The First World War
The First World War is remembered as the bloodiest conflict ever seen. 40,000 Welshmen had been killed on the battlefield by 1918. One symbol of this loss is the poet ‘Hedd Wyn’, Ellis Humphrey Evans (1887–1917). He completed his poem ‘Yr Arwr’ (The Hero) en route to the battlefields of Flanders and submitted it to the Chair competition at the National Eisteddfod in Birkenhead, 1917. His poem won the competition, but he had been killed in the Battle of Pilkem Ridge near Ieper (Ypres) six weeks earlier.
