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Comment by lkbm | Hacker News Reader

I remember watching at least part of the film as a child (too young to appreciate it at all), and seeing this scene particular later as an adult. It's intense, and as mentioned towards the end of this analysis, the actual words of the anthem are brutal. They're not singing "God save the king", but rather "we will water our fields with the blood of our enemies."

What I don't think I ever realized is that the film is from 1942. Pretty much every WWII film is from long after the war ended, but this was released early in the France occupation. That adds so much to its meaning and power.

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I mean, God Save The King/Queen is not exactly passive either. For a period it briefly had a mask-off moment, where my people were to be "crushed":

> Lord, grant that Marshal Wade,

> May by thy mighty aid,

> Victory bring.

> May he sedition hush,

> and like a torrent rush,

> Rebellious Scots to crush,

> God save the King.

So that's nice, when your own national anthem called for you to be crushed. This verse is not used anymore, but the UK national anthem is obviously not popular in Scotland. I have never learned the lyrics to it and haven't the faintest interest in doing so. For me it starts "God save our something Queen, bleeh bleh bleh bleeeeeeh bleh bleh, god save our queen..."

I know "Kde domov můj" more than I know that song.

I feel like a lot of national anthems have some bits that people gloss over, or have quietly done away with. Part of the charm innit. The Irish national song talks about the 'Saxon foe' in the English version[1] (the English version isn't normally the one sung, and only the chorus of said song is the national anthem proper).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amhrán_na_bhFiann

Yeah it's possible that by now many anthems don't truly mean what they currently or originally said, or reference things that are kinda irrelevant today. They're just rousing words that fit a tune, and people sorta go along with it. And tbh as I said the UK anthem doesn't currently openly call for my slaughter and I don't live in fear that I'll be persecuted by the UK government on account of my national identity. But I think it's one thing to have a "Remember this external foe we defeated in our independence struggle" section in your anthem and another to have had one saying "A very large part of our nation must be defeated and its people subjugated", particularly if you are one of those people

The Dutch national anthem has a part that pronounces the narrator to be proud to be of German blood..

Also that the protagonist (Wilhelm of Orange) has always respected the Spanish king.

I don't know if you're American or not, but if you're familiar with The Star Spangled Banner, you may not be familiar with _all_ of it.

https://amhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/pdf/ssb_lyrics.p...

additionally notable— the melody the poem was ultimately set to: a tavern drinking song, To Anacreon in Heaven [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anacreontic_Song

> Rebellious Scots to crush

Someone anticipated the Scottish independence referendum already a long time ago!

Well it was in reference to the original independence movement (which would just have installed a different fancy lad as King) in the form of the Jacobite Rebellion so yeah :D

But in honesty, the anthem isn't technically prejudiced against the Scottish identity today, it's just sort of ... weird due to this history and some accumulated shit, and many of us just fucking don't like it, but can't really do anything about it.

Flower of Scotland is very slow and brings an odd vibe to sporting events. I prefer Loch Lomond and how it builds :D

edit - you got downvoted: you shouldn't have

> So that's nice, when your own national anthem called for you to be crushed.

It’s not calling for loyal Scots to be crushed, just rebellious ones!

Ah that's a relief! Wait I voted Yes ...

From my very in-depth investigation that verse was never in widespread use and was referring to the Jacobites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Save_the_Queen#Historic_Ja...

Did you read this on Twitter or in The National?

Hey greentext andrew163623, I'm very pleased you discovered wikipedia! However the existence of that verse is already known by many Scots, it's not some Forbidden Knowledge that only nationalist papers talk about.

> It's intense, and as mentioned towards the end of this analysis, the actual words of the anthem are brutal. They're not singing "God save the king", but rather "we will water our fields with the blood of our enemies."

La Marseillaise, if you boil it down to a single sentence, is basically "Fight on, Frenchmen... because we are utterly screwed if you don't."--almost all of the violence in the song is about the violence directed towards the French by the various coalitions arrayed against it at that time. (Also extremely notable for a national anthem of that period, it never specifically identifies an enemy--contrast that to the dueling German anthem in the film, which is a rather explicitly anti-French anthem.)

Or the Italian one which is anti-Austrian.

