WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.819 They shall not pass. It is a heavy phrase, isn't 00:00:02.819 --> 00:00:06.200 it? It really is. It feels cinematic. Like something 00:00:06.200 --> 00:00:08.080 you'd hear in a trailer for a, I don't know, 00:00:08.140 --> 00:00:10.380 a high -budget fantasy epic right before the 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:13.519 hero makes a last stand. Right. On a bridge against 00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:16.280 a horde of monsters. It has that kind of scripted 00:00:16.280 --> 00:00:18.500 Hollywood quality to it. Exactly. It sounds like 00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:20.739 a screenwriter came up with it to make the audience 00:00:20.739 --> 00:00:23.120 cheer. Well, what's so fascinating about the 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:25.600 research we have today is that, you know, reality 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:28.600 is often much better written than fiction. Because 00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:31.300 this is not a line from a movie. It's arguably 00:00:31.300 --> 00:00:35.960 the most recycled, repurposed and powerful four 00:00:35.960 --> 00:00:38.829 word slogan. in modern military history. And 00:00:38.829 --> 00:00:41.149 that is exactly our mission for this deep dive. 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:43.390 We're going to trace the biography of this one 00:00:43.390 --> 00:00:45.869 single sentence. Yeah. We're looking at its origins, 00:00:45.969 --> 00:00:48.350 its strange evolution, and the, honestly, the 00:00:48.350 --> 00:00:51.950 surprising global journey of On Ne Pas Pas, as 00:00:51.950 --> 00:00:54.009 it's probably more famous, the Spanish version. 00:00:54.310 --> 00:00:56.710 No pasaran. No pasaran. And the stack of notes 00:00:56.710 --> 00:00:59.289 we have is, I mean, it's massive. We are jumping 00:00:59.289 --> 00:01:01.789 all over the timeline. We're going from the muddy 00:01:01.789 --> 00:01:05.480 trenches of World War I to... you know, the streets 00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:07.959 of London in the 1930s. And then to revolutionary 00:01:07.959 --> 00:01:10.760 Nicaragua in the 80s. All the way up to the current 00:01:10.760 --> 00:01:14.379 conflict in Ukraine right now in 2024. It's a 00:01:14.379 --> 00:01:16.959 wild genealogy. We're going to figure out how 00:01:16.959 --> 00:01:19.599 a desperate order given by a French general and 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:23.299 a dugout in 1916 somehow becomes the favorite 00:01:23.299 --> 00:01:26.459 chant of anti -fascists in the UK, communist 00:01:26.459 --> 00:01:30.060 revolutionaries in Central America, and modern 00:01:30.060 --> 00:01:32.920 mechanized brigades in Eastern Europe. It's really 00:01:32.920 --> 00:01:35.079 a case study in how an idea survives. It's not 00:01:35.079 --> 00:01:36.680 just about the words. It's about the psychology 00:01:36.680 --> 00:01:38.840 of that line in the sand. Yeah. The sheer human 00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:41.060 refusal to yield. Okay, so let's get our boots 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:42.560 muddy. We need to go back to the source. Now, 00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:44.719 most people I talk to, if they know the phrase 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:46.319 at all, they connect it to the Spanish Civil 00:01:46.319 --> 00:01:48.680 War. But that's not where it was born, is it? 00:01:48.739 --> 00:01:50.500 No. That's where it got famous, you could say. 00:01:50.799 --> 00:01:53.159 That's where it went viral, to use a modern term. 00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:56.500 But the birth is arguably much, much grimmer. 