 The poem is sometimes viewed as an anachronism; It spoke of glory and honour in a war that has since become synonymous with the futility of trench warfare and the slaughter produced by 20th-century weaponry.Nancy Holmes, professor at the University of British Columbia, speculated that its patriotic nature and use as a tool for propaganda may have led literary critics to view it as a national symbol or anthem rather than a poem.The red poppies that McCrae referred to had been associated with conflict since the Napoleonic Wars when a writer of that time first noted how the poppies grew over the graves of soldiers.