Sixty Joyless De-Britished Uncrowned Commonpoor Years (1949-2009)

Elizabeth II Vice-Regal Saint: Remembering Paul Comtois (1895–1966), Lt.-Governor of Québec
Britannic Inheritance: Britain's proud legacy. What legacy will America leave?
English Debate: Daniel Hannan revels in making mince meat of Gordon Brown
Crazy Canucks: British MP banned from Canada on national security grounds
Happy St. Patrick's: Will Ireland ever return to the Commonwealth?
Voyage Through the Commonwealth: World cruise around the faded bits of pink.
No Queen for the Green: The Green Party of Canada votes to dispense with monarchy.
"Sir Edward Kennedy": The Queen has awarded the senator an honorary Knighthood.
President Obama: Hates Britain, but is keen to meet the Queen?
The Princess Royal: Princess Anne "outstanding" in Australia.
H.M.S. Victory: In 1744, 1000 sailors went down with a cargo of gold.
Queen's Commonwealth: Britain is letting the Commonwealth die.
Justice Kirby: His support for monarchy almost lost him appointment to High Court
Royal Military Academy: Sandhurst abolishes the Apostles' Creed.
Air Marshal Alec Maisner, R.I.P. Half Polish, half German and 100% British.
Cherie Blair: Not a vain, self regarding, shallow thinking viper after all.
Harry Potter: Celebrated rich kid thinks the Royals should not be celebrated
The Royal Jelly: A new king has been coronated, and his subjects are in a merry mood
Victoria Cross: Australian TROOPER MARK DONALDSON awarded the VC
Godless Buses: Royal Navy veteran, Ron Heather, refuses to drive his bus
Labour's Class War: To expunge those with the slightest pretensions to gentility
100 Top English Novels of All Time: The Essential Fictional Library
BIG BEN: Celebrating 150 Years of the Clock Tower

Monday 30 April 2007

Last Post on Vimy

Pun intended. I've been looking for this photo, so here it is. Due to Prime Minister Harper's insistence over bureaucratic objections, the Canadian Red Ensign of 1917 now flies in perpetuity over Vimy Ridge, a flag which Canadian soldiers at the time may or may not have recognized.

All would have recognized the Royal Union Flag, of course. The conveniently ignored truth is that the Canadian Corps fought at Vimy under British command as part of the larger British Battle of Arras, with the support of British artillery and the whole of the 51st British Highland Regiment engaged on the Corps' flank, yet even with British soldiers buried on the slope, the Imperial Flag is given no honour of presence. Oh well, at least the Union Jack flies in the canton position on Vimy Ridge now. Let us not begrudge progress when we see it.

7 comments:

Keir said...

Thanks for picture. I wonder if we'll see a proliferation of such ensigns being sold on the market now; it looks like a regular printed flag rather than properly sewn one but, Oh well.
Seeing Mounties parading with the maple leaf with Vimy as a backdrop just doesn't seem right...

Matt Bondy said...

Great pictures.

Agreed on the Union Flag.

But as you mention, let's take what we can get!

Aeneas the Younger said...

Gents:

The flag of Canada in 1917 was the Union Jack. The rites of the Royal Canadian Legion clearly stipulate that Great Ware Veterans be interred under the flag of which they served - the Royal Union Flag.

The Red Ensign was used only informally on Government Buildings within the Dominion, but only as a common practice after 1924.

Political correctness continues to win the day. Harper's act was symbolic of only one thing: MORE CONFUSION.

Anonymous said...

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2002/07/17/vimy020717.html

Burton

Keir said...

Check out the G&M'editorial dated March 31:
"Of course the Canadian Red Ensign should fly alongside the Royal Standard of Canada, the Maple Leaf, the Union Jack and the French tricouleur. And of course the Red Ensign should fly in perpetuity at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. The Maple Leaf is not the battle flag of a Canadian revolution. When Canada adopted the 1965 flag, Canadians did not abrogate their history.

The Red Ensign, along with the Union Jack, was the flag Canadians fought under during the First World War, and indeed the Second World War, and it deserves a place of continuing honour in this country and on its historic battlefields. To do otherwise would serve only, as the Dominion Institute's Rudyard Griffiths aptly put it, to "airbrush our history." The 1965 flag is in a sense a product of the heroic Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917, since the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers during the Great War were integral to the full achievement of Canadian independence, codified in the Statute of Westminster, 1931.
.....
When the Queen of Canada and her Prime Minister meet on April 9for commemorations of the battle's 90th anniversary, it is only right that the Red Ensign fly again over that hallowed ground."

Aeneas the Younger said...

I love the Red Ensign and proudly own one. I just think the Royal Union Flag should fly at the Ridge as well as the Ensign ...

Anonymous said...

Great moves from Prime Minister Harper. The Red Enseign is an historical flag and fully desserve to be at Vimy Memorial. Ah! Those bureaucrats!!! Lest We Forget... it's not a marketing tagline for Christ's Sake!