00:01:56.620 --> 00:01:58.799 We have to go back to 1916, the Western Front, 00:01:58.939 --> 00:02:02.819 the Battle of Verdun. Verdun, World War I. often 00:02:02.819 --> 00:02:05.340 called the meat grinder. And that name wasn't 00:02:05.340 --> 00:02:08.479 an exaggeration. Verdun was the longest battle 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:11.719 of the entire war. The German strategy was, well, 00:02:11.780 --> 00:02:15.219 it was explicitly to bleed France white. Wow. 00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:17.860 They attacked a point they knew the French would 00:02:17.860 --> 00:02:20.900 defend to the last man, essentially just trying 00:02:20.900 --> 00:02:23.180 to attrition the French army right out of existence. 00:02:23.439 --> 00:02:25.500 So the stakes are literally national survival. 00:02:25.939 --> 00:02:28.400 Completely. And into this meat grinder steps 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:31.909 General Robert Nivelle. Historians have a lot 00:02:31.909 --> 00:02:33.830 of mixed opinions on Nivelle later in the war. 00:02:33.930 --> 00:02:36.370 He's a bit of a controversial figure. But at 00:02:36.370 --> 00:02:38.770 Verdun, he understood the assignment. The situation 00:02:38.770 --> 00:02:41.530 was dire. The German pressure was just overwhelming. 00:02:41.870 --> 00:02:44.050 And Nivelle needed something that wasn't just 00:02:44.050 --> 00:02:46.330 a tactical order, but a spiritual one. He needed 00:02:46.330 --> 00:02:48.610 a mantra. He did. And he issued the command. 00:02:49.009 --> 00:02:53.509 Uno paspa. One does not pass. Or they shall not 00:02:53.509 --> 00:02:57.280 pass. And it became... The spine of the French 00:02:57.280 --> 00:02:59.400 defense. It was the anchor. And what's fascinating 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:02.199 to me is how quickly it jumped from just a verbal 00:03:02.199 --> 00:03:06.580 order in the heat of battle to visual propaganda 00:03:06.580 --> 00:03:09.379 for civilians. I'm looking at this poster from 00:03:09.379 --> 00:03:12.099 1918 by an artist, Maurice Newmont. Do you have 00:03:12.099 --> 00:03:13.860 that in front of you? I do, yeah. It's the one 00:03:13.860 --> 00:03:15.360 in the show notes with the soldier on the ridge, 00:03:15.419 --> 00:03:18.240 right? It looks so different from modern recruitment 00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:20.460 ads. It's not an action movie poster. He looks 00:03:20.460 --> 00:03:22.960 like a statue. He looks unmovable. It's almost 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:25.659 religious imagery, isn't it? It is. Let me read 00:03:25.659 --> 00:03:27.860 the text because the language is incredibly dense. 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:30.919 It's poetic, but also very dark. It says, twice 00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:33.180 I have stood and vanquished on the Marne. Brother 00:03:33.180 --> 00:03:35.400 civilian, the underhand offensive of white peace 00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:37.699 will attack you in turn. And like me, you must 00:03:37.699 --> 00:03:40.379 stand firm and vanquish. There is so much to 00:03:40.379 --> 00:03:42.699 unpack in just those two sentences. That term 00:03:42.699 --> 00:03:44.680 white peace, that's not something we really use 00:03:44.680 --> 00:03:47.620 anymore. What did that mean to a soldier in 1918? 00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:52.520 So a white peace or a peace without victory was 00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:55.659 this idea of negotiating an end to the war, maybe 00:03:55.659 --> 00:03:58.039 leaving Germany with some of its gains or at 00:03:58.039 --> 00:04:00.280 least not totally crushed. I see. To the French 00:04:00.280 --> 00:04:03.000 army, after losing hundreds of thousands of men 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:06.500 in the mud, the idea of a negotiated peace felt 00:04:06.500 --> 00:04:08.639 like a betrayal. It felt like all that death 00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:11.860 was for nothing. So the poster is saying, I held 00:04:11.860 --> 00:04:14.280 the line against the bullets. You civilians need 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:16.720 to hold the line against the diplomats. Precisely. 