Buy Victory Bonds

This haunting Canadian World War I poster quotes John McCrae's immortal poem "In Flanders Fields": "If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields," connecting the purchase of Victory Bonds to honoring the covenant with fallen soldiers. The poster depicts a soldier standing vigil amid poppies on a French battlefield, with graves visible in the background—a solemn composition that transforms financial contribution into sacred obligation to the dead. McCrae's poem, written in May 1915 after presiding over a friend's burial, became the most famous literary work of the war, crystallizing the conflict's tragic waste while demanding that survivors justify that sacrifice through continued commitment to the cause.

The Canadian government's use of McCrae's verse for bond promotion demonstrates how wartime propaganda weaponized grief and guilt, suggesting that failure to purchase bonds would betray soldiers' sacrifice and disturb their eternal rest. The poppy, which grew abundantly in the disturbed soil of French battlefields, became an enduring symbol of World War I remembrance, eventually adopted throughout the Commonwealth as the emblem for annual Armistice Day observances. This poster exemplifies how effective war financing required emotional manipulation that elevated bond purchases from practical economic necessity to moral imperative and memorial tribute. Victory Bonds allowed the Canadian government to finance its war participation alongside Britain while mobilizing civilian populations through campaigns that made financial sacrifice seem inadequate compared to soldiers' ultimate sacrifice, yet still presented bond purchases as the most meaningful contribution civilians could make to honor the dead and support the living who continued fighting.