They shall not pass

On ne passe pas!
Propaganda poster by Maurice Neumont
A banner reading ¡No pasarán! from the Siege of Madrid; photo taken by Soviet journalist Mikhail Koltsov
On ne passe pas! on a French medal commemorating the Battle of Verdun
Red plaque from Tower Hamlets Environment Trust reading The Battle of Cable Street. The people of East London rallied to Cable Street on the 4th October 1936 and forced back the march of the fascist Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts through the streets of the East End. 'They Shall Not Pass'
Red plaque commemorating the Battle of Cable Street
Tomb of the unknown soldier at the Mausoleum of Mărășești with the inscription "Pe aici nu se trece"

"They shall not pass" (French: On ne passe pas; Spanish: ¡No pasarán!) is a slogan used to express determination to defend a position against an enemy. "On ne passe pas" literally means "one does not pass"; this being a common French idiom to express interdiction.

It was most famously used during the Battle of Verdun in the First World War by French General Robert Nivelle. It appears on propaganda posters, such as that by Maurice Neumont after the Second Battle of the Marne, which was later adopted on uniform badges by units manning the Maginot Line. Later during the war, it also was used by Romanian soldiers during the Battle of Mărășești (the Romanian translation of the phrase is "Pe aici nu se trece").

It was also used during the Spanish Civil War, this time at the Siege of Madrid by Dolores Ibárruri Gómez, a member of the Communist Party of Spain, in her famous "No pasarán" speech on 18 July 1936. The leader of the nationalist forces, Generalísimo Francisco Franco, upon gaining Madrid, responded to this slogan with "Hemos pasado" ("We have passed").

"¡No pasarán!" was used by British anti-fascists during the October 1936 Battle of Cable Street, and is still used in this context in some political circles. It was often accompanied by the words nosotros pasaremos (we will pass) to indicate that communists rather than fascists will be the ones to seize state power.[1]

The phrase was brought to the public consciousness again following action in December 1943 by French-Canadian officer Paul Triquet of the Royal 22e Regiment; his action included his use of Petain's phrase "to win a key objective at Ortona, Italy, in the face of overwhelming German opposition."[2]

In the 1980s, the phrase ¡No pasarán! was a theme in the civil wars in Central America, particularly in Nicaragua.[3] Nicaragua no pasarán is also the title of a 1984 documentary by David Bradbury about the events in Nicaragua that led to the overthrow of Somoza's dictatorship.[4][5][6]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Audrey Gillan (2006-10-02). "Day the East End said No pasaran to Blackshirts". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2012-06-21.
  2. ↑ "French Canadian Wins Victoria Cross". Ottawa Citizen. March 6, 1944. Retrieved September 15, 2014.
  3. ↑ Kunzle, David (1995). The Murals of Revolutionary Nicaragua, 1979–1992. University of California Press. p. 168. ISBN 9780520081925.
  4. ↑ Kallen, Stuart A. (2009). The Aftermath of the Sandinista Revolution. Twenty-First Century Books. p. 152. ISBN 9780822590910.
  5. ↑ "Nicaragua: No Pasaran". Frontline Films. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  6. ↑ FitzSimons, Trish; Laughren, Pat; Williamson, Dugald (2011). Australian Documentary: History, Practices and Genres. Cambridge University Press. p. 267. ISBN 9780521167994.
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