00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:19.680 It's framing the politician or the pacifist as 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:22.019 just another version of the enemy. The poster 00:04:22.019 --> 00:04:24.220 also goes on to warn against Bosch hypocrisy. 00:04:24.500 --> 00:04:26.959 Bosch, that being the slur for Germans at the 00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:29.540 time. Right. It's dehumanizing, but very effective 00:04:29.540 --> 00:04:33.300 propaganda. And the slogan, anna pas pa, evolved 00:04:33.300 --> 00:04:36.079 right here. It wasn't just, don't let soldiers 00:04:36.079 --> 00:04:38.620 walk past this trench anymore. It became, don't 00:04:38.620 --> 00:04:40.680 let their ideas or their negotiations penetrate 00:04:40.680 --> 00:04:43.579 our resolve. That's a key distinction. That's 00:04:43.579 --> 00:04:45.620 the first time it moves from physical territory 00:04:45.620 --> 00:04:49.459 to, well, psychological territory. But it wasn't 00:04:49.459 --> 00:04:52.040 just the French using this, was it? I saw a note 00:04:52.040 --> 00:04:53.879 here about the Romanian front that I found really 00:04:53.879 --> 00:04:56.519 surprising. Yes, and this is so often overlooked 00:04:56.519 --> 00:04:59.100 in Western history books. The Battle of Manaiti 00:04:59.100 --> 00:05:02.600 in 1917. This was basically the Verdun of the 00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:05.709 East. for the Romanian army. They were up against 00:05:05.709 --> 00:05:08.050 German Field Marshal von Mackensen, who was a 00:05:08.050 --> 00:05:10.209 terrifying figure at the time. And the Romanians 00:05:10.209 --> 00:05:13.129 used a direct translation. They did. Petsinu 00:05:13.129 --> 00:05:16.430 setrets, one does not pass through here, or here, 00:05:16.649 --> 00:05:19.209 nobody passes. It has that same defiant ring 00:05:19.209 --> 00:05:21.430 to it. It served the exact same function. I mean, 00:05:21.430 --> 00:05:23.959 Romania was being squeezed off the map. quite 00:05:23.959 --> 00:05:26.699 literally, and this phrase became the anchor 00:05:26.699 --> 00:05:29.480 for their national identity during the war. It's 00:05:29.480 --> 00:05:32.199 proof that the sentiment, this absolute refusal 00:05:32.199 --> 00:05:34.600 to back down, is universal. It doesn't matter 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:36.639 what language. When your back is against the 00:05:36.639 --> 00:05:39.079 wall, the message is the same. Exactly. Speaking 00:05:39.079 --> 00:05:41.019 of universal, the research threw a curveball 00:05:41.019 --> 00:05:43.139 that I honestly was not expecting. We usually 00:05:43.139 --> 00:05:45.620 track this slogan from World War I onwards, right? 00:05:45.980 --> 00:05:48.139 Assuming Verdun is ground zero. But there's a 00:05:48.139 --> 00:05:50.139 precursor. There is. If you really dig into the 00:05:50.139 --> 00:05:52.439 archives, and I mean deep into 19th century military 00:05:52.439 --> 00:05:55.100 records, you find the sentiment earlier. We have 00:05:55.100 --> 00:05:57.959 to go to Brazil. The War of Canudos? Right. This 00:05:57.959 --> 00:06:00.639 is a conflict in the late 1890s between the first 00:06:00.639 --> 00:06:04.180 Brazilian Republic and this group of settlers 00:06:04.180 --> 00:06:07.759 led by a religious mystic, Antonio Consolero. 