion was persuaded to try using the red poppyas a fundraising tool in Britain.

A member of the No More War Movement suggested that the British Legion should be asked to imprint 'No More War' in the centre of the red poppies instead of ‘Haig Fund’ and failing this pacifists should make their own flowers.

The details of any discussion with the British Legion are unknown but as the centre of the red poppy displayed the ‘Haig Fund’ imprint until 1994 it was clearly not successful. A few years later the idea was again discussed by the Co-operative Women's Guild who in 1933 produced the first white poppies to be worn on Armistice Day (later called Remembrance Day). The Guild stressed that the white poppy was not intended as an insult to those who died in the First World War - a war in which many of the women lost husbands, brothers, sons and lovers. The following year the newly founded Peace Pledge Union joined the CWG in the distribution of the poppies and later took over their annual promotion.

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THE GREAT WAR: COMRADE AND KAMERAD 

Many of the soldiers who fought each other in the Great War recognised that they were all in the same grim situation. A spontaneous code of behaviour, sometimes even a code of honour, developed on both sides. The following extracts from letters and memoirs show how easily the men might have been friends instead of enemies, had it not been for the war they they were ordered to fight.

31 December 1914:
Dear Mother I haven't much news to tell you except an extraordinary thing which happened on Christmas Day. To begin with on Christmas Eve all the German trenches were lined with little lights, which we afterwards discovered were Christmas trees. Well next morning we heard them singing & shouting in their trenches, and about midday they began lifting hats on sticks & showing them above the trench, then they showed their heads, & then bodies & finally they climbed out of their trenches into the open! Of course one couldn't shoot them in cold blood like that, tho' one or two shots were fired, and after a bit we also scrambled out of our trenches, & for an hour both sides walked about in the space between the two lines of trenches, talking & laughing, swapping baccy & cigarettes, biscuits etc. They were quite friendly and genuine, & our Col. who talks German had a long conversation with them, & asked them how they were & everything & you would never believe we had been fighting for weeks. After about an hour their officers shoo'd them back to their trenches, & we came back to ours, but for the rest of Christmas Day & night, & all next day, 26th, I don't suppose 2 shots were fired hardly by either side. Wasn't it weird?

Your loving son, 

Ted

31 December 1914:
On New Year's Eve we exchanged the time having agreed to fire some shots at midnight. The night was cold. We sang, they applauded (our lines were only some two hundred feet apart). We played the mouth organ, they sang to our music, and then we applauded. I called over to ask if they had some musical instruments, on which they produced a set of bagpipes (they were a Scots Guards regiment, with short kilts and bare legs). They played their poetic tunes and sang. At midnight both sides fired shots in the air. Our artillery too fired a few rounds; tracer bullets, usually so lethal, soared like harmless fireworks. Men were waving torches and cheering. We had prepared grog and drank a toast to Kaiser Wilhelm and the New Year.
German soldier.

More lettter's can be found here.