The South African
by John S Murray
Address to SAMHS Jhb branch on 12 October 2006
On 6 April 2003 L/Cpl Ian Malone, a regimental piper and a member of the Pioneer Assault Platoon in Support Company, 1st Battalion Irish Guards was killed by a burst of automatic fire during the fierce fighting around the University of Basra in Southern Iraq. Not the least moving aspect of his requiem mass and subsequent interment in Dublin was the participation therein, as pall bearers, of seven of his platoon comrades wearing No 1 dress uniform. This was the cause of considerable media comment, particularly in Ireland, on account of it being the first instance of public British military involvement at any level of affairs in the 26 counties comprising the Republic since its creation by the Anglo-Irish Treaty of Partition in December 1921. Amidst the welter of investigation into his background inspired by the event it emerged that prior to enlistment with the Irish Guards, a decision urged upon him by his parish priest apparently, Malone had given serious thought to pursuing a military career with the French Foreign Legion.
The story was intriguing enough for me to feel the need to establish the extent of the mental turnaround that the transfer of intended allegiance by a deep thinking young Dublin warehouseman with chess master pretensions amounted to. While, on the one hand, I could lay claim to a fair knowledge of Her Majesty's Fourth Regiment of Foot Guards, on the other, my understanding of La Légion Etrangère was largely defined by colourful myth and legend, both sufficiently redolent of colonial history to justify the statement put to me recently on several occasions: "I didn't know the French Foreign Legion still existed."
I am happy to say that the investigative exercise I set myself has been a fascinating one that has amply rewarded the time invested in it, because, for me at least it has revealed a unique, stirring and stimulating story. What is it about the French Foreign Legion that draws men from all over the world to give up five years of their lives to serve in the toughest of modern fighting forces? The mystique of the Legion is based on 160 years of combat history, in which both individual and collective acts of heroism have combined to forge that unique spirit of brotherhood that defines the Légion Etrangère.
Perhaps presumptuously, I believe that Ian Malone's ultimate choice was only resolved by finely drawn judgement rooted in the philosophy - expounded by a Frenchman, I gather - that: 'Every man has his reason for living and his price for dying'.
The French Foreign Legion is an elite military force of at latest count, just over 7 500 men deployed in nine separate units or detachments variously based in mainland France, Corsica, French Guyana, the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte and Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. As previously mentioned, it is an all arms formation combining the disciplines of the parachutist, light infantryman and engineer with substantial scouting, armoured reconnaissance and anti-tank capacities backed up by the logistical support of the Headquarters Regiment (the First Foreign) in Aubagne between Aix-en-Province and Marseilles in the South of France and the training establishment of the Fourth Foreign Regiment at Castelnaudary, also in France. Because of its out-of-area responsibilities and role within the Rapid Action Force the Legion uses equipment that facilitates high tactical mobility such as wheeled armoured fighting vehicles, helicopter transport aircraft, jeeps and light trucks. However, being primarily an infantry force it is mainly equipped with light weaponry.
Also at latest count the membership of the French Foreign Legion embraces 138 nationalities, which number is remarkably consistent with those over the last century and three quarters although the ratios at any given time are strongly affected by regional conflict. For more than a century after its founding the Legion drew many of its best soldiers from the lost causes of Europe. Whenever might triumphed, some of the defeated found their way into the Legion. Generations of freedom-loving men who were suppressed in Italy, Poland, and Spain joined it. After the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, thousands of White Russians flocked to it. After the defeat of Germany in World War I, large numbers of German ultranationalists poured into it. As Hitler's swastikas engulfed Europe, the Legion became the refuge of Jews, Austrians, Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Serbs. Of course not every lost cause is a good one. After Hitler and Mussolini were defeated, the Legion became a refuge for many Germans and Italians. But whether a man was an anarchist or a monarchist or a democrat made no difference to the Legion; what mattered was that he was willing and physically able to serve and fight. Yet the ranks of the Legion always were a far cry from being filled with men seeking political asylum. The vast majority are concerned more by personal than political affairs. With some notable exceptions, the Legion usually has enlisted men who are poor or rootless or personally harassed. A recurrent story with the same theme has been told about generations of legionnaires. Most recently in the twentieth century it concerned an Italian who had joined the Legion and was asked what sort of man Mussolini had been "He wasn't so bad," the Italian replied, "but you should have met that wife of mine."
Currently 46% of recruits to the Legion are of East European origin and 25% - 35% are believed to be French, as are known to be 90% of the officers, who are generally among the best products of the St Cyr Military Academy, the balance being legionnaires who have risen through the ranks.