00:06:07.959 --> 00:06:10.360 A very specific history that most people outside 00:06:10.360 --> 00:06:13.500 Brazil don't know. But there are records of the 00:06:13.500 --> 00:06:22.300 phrase, Which translates to, Exactly. Now, was 00:06:22.300 --> 00:06:24.899 General Nivelle in France reading Brazilian military 00:06:24.899 --> 00:06:27.819 history? Probably not. It's unlikely there's 00:06:27.819 --> 00:06:29.920 a direct link. But it just goes to show you that 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:33.300 the line is a primal human concept, whether it's 00:06:33.300 --> 00:06:36.279 a mystic in the backlands of Brazil or a general 00:06:36.279 --> 00:06:38.279 in France. When you're defending your home, the 00:06:38.279 --> 00:06:40.579 language converges. That is fascinating. It's 00:06:40.579 --> 00:06:42.600 like convergent evolution, but for language. 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.279 Yeah. But here's where the story pivots. We leave 00:06:45.279 --> 00:06:47.540 the trenches of World War I. The war ends. The 00:06:47.540 --> 00:06:49.899 slogan should have retired, right? It should 00:06:49.899 --> 00:06:52.339 be in a museum on a dusty poster. It should have. 00:06:52.519 --> 00:06:55.230 But then the 1930s happened. And this is where 00:06:55.230 --> 00:06:57.709 the phrase gets weaponized in a totally new way. 00:06:57.870 --> 00:07:00.870 We go back to France, 1934. But this isn't war 00:07:00.870 --> 00:07:02.730 against Germany. This is French against French. 00:07:03.029 --> 00:07:05.930 It is. The political atmosphere in Paris was 00:07:05.930 --> 00:07:12.529 toxic. You had the rise of the League's basically 00:07:12.529 --> 00:07:15.470 far -right nationalist paramilitary groups. They 00:07:15.470 --> 00:07:18.189 were rioting, trying to destabilize the parliament. 00:07:18.350 --> 00:07:20.930 It was very close to a civil war. And standing 00:07:20.930 --> 00:07:24.160 against them was Leon Blum. a prominent socialist 00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:26.740 leader. And during a huge counter -demonstration, 00:07:26.879 --> 00:07:29.420 Blum resurrects the old war cry. He yells to 00:07:29.420 --> 00:07:33.180 the crowd, Ils ne passeront pas. They shall not 00:07:33.180 --> 00:07:36.959 pass. But notice the context shift here. He's 00:07:36.959 --> 00:07:38.639 not talking about invading Germans. He's talking 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:41.300 about fellow French citizens who hold a different 00:07:41.300 --> 00:07:43.959 ideology. That is a massive shift. It's no longer 00:07:43.959 --> 00:07:46.040 we must protect the soil. It's we must protect 00:07:46.040 --> 00:07:48.139 our political system. It's the moment the slogan 00:07:48.139 --> 00:07:50.399 becomes the property of the left. Before this, 00:07:50.439 --> 00:07:52.519 it was a nationalist military slogan, something 00:07:52.519 --> 00:07:55.180 a general would say. Blum turned it into an anti 00:07:55.180 --> 00:07:57.620 -fascist slogan. He was saying that fascism would 00:07:57.620 --> 00:07:59.779 not be allowed to seize power in France. Which 00:07:59.779 --> 00:08:01.600 sets the stage perfectly for the main event, 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:03.480 the version of the story everyone knows. Spain. 00:08:03.980 --> 00:08:06.339 the Spanish Civil War. This is the crescendo, 00:08:06.500 --> 00:08:11.240 1936, the siege of Madrid. This is where the 00:08:11.240 --> 00:08:14.720 slogan becomes legendary. On one side, you have 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:18.000 the Republican forces, a mix of socialists, communists, 00:08:18.019 --> 00:08:20.660 anarchists, international volunteers. On the 00:08:20.660 --> 00:08:23.420 other, the nationalists led by General Francisco 00:08:23.420 --> 00:08:26.399 Franco, backed by Hitler and Mussolini. And the 00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:28.939 Republicans have a voice. Dolores Ibarri Gomez. 