But in doing so it features some solidarity with the Polish :D

> Son giunchi che piegano (Mercenary swords)

> le spade vendute (they're feeble reeds)

> già l'Aquila d'Austria (The Austrian eagle)

> le penne ha perdute. (Has already lost its plumes)

> Il sangue d'Italia, (The blood of Italy)

> il sangue Polacco, (and the Polish blood)

> bevé, col cosacco, (It drank, along with the Cossack)

> ma il cor le bruciò (But it burned its heart)

... this is actually reciprocated in the Polish anthem:

> Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski, (March, march, Dąbrowski)

> Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski. (From the Italian land to Poland)

> Za twoim przewodem (Under your command)

> Złączym się z narodem. (We shall rejoin the nation)

Translation on the first two verses is reversed

> contrast that to the dueling German anthem in the film, which is a rather explicitly anti-French anthem

Yes, OTOH it seems to have a mere passive, defensive spirit: “a guardian of the river” – “the watch on the Rhine” – “protects the sacred border of the land” – “remain”,[1] written afraid of annexation:

“Repeated French efforts to annex the Left Bank of the Rhine began with the devastating wars of King Louis XIV. French forces carried out massive scorched earth campaigns in the German south-west. This policy was fully implemented during the Napoleonic Wars with the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806–1813. In the two centuries from the Thirty Years' War to the final defeat of Napoleon I, the German inhabitants of lands by the Rhine suffered from repeated French invasions.

The defeat and exile of Napoleon gave the Germans some respite, but during the Rhine Crisis of 1840, French prime minister Adolphe Thiers advanced the claim that the Upper and Middle Rhine River should serve as his country's "natural eastern border". The member states of the German Confederation feared that France was resuming her annexationist designs.”[2]

Maybe itʼs even meant as a signal of dishonesty that it is sung by soldiers whose army didnʼt watch at the Rhine but occupied France brutally? Anyway, I donʼt intend to praise the Wacht am Rhein, itʼs certainly not great poetry, rather a rattling and clattering from the dustbin of history.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Wacht_am_Rhein#Lyrics [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Wacht_am_Rhein#Origin

> the violence directed towards the French by the various coalitions arrayed against it at that time

I’m not extremely deeply familiar with the history and consequences of the French Revolution, but I recall that it was the French who started the War of the First Coalition.

As an ironic aside, it looks like the fellow who commissioned La Marseillaise lost his head to the Reign of Terror.

> contrast that to the dueling German anthem in the film, which is a rather explicitly anti-French anthem

Die Wacht am Rhein? The lyrics on Wikipedia don’t mention the French at all so far as I can tell. They claim that ‘Frenchman’ is a literal translation of ‘Welscher,’ but I think the literal translation is ‘foreigner.’

I mean "started" is maybe too implicative a word. They did declare war but considering the general rasespone of monarchs to Republicanism in that period as well as the territorial ambitions of those monarchs, it's hard to imagine revolutionary France not finding itself at war with most of Europe.

it's actually a common misunderstanding (even amongst french) : the "impure" blood the french anthem is talking about is their own blood, not the one from their ennemies.

Nobility was calling them impure (since not from noble blood), and they reversed it to something to be proud of (kind of).

Are there any reputable sources for that interpretation? At face value, it seems like a flimsy attempt at sweeping the unfortunate implications of the words "impure blood" under the rug.

But since nationalism was widespread and encouraged in that zeitgeist, and considering the context of a foreign invasion in which the lyrics were written, I am way more inclined to assume that the "impure blood" is that of the "ferocious soldiers" coming for the French.

Well, as the song warns that foreign soldiers will come slit the throats of our women and children... I agree with your interpretation.

First, Remember it was written in 1792 for the army of the French revolution. I'm French, I've heard a lot of of explanations about these words since I'm a child. Here's one of them: https://fr.quora.com/La-Marseillaise-contient-Quun-sang-impu.... Sorry for the French text.

This is a question that is sometimes very much discussed in France. Always in French : https://www.uneautremarseillaisepourlafrance.fr/blog/2015/12...

It looks like i got fooled by that alternate theory which gained a lot of popularity in the last 10 years, but is apparently fake..

Sorry about that.

La Marseillaise was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle and the "impure blood" clearly refers to the enemies of France. Take a look at the lyrics immediately following the controversial section.

Here's a translation from Wikipedia:

"Let an impure blood

Water our furrows!

What does this horde of slaves

Of traitors and conspiring kings want?

For whom have these vile chains

These irons, been long prepared? (repeated)

Frenchmen, for us, ah! What outrage

What furious action it must arouse!

It is for us they dare plan

A return to the old slavery!

What! Foreign cohorts!

Would make the law in our homes!

What! These mercenary phalanxes

…(later)

Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,

Bear or hold back your blows!

Spare those sorry victims,

For regretfully arming against us (repeated)"

Okay so Frenchmen are magnaminous, valorous warriors. The enemy are the slaves of tyrants. And we're meant to believe the impure blood in a song written by a French revolutionary era freemason refers to the third estate? Seems unlikely to me.

