Chanson de Craonne
The Chanson de Craonne is an anti-war song from the First World War .
The song and was texted by an anonymous author. The melody corresponds to the French hit Bonsoir m'amour from 1913.
Presumably it originated as Chanson de Lorette (after the murderous Loretto battle of 1915). The song was sung by French troops who mutinied in over sixty of the hundred divisions of the French army after the heavy fighting at the Battle of the Aisne in 1917 . The mutiny was severely suppressed by then General Henri Philippe Pétain , with 500 soldiers sentenced to death, of which only 26 were actually executed.
Although the song was banned immediately and the sum of 1 million francs was promised for naming the author and immediate discharge from the army, it was not possible to prevent its distribution and the author could not be identified. In addition, the public performance of this song was banned in France until 1974 because it was alleged to harm the honor of the army and veterans.
The French writer Paul Vaillant-Couturier recorded the words and made them popular.
In the film Mathilde - Eine große Liebe (2004) the song is sung by one of the convicts.
In the final scene of the television film The Uninvited Guest ( La dette ) by Fabrice Cazeneuve (2000), the refrain of the song is hummed by the prefect ( André Dussollier ) and his young trainee lawyer ( Damien Dorsaz ).
text
The text translated from French is as follows:
When the vacation is over after eight days,
it goes back into the trenches.
Our place is very important
because without us they would take the position.
But that's the end of it, we've had enough of it,
nobody wants to march anymore.
With a heavy heart,
as if sobbing, you say goodbye to civilian life,
because without drums and trumpets,
you go there with your head hanging down.
Refrain:
Goodbye
, goodbye love,
goodbye to all women.
It's over forever
with this nefarious war.
On the Craonne plateau
we must give up our skins
because we are all condemned;
we are the victims.
Eight days in the ditch, eight days of suffering
but still there is hope
that tonight the relief
that we so impatiently await will come.
Then you see
someone approaching in the quiet of the night .
It is an officer of the hunters
who are supposed to relieve us.
The little hunters will quietly
find their graves up here in the shade and in the falling rain.
Refrain
It hurts to look out onto the great boulevards
where the great gentlemen spread out.
Life may be good for them,
but not for us.
They are always looking for new pressure posts
so that they can send even more people into the trenches to
defend their prosperity, because we have nothing.
All of our comrades are buried up there just to defend the
wealth of these gentlemen.
Refrain
Those who have
money will come back because we will die for them.
But that's over,
because we ordinary soldiers will go on strike.
Now it is your turn, you great gentlemen,
to climb up to the plateau,
and if you want war,
pay for it with your skin.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Guy Marival: The Song of Craonne. In: 1914 1918 Online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. (October 8, 2014).