00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:32.539 La Pensionaria, the passion flower. She's a legendary 00:08:32.539 --> 00:08:35.220 figure, a communist politician with this incredible 00:08:35.220 --> 00:08:37.860 fiery way of speaking. And she delivers a radio 00:08:37.860 --> 00:08:41.080 broadcast that just changes history. The nationalist 00:08:41.080 --> 00:08:43.220 army is bearing down on Madrid. It looks like 00:08:43.220 --> 00:08:46.539 the end. The government is fleeing. And she screams 00:08:46.539 --> 00:08:49.399 into the microphone, no pasarán. It's electric. 00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:51.240 It's not an order from a general anymore. It's 00:08:51.240 --> 00:08:53.340 a cry from the people. It galvanized the city. 00:08:53.419 --> 00:08:55.860 It wasn't just words. Men and women built barricades. 00:08:55.860 --> 00:08:57.639 They dug trenches in the cobblestone streets. 00:08:57.860 --> 00:09:00.059 They held Madrid for two and a half years against 00:09:00.059 --> 00:09:03.179 a superior military force largely fueled by that 00:09:03.179 --> 00:09:05.759 three -word incantation. It became the definition 00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:09.129 of anti -fascist resistance. And this is the 00:09:09.129 --> 00:09:11.710 tragic part of the deep dive. Slogans don't actually 00:09:11.710 --> 00:09:14.870 stop bullets forever. No, they don't. And this 00:09:14.870 --> 00:09:17.429 is where the story gets chilling. Because slogans 00:09:17.429 --> 00:09:20.169 don't exist in a vacuum. The enemy hears them 00:09:20.169 --> 00:09:23.409 too. Franco was listening. He was. And he waited. 00:09:23.789 --> 00:09:27.090 When Madrid finally fell in 1939, when the war 00:09:27.090 --> 00:09:29.870 was effectively over, Franco didn't just march 00:09:29.870 --> 00:09:32.570 in and declare victory. He issued a specific 00:09:32.570 --> 00:09:36.480 response. He declared, hemos pasado. We have 00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:38.960 passed. Or in the colloquial Spanish of the time, 00:09:39.039 --> 00:09:41.840 ya hemos pasado. We have already passed. That 00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:45.059 is petty and devastating. It's psychological 00:09:45.059 --> 00:09:48.059 warfare. He took their greatest symbol of hope, 00:09:48.220 --> 00:09:50.059 the thing they shouted while they were dying 00:09:50.059 --> 00:09:52.679 to defend their city, and he turned it into the 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:55.019 punchline of their defeat. It effectively said, 00:09:55.139 --> 00:09:58.559 your words were empty. My tanks were real. It 00:09:58.559 --> 00:10:00.019 highlights something we don't talk about enough. 00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:02.299 Words are weapons, but they can be captured just 00:10:02.299 --> 00:10:04.519 like artillery. Absolutely. It was a deliberate 00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:08.179 attempt to humiliate the defeated side. But here's 00:10:08.179 --> 00:10:10.620 the resilience of the phrase. Franco took the 00:10:10.620 --> 00:10:13.120 city, and he took the slogan, but he couldn't 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:15.720 kill the idea. Because while Madrid was falling, 00:10:15.860 --> 00:10:18.039 the phrase had already jumped the English Channel. 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:20.580 To London, the Battle of Cable Street. October 00:10:20.580 --> 00:10:24.580 1936. This is a fascinating moment in British 00:10:24.580 --> 00:10:27.700 history. You had Sir Oswald Mosley and his British 00:10:27.700 --> 00:10:30.500 Union of Fascists, the Blackshirts, and they 00:10:30.500 --> 00:10:32.360 wanted to march through the east end of London. 00:10:32.539 --> 00:10:34.940 Which was a predominantly Jewish and Irish working 00:10:34.940 --> 00:10:37.899 class neighborhood. That's a deliberate provocation. 