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Remembrance Reflections on the Thousand-Day War
By Dan Hicks
On Ne Passe Pas – They Shall Not Pass! (image above); from the later stage of the Great War, a French morale-preserving lithograph poster for the home front that transcends time, published in Paris in December 1917; it would be unlikely to elicit any army sign-ups.
Dated April 10, 1917, artist Maurice Neumont inscribed his cartoon “Bois de Vaux-Chapitre Front de Verdun” – in essence, the Vaux-Chapitre Forest remnants on the Verdun Front. His French soldier caricature conveys the fatigued, but nevertheless steely battle-hardened attrition warfare resolve of “le Poilu” that “le Boche” will never smash through its battle lines – they shall not pass! (“French infantry” vs “German invaders”).
Standing alone amid a decimated countryside aflame, the ragged gasmask-equipped soldier grips his bayonet-affixed bolt-action rifle, while at his mud-caked feet, a menacing unexploded shell protrudes up from the ground, upon which abandoned lie a rifle and bullet-punctured French helmet – no longer of any use to their lifeless owner lying nearby (out of sight), yet another in the ghostly parade of dead comrades-in-arms for our beleaguered lone soldier (who of course, could never and would never “profile” himself as depicted).