I'm not sure what's the original interpretation was supposed to be, but as a French, bsaul interpretation is the one I choose to believe, and I think that matters more :)

bsaul agrees with me so you agree with me

https://blogs.mediapart.fr/jean-clement-martin/blog/100116/q...

Damn ! it looks like you're right. I fell for this fake interpretation that got spread for the last 10 years on the net, and even reached wikipedia...

Sorry about that.

edit : it's even worst than that, that alternate theory reached the ministry of education and the parlement, since 2006...

https://blogs.mediapart.fr/rouget-de-marseille/blog/130718/l...

Looks like we're having a lot of trouble with the original super barbaric lyrics :)))

> Nobility was calling them impure (since not from noble blood)

Did the nobility in any country use to consider the blood of the people they ruled "impure"? Lowborn, sure, but "impure"?

I think it's a Germanic heritage.

> They're not singing "God save the king", but rather "we will water our fields with the blood of our enemies."

Well, when the Marseillaise was written, they were about to kill the king, forgo any reference to God and were watering fields with the blood of their enemies (and French soldiers), so it was appropriate, no?

The song was written in April 1792 in the context of the declaration of war from France to Austria.

The then very recent constitutional monarchy fell in August.

The king trial began in November and even then, although death was requested by some, it was not an evidence yet.

Death was voted with a small majority in January.

It was complicated. It was a constitutional monarchy at the time, and killing the king was at least one sub-revolution away. Seriously, there were many, many ways he could have avoided being executed. The Revolutions podcast has a decent summary of all of it, including Louis XVI’s many mis-calculations and stupid PR mistakes. If you can call “a summary” 20 hours worth of podcast.

They were at war with half of Europe though, and directly threatened by the Austrian army, amongst others.

Much like the Tsars and Charles I and James I, the French monarchs of the time seem determined to escalate until it got them killed.

Modern billionaires could probably do with some history lessons.

You’re right, it’s like something that did not happen in their lifetimes will not happen ever.

To be fair to old Louis though, he did learn from the English civil war: he read Hume’s History of England and was well aware of how Charles I got killed. He tried very hard not to be as inflexible. So instead he got killed for going with the wind and saying yes too often, to the wrong people. And trying to flee, which was really un-patriotic, completely sank the legitimacy of the constitutional monarchy, and opened the door for the radicals.

There's a scene that's a jusxtaposition to Casablanca's (and bow I realise it may have been intended as such): Tomorrow Belongs To Me from Cabaret. It's intense, chilling, and ultimately frightening.

It's brilliant and I always thought it shows the way something innocent can be appropriated, both the kid and the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv0jav4lNsk

Ironically it was written by Caberet's authors.

Ironically Casablanca was produced as a b-movie and marks the hight of the studio system. It didn't have a huge budget and it was rushed out to coincide with the allied invasion of North Africa.

We watched it recently after decades of hearing how great a film it was.. it was a superficial letdown instead.

It invented a lot of common cliches and tropes that are frequently used in other movies so in many ways it's a victim of its own success. For example in Star Wars the planet of Tatooine is Casablanca and the Cantina is Rick's Cafe.

Full of cliches, right?

(/s -- victim of its own success...)

Yep. I've joked a fair amount that watching Casablanca now is very likely to make you think "this is full of clichés" until you realize, "wait, this is where all these clichés actually started, isn't it?"

Similar to attending a play from The Repertory and hearing all the quotes that originate from it. Especially Shakespeare. But also the rest of the usual suspects. I'm shocked (Shocked!) to learn that movies borrow from Casablanca or Shakespeare.

As it happens La Marseillaise was originally the war song of the French Rhine Army, which was led by a German-born (Bavarian) field Marshal at the time, and was written after France declared war to Austria.

This was long before German unification and the head-on rivalry it created.

I really like the fact that Rick represents USA.

By contrast, the Russian national anthem just calls their own country awesome over and over again.

Many of the extras (including Madeleine Lebeau, whose face is arguably the symbol of that scene) had recently fled Nazi occupation in Europe, so their emotions were genuine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Lebeau

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)#Cast

At the same time it was a military song sung by soldiers to motivate them during long marches... I like the Marseillaise but all the martial songs are martial.

Watch Chaplin's The Great Dictator and it's really amazing when you realize it came out in 1940 and was created in the late 30's, right when Hitler was seizing power and starting WW2. Chaplin was a genius and realized the most powerful way to hurt Hitler was to make him look like a fool and mock him. Its monologue is an equally unforgettable scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20

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