The need for quality leadership stems from the strongly cohesive interdependent nature of the relationship between leaders and led, the more remarkable for the fact that the latter are the products of a system that uniquely must blend the widest conceivable diversity in terms of race, creed and culture while creating a soldier trained to the highest standards. The scale of the challenge involved was highlighted recently by an analysis of a 42 man training section in 4 RE, which was found to contain 19 nationalities, plus 'unofficially' France by virtue of the majority of those from each of Switzerland, Canada and Monaco in fact being Frenchmen. That revelation would seem to be the cue for elaboration of the guaranteed anonymity.
Legionnaires have the choice of enlisting under a pseudonym, a declared identity is the description, and a declared citizenship. This is a disposition to assist those wanting to put their past behind them by enlisting. French citizens can enlist under a declared fictitious foreign citizenship - generally a francophone one. After a year legionnaires can regularize their situation by reverting to their true identity; the process is known as rectification and, until that happens, they are effectively confined to camp, or at least the nearest town. Unless they have attained the rank of caporal-chef, or sergeant in our terms, they may not own a car or wear civilian clothes.
After serving in the Legion for three years (out of an initial five year enlistment), the legionnaire may apply for French citizenship and if harmed in combat for France he may do so at any time under a provision known as "français par le sang versé" "French by blood shed".
The French lieutenant-colonel working for the Defence Attache's office in London explains the problem France's Légion Etrangère causes him, although he acknowledges that its not so much the Legion's fault, more that of the British. Every week he gets letters, e-mails and phone calls from anxious girlfriends, spouses or parents with a common theme: 'Where is Johnny or Jim or Harry. He was off to join the Legion and we've not heard from him since.' These are passed on to the Legion offices in Paris with pertinent personal details and perhaps a photograph. 'Has Monsieur J Brown, an Englishmen joined the Legion in the past two months? His mother is anxious to trace him.' Often the reluctant correspondent, having been traced, will agree to allow his address to be passed on to the enquirer. Occasionally, however, J Brown wants to make a clean break from the past and has taken advantage of Legion anonymity. He is now J Braun from Berlin, rather than Basingstoke, and the official reply is that 'there is no Englishman named J Brown serving in the Légion Etrangère who has joined in the last two months.'
It's important to emphasise that, whatever advantage it might once have been possible for felons and criminal opportunists to take of the benefit of anonymity linked to inadequate vetting procedures by recruiters more concerned with numbers than quality such situations no longer apply. A combination of strict background checks, combined with the considerable unemployment as well as the political upheaval of the last 15 years, and the diminished size of the Legion has enabled it to the pursue a highly selective recruitment policy resulting in three out of four applicants being turned away in favour of the youngest, fittest, most intelligent and best motivated.
Studying the history of the French Foreign Legion I have been struck by the incredible mystique that has developed around it since its foundation by Louis Philippe, King of the French, in 1831. There has been no occurrence quite like it in the history of the mercenary soldier and it has rarely been equalled by soldiers of one nation fighting in a common nationalistic cause. In certain respects the mystique bears resemblance to that of a rigorously directed religious order and finds expression in the unofficial motto 'Legio Patria Nostra': The Legion is Our Fatherland; the official one, by the way, is the somewhat trite 'Honneur et Fidelite'.
All manner of men have been attracted to the Legion. It is impossible to find a craft,
trade, profession, or way of life that has not been represented among the wearers of its
white kepi. Members of royalty and a great variety of nobility have served in the Legion.
On occasion the professional musicians in its ranks could have formed an outstanding
symphony orchestra. Poets and priests have marched and fought alongside those of, shall
I say, totally contrasting intellectual and spiritual calibre. A Spanish bishop, serving as a
private, used to play the organ in the chapel at Sidi-bel-Abbès; drink had been his
undoing, and he had to be well lubricated with alcohol in order to play effectively. Once,
during the Rif War in Morocco, when a Legion battalion had been badly mauled and was
without medical aid, three physicians in the ranks disclosed their former profession and
tended the wounded. Although financial need is the general rule for enlistment, at least
one American millionaire enlisted as a private during World War I. Once, a general,
reviewing a regiment in Syria, was struck by the military bearing of one private. He
asked what his occupation had been before enlisting. "I was a general, mon Général,"
replied the private, who had been a major general in the White Russian Army.
