La Gran Guerra

La Primera Guerra Mundial (o la Gran Guerra) tiene algo especial, escalofriante. La Segunda tuvo entre tres y cuatro veces más muertos y fue muchísimo más destructiva en general (no en Europa occidental, salvo en Alemania, claro), pero al menos la población de los países aliados podía decirse que todo eso había pasado por un motivo, que había una causa justa por la que estaban luchando, todo lo cual se refleja en las películas y en la literatura.

En la Primera no hubo nada de eso. Tras el entusiasmo inicial, la cosa se fue deteriorando hasta que, hacia 1917, se veía la guerra como una aberración sin sentido que quizá no acabaría nunca. La sensación era que se luchaba por los intereses de unos pocos, no por defender a ningún país. No es casualidad que, en 1918, media Europa estuviera al borde de la revolución comunista (Rusia, siempre adelantada a su tiempo, estaba ya al borde de la contrarrevolución). En el imaginario colectivo, la «guerra para acabar con las guerras» se había convertido en la guerra absurda por antonomasia, de ahí que el arte sobre el tema, al contrario que el creado sobre la Segunda Guerra Mundial, sea fuertemente antibelicista. Probablemente, esto también haya tenido mucho que ver en el hecho de que la Primera haya quedado bastante eclipsada por la Segunda en la cultura popular, sobre todo en el cine.

Pero la Gran Guerra, con su regusto de fatalidad y absoluta falta de épica, sí ha sido terreno fértil para la música tradicional y el folk. El ejemplo más conocido probablemente sea Eric Bogle, cantautor nacido en Escocia en 1944 y que emigró a Australia en 1969. Escribió dos de las canciones antibelicistas basadas en la Primera Guerra Mundial más famosas, y que en realidad sólo conozco a través de versiones: And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda y No Man's Land, también conocida como The Green Fields of France y Willie McBride.

El título de la primera es una referencia a Waltzing Matilda, canción tradicional australiana escrita por un tío llamado Banjo (no es coña) y que es poco menos que el himno no oficial de Australia. And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, escrita en 1972, cuenta de forma muy cruda la experiencia de un soldado australiano en la campaña de Gallípoli de 1915, en la que pierde ambas piernas. De vuelta a casa, se enfrenta al abandono de la sociedad y al sinsentido de su sacrificio. La conozco gracias a la increíble versión de The Pogues, recogida en su disco Rum, Sodomy & the Lash de 1985:

Obligatorio leer la letra mientras suena la música:

When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of a rover
From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son
It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we sailed away from the quay
And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers
We sailed off to Gallipoli

How well I remember that terrible day
How the blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk he was ready, he primed himself well
He showered us with bullets, he rained us with shells
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia
But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we stopped to bury our slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again

Now those who were living did their best to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire
And for seven long weeks I kept myself alive
While the corpses around me piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, Christ, I wished I was dead
Never knew there were worse things than dying
And no more I'll go waltzing Matilda
To the green bushes so far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they collected the cripples, the wounded, and maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The legless, the armless, the blind and insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
And they turned all their faces away

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory
And I see the old men, all twisted and torn
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask me, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll go-a-waltzing Matilda with me?

No Man's Land, escrita en 1976, son las reflexiones de un hombre anónimo ante la lápida de un joven soldado escocés llamado Willie McBride, muerto a los 19 años en el frente francés. El hombre le pregunta a Willie cómo vivió, cómo murió, cómo le recordaron sus seres queridos, o si simplemente fue olvidado para siempre. En el estribillo, el momento más emotivo de la canción, pregunta por su funeral (alude a Last Post, canción funeraria del ejército británico, y a Flowers of the Forest, canción tradicional escocesa para gaita, normalmente reservada para los funerales). Por supuesto, al final acaba reflexionando sobre la inutilidad de la guerra. La versión que he escuchado es la de Dropkick Murphys, con el nombre de The Green Fields of France (aparece en su disco The Warrior's Code, de 2005):

Oh how do you do, young Willie McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun?
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in 1916.
Well I hoped you died quick, and I hoped you died clean,
Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some loyal heart, is your memory enshrined?
And though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart you're forever nineteen,
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane,
In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France,
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow,
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard, that's still No Man's Land,
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand,
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation were butchered and damned

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And I can't help but wonder oh Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffring, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing and dying it was all done in vain.
Oh Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again and again and again and again!

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post in chorus,
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Yo es que sólo con ver fotos de las trincheras ya me emociono.