00:10:37.980 --> 00:10:40.860 It was an invasion. And the locals knew what 00:10:40.860 --> 00:10:42.759 was happening in Spain. They saw the connection 00:10:42.759 --> 00:10:45.240 between Mosley and Franco. So when they blocked 00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:48.240 the streets to stop Mosley's march, they didn't 00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:51.389 chant in English. They shouted, no pasaran. They 00:10:51.389 --> 00:10:53.909 used the Spanish, knowing exactly what it meant. 00:10:54.049 --> 00:10:56.490 It connected their street fight in London to 00:10:56.490 --> 00:10:58.950 the siege in Madrid. It made them part of a global 00:10:58.950 --> 00:11:01.909 struggle. But, and this is a nuance I really 00:11:01.909 --> 00:11:04.590 love in the research, the British left added 00:11:04.590 --> 00:11:07.009 a second part to the slogan. Oh, really? I missed 00:11:07.009 --> 00:11:09.370 that in the notes. What was it? Sometimes, in 00:11:09.370 --> 00:11:11.610 their pamphlets and speeches, they would follow, 00:11:11.750 --> 00:11:15.029 No pasarán with nosotros pasaremos. We will pass. 00:11:15.639 --> 00:11:18.039 Exactly. It changes the dynamic completely. No 00:11:18.039 --> 00:11:20.700 pasarán is defensive. It's hold the line. Nosotros 00:11:20.700 --> 00:11:23.120 pasaremos is offensive. It means we are coming 00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:25.480 for you. It signaled they didn't just want to 00:11:25.480 --> 00:11:27.860 stop fascism. They wanted to advance their own 00:11:27.860 --> 00:11:30.639 ideology. That's a confident addition. So we've 00:11:30.639 --> 00:11:33.639 gone from French trenches to Spanish radio to 00:11:33.639 --> 00:11:37.259 London street brawls. But then World War II breaks 00:11:37.259 --> 00:11:39.519 out properly. Does the phrase go back to the 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:41.519 military? It comes full circle. We see it on 00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:44.700 the Maginot Line badges in France. Which, frankly, 00:11:44.840 --> 00:11:47.320 is a bit ironic in hindsight. Because the Germans 00:11:47.320 --> 00:11:49.240 didn't pass through the Maginot Line. They just 00:11:49.240 --> 00:11:52.299 drove around it through Belgium. Right. A static 00:11:52.299 --> 00:11:54.539 slogan for a static defense in a mobile war. 00:11:54.700 --> 00:11:58.399 Not a great fit. But there is one moment in WWII 00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:01.480 where the phrase regains its glory. And it involves 00:12:01.480 --> 00:12:04.019 a French -Canadian. Major Paul Trucquet. I remember 00:12:04.019 --> 00:12:07.240 reading this story. Yes. The Royal 22E Regiment. 00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:12.120 The Vanduus. Italy. December 1943. The Battle 00:12:12.120 --> 00:12:14.440 of Ortona. I've read about Ortona. Journalists 00:12:14.440 --> 00:12:16.679 at the time called it Little Stalingrad. Just 00:12:16.679 --> 00:12:18.899 brutal house -to -house fighting. Unbelievably 00:12:18.899 --> 00:12:21.559 brutal. They were blowing holes in walls to move 00:12:21.559 --> 00:12:23.779 between buildings because the streets were just 00:12:23.779 --> 00:12:26.679 kill zones. The tactic was called mouseholing. 00:12:26.740 --> 00:12:29.100 Right. And Triquet is there with his company. 00:12:29.240 --> 00:12:31.899 They're cut off, ammunition is low, and they're 00:12:31.899 --> 00:12:35.139 facing elite German paratroopers. The situation 00:12:35.139 --> 00:12:39.139 is strikingly similar to Verdun in 1916. So what 00:12:39.139 --> 00:12:41.399 does Triquet do? He reaches back into the history 00:12:41.399 --> 00:12:44.179 books. He rallies his men by shouting, ils ne 00:12:44.179 --> 00:12:47.019 passeront pas. He uses Nivelle's original French 00:12:47.019 --> 00:12:49.320 phrasing. And it worked. It worked. They held 00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:51.519 the objective. Truquet won the Victoria Cross. 