During the Battle of Verdun in 1916, about a year and a half after the First World War had seemingly sunk into stalemate, the German Army attempted to overwhelm the French fortifications and break through to Paris. French General Robert Nivelle told his men, “You shall not let them pass.”
Shortened and simplified, the call had become the rallying cry of the French Army by 1918, when the last, massive German offensive of the war attempted to break France and Britain before American support could arrive in sufficient quantities to turn the tide.
“They shall not pass.”
It’s now 2024, about a year and a half after the Ukraine War has appeared to sink into stalemate, and the Russians are attempting to overwhelm the Ukrainian fortifications and break through to Kyiv. American support, this time in the form of artillery ammunition rather than men, has just been signed into law and is now on its way. It will take time for it all to reach and be disseminated across the Ukrainian front lines. The Russian Army knows this and will try to break Ukraine before those supplies arrive in sufficient quantities to potentially turn the tide.
“They shall not pass” will now need to be the rallying cry of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It’s not romantic. I don’t want to be in those trenches and, as a fellow American, neither should you. Ukrainians have to do it as a matter of duty. It’s a nasty, brutal, horrifying fight, but it’s a nasty, brutal, horrifying future that awaits them if they don’t. If they hold on now, maybe they can come out the other side – like the French during the Great War that did not, in fact, end all wars, but through which France survived as a nation and a republic.
“They shall not pass.”[1]
[1] (For all of you Lord of the Rings nerds out there, this is where the line “You shall not pass!” comes from. Tolkien, who served on the Western Front, was undoubtedly familiar with the French slogan.)