00:12:51.879 --> 00:12:54.620 It shows that for a Francophone soldier, even 00:12:54.620 --> 00:12:56.960 one from Canada, those words are like a spell. 00:12:57.120 --> 00:12:59.620 You say them and you summon the ghosts of Verdun 00:12:59.620 --> 00:13:01.799 to stand next to you. It's the ultimate shorthand 00:13:01.799 --> 00:13:04.940 for we die here rather than move back. It is. 00:13:04.940 --> 00:13:07.000 It connects the soldier to a whole lineage of 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:09.700 resistance. So fast forward. The world wars end, 00:13:09.899 --> 00:13:12.639 the Cold War heats up, and the phrase travels 00:13:12.639 --> 00:13:15.480 again, this time to the jungles of Central America. 00:13:15.659 --> 00:13:19.259 Of the 1980s, Nicaragua, the Sandinista revolution. 00:13:19.700 --> 00:13:21.940 Now, for listeners who might be a bit fuzzy on 00:13:21.940 --> 00:13:25.220 80s geopolitics, the Sandinistas were the socialist 00:13:25.220 --> 00:13:28.139 revolutionaries who overthrew the Somoza dictatorship. 00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:30.440 And then fought against the U .S.-backed Contras. 00:13:30.460 --> 00:13:34.980 Right. And No Pasaran became the defining slogan 00:13:34.980 --> 00:13:38.149 of the Sandinista government. There was even 00:13:38.149 --> 00:13:41.590 a famous documentary in 1984 titled Nicaragua, 00:13:41.590 --> 00:13:44.309 No Pasaran. Why does that phrase resonate there? 00:13:44.450 --> 00:13:46.629 I mean, it's a long way from the Marne. Because 00:13:46.629 --> 00:13:49.149 the sentiment fits the anti -imperialist narrative 00:13:49.149 --> 00:13:52.070 perfectly. Whether it's Germans invading France 00:13:52.070 --> 00:13:54.710 or what they saw as Yankee imperialism via the 00:13:54.710 --> 00:13:58.440 Contras, the dynamic is the same. A large, powerful 00:13:58.440 --> 00:14:01.340 force trying to enter and a smaller, determined 00:14:01.340 --> 00:14:03.659 force refusing to yield. It's almost like the 00:14:03.659 --> 00:14:06.440 phrase sheds its original context and just keeps 00:14:06.440 --> 00:14:09.379 the emotional core. It becomes a template. Fill 00:14:09.379 --> 00:14:11.700 in the blank for who they are. Which brings us 00:14:11.700 --> 00:14:14.080 right up to the present day. And I mean literally 00:14:14.080 --> 00:14:16.120 now. Because I was surprised to see this in the 00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:18.159 notes regarding the war in Ukraine. This is the 00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:20.580 most recent entry in the biography of this slogan. 00:14:20.779 --> 00:14:23.340 We're looking at the 155th Mechanized Brigade 00:14:23.340 --> 00:14:25.279 of the Ukrainian Army. And they are using the 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:28.110 French slogan. They are. But there's a very practical 00:14:28.110 --> 00:14:30.370 link here. This isn't just random history nerds 00:14:30.370 --> 00:14:34.049 picking a cool phrase. This brigade was recently 00:14:34.049 --> 00:14:36.429 trained and equipped by France. Ah, so they're 00:14:36.429 --> 00:14:38.830 driving French vehicles wearing French supplied 00:14:38.830 --> 00:14:41.970 kit. And absorbing French military culture. They 00:14:41.970 --> 00:14:44.169 adopted the motto, On ne passe pas en French. 00:14:44.409 --> 00:14:47.470 That is. It's almost haunting. You have a slogan 00:14:47.470 --> 00:14:50.850 born in the trench warfare of 1916 being used 00:14:50.850 --> 00:14:53.450 in the trench warfare of Eastern Europe in 2024. 00:14:54.070 --> 00:14:57.450 It speaks to the cyclical nature of war. Technology 00:14:57.450 --> 00:15:00.230 changes. We have drones, we have HIMARS, we have 00:15:00.230 --> 00:15:03.090 satellites. But the fundamental experience of 00:15:03.090 --> 00:15:05.549 an infantryman holding a muddy hole in the ground 00:15:05.549 --> 00:15:07.769 while an enemy tries to kill him, that has not 00:15:07.769 --> 00:15:10.340 changed in a century. And clearly, the language 00:15:10.340 --> 00:15:11.899 they need to get through that hasn't changed 00:15:11.899 --> 00:15:14.559 either. It's the verbal barrier. It is. It connects 00:15:14.559 --> 00:15:16.799 the 19 -year -old Ukrainian conscript to the 00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:19.279 poilu at Verdun and the volunteer in Madrid. 00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:22.159 It's a lineage. It tells them, you are not alone 00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:24.419 in this feeling. So let's just look at the map 00:15:24.419 --> 00:15:28.220 we've drawn. Verdun to Brazil, the streets of 00:15:28.220 --> 00:15:31.059 Paris to the ruins of Madrid, the east end of 00:15:31.059 --> 00:15:33.879 London to the jungles of Nicaragua, and finally, 00:15:34.019 --> 00:15:37.139 the front lines of Ukraine. It's a phrase that 00:15:37.139 --> 00:15:40.399 refuses to retire. As long as there isn't us 00:15:40.399 --> 00:15:43.500 defending a home and a them trying to take it, 00:15:43.580 --> 00:15:47.580 someone somewhere will say they shall not pass. 00:15:47.879 --> 00:15:49.919 It really changes how you hear it. It's not just 00:15:49.919 --> 00:15:52.480 a poster slogan. It's a survival mechanism. It 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:55.679 is. But, and here is the thought that kept me 00:15:55.679 --> 00:15:57.320 up last night while researching this. Go on. 00:15:57.379 --> 00:15:59.659 I love a good existential crisis to end the deep 00:15:59.659 --> 00:16:01.620 dive. We've been talking about holding the line, 00:16:01.740 --> 00:16:04.779 physical lines, trenches, rivers, city limits. 00:16:05.549 --> 00:16:07.429 The slogan relies on the idea that there's a 00:16:07.429 --> 00:16:09.450 barrier you can defend, a place where you can 00:16:09.450 --> 00:16:12.070 physically stand and say, stop. Right. Physical 00:16:12.070 --> 00:16:14.490 geography. But look at modern conflict. We live 00:16:14.490 --> 00:16:18.169 in an era of hybrid warfare, cyber attacks, disinformation 00:16:18.169 --> 00:16:21.669 campaigns, election interference. The enemy doesn't 00:16:21.669 --> 00:16:23.549 always come with a tank you can see. They come 00:16:23.549 --> 00:16:26.009 through the fiber optic cables, through the servers. 00:16:26.330 --> 00:16:28.289 Exactly. So the question I want to leave with 00:16:28.289 --> 00:16:31.129 you is this. In a world where borders are invisible 00:16:31.129 --> 00:16:34.649 and conflict is digital, does the concept of 00:16:34.909 --> 00:16:38.269 They shall not pass. Still work. That's a tough 00:16:38.269 --> 00:16:40.590 one. Can you hold a line that doesn't physically 00:16:40.590 --> 00:16:44.309 exist? Or has holding the line become purely 00:16:44.309 --> 00:16:47.909 symbolic? When the enemy can be inside your power 00:16:47.909 --> 00:16:51.070 grid or your social media feed without ever crossing 00:16:51.070 --> 00:16:54.169 a physical border, maybe we need a new slogan. 00:16:54.509 --> 00:16:56.450 Or maybe we just need to figure out what the 00:16:56.450 --> 00:16:58.990 line even looks like now. That is a provocative 00:16:58.990 --> 00:17:01.190 thought to end on. It makes you wonder if our 00:17:01.190 --> 00:17:03.529 language has caught up to our reality. I don't 00:17:03.529 --> 00:17:05.069 think it has yet. Well, on that note, we're going 00:17:05.069 --> 00:17:07.289 to wrap up this deep dive. We hope you look at 00:17:07.289 --> 00:17:09.430 those old propaganda posters a little differently 00:17:09.430 --> 00:17:11.230 now. Stay curious. We'll catch you in the next 00:17:11.230 --> 00:17:11.650 deep dive.