Prince Aage of Demnark, a first cousin of King Christian X, served as a captain in the
Legion for many years, and concluded that many men join it because "life is a torture to
them." Tortured or not, men of every conceivable disposition and background have
enlisted for what they perceived at the time as the most valid of reasons. Many who had
lived badly died well. Some who had lived well deserted in the fear that they would die
badly.
That leads onto the issue of desertion, a matter the Legion is reluctant to discuss largely on account of media sensationalism the origins of which can be traced back to the commercially successful but factually inaccurate writings of such as Marie Louise de la Ramée and Percival Christopher Wren and subsequently massaged by the reminiscences of those - mostly Anglo-Saxon, it must be admitted - who have failed to 'cut it' since. There are many different pressures to desert. The Legion's is a physically demanding way of life and the initial four months of basic training, undertaken without exception by all EVs (that's engagés volontaires as recruits are known) is long and hard. In addition the legionnaire is bound by a minimum five years contract, perhaps the longest minimum enlistment period of any professional military formation in the world, and the harsh reality of everyday Legion life can come as distinct shock to those who have signed up in the roseate glow of naïve or idealist contemplation. The perspective on desertion has become distorted by exaggeration and speculation in the face of, at best, cryptic comment by the Legion, but the reality is that its rate, at less than 5%, is extremely low and its retention rate compares favourably with most armies. This has much to do with the thoroughness of the recruitment process in sifting out the great majority of those joining for the wrong reasons or of being unsuited to military life.
The French Foreign Legion is an outstanding example of the triumph of a way of life over the literature that has sought, with varying degrees of bias, to define it by distilling the essence of its disparities, seeking an interpretation of its mystique and unravelling its mysteries. Because, in the final analysis, those attempts have basically been intrusions the Legion escapes the ultimate definition. Despite millions of published words of blame and praise, of truths, half-truths and downright lies it has remained essentially the same down the years. Politics, conflict and changing social orders have been the determinants of its enlistments, its challenges, its achievements, its sacrifices - and its character.
It is a beautiful spring morning in Central London. A group of men have gathered before the bronzed statue of a mounted soldier set to one side of a square close to Victoria Station. They have lined up, standing to attention, looking ahead. They are respectably dressed in suits, or jackets and ties. On their breasts they wear medals, one, two or more rows in some cases, others just a pair or a single decoration. They each wear a smart, close-fitting greet beret, slanted to the left rather than the right of the British tradition, because these are Britons who have served with the French Foreign Legion. An unusual ceremony takes place. One by one three men are called forward to receive their decorations. The first to do so is a Norwegian; the officer, and the medal with which he is being presented, are French. Another officer, also wearing a smart, summer service dress, but this time belonging to the Norwegian rather than French Army, delivers the second set of decorations to the next two men. The men are of Spanish origin but the medals are in recognition of active service seen at Narvik in 1940. they return to the ranks to be addressed by an English colonel in French: "On 29 April 1863, Colonel Jeanningros asked Capitaine Danjou to organize a company as escort to a major convoy leaving the Mexican port of Vera Cruz for Puebla. It was the Third Company of the Legion's 1st Battalion's duty tour but, noting that all its officers were sick, Danjou proposed that he should command it. To assist him in this task, he took the standard bearer, Sous-lieutenant Maudet, and their paymaster, Sous-lieutenant Vilain. The column left at one o'clock in the morning on 30 April, intending initially to reach Palo Verde. Meanwhile the Mexicans, having learned of the passage of the convoy, organized a force of 800 cavalry and three infantry battalions - about 2000 all told - to attack it.
At about 0500 hours Danjou's company stopped for a brief rest and, having posted sentries, set about making the morning coffee, which was well underway when the sentries announced approaching cavalry. In seconds the coffee was thrown away, the mules were re-loaded and the company was moving towards the outskirts of the village of Camerone, whence rang out the first shot of the battle, fired by a nervous Mexican sentry. The first cavalry charge quickly followed and was just as quickly broken up and repulsed by well-controlled fire and the use of thick scrub into which Danjou had moved his force. In the hubbub the mules took fright, broke loose and disappeared with the rations, water and spare ammunition. The 65-strong company had about 60 rounds apiece. Danjou decided to stand and fight, and to engage the enemy, thus distracting their attention from the valuable convoy, and rapidly moved his force into a defensive position in the nearby hacienda, where they were to hold out for the next 10 hours.
By nine o'clock the sun was already high and the legionnaires had neither water, nor food. Colonel Milan, commanding the Mexicans, called on the legionnaires to surrender; they replied that they had ammunition and had no intention of surrendering. The legionnaires promised Danjou that, come what may, they would fight to the bitter end. He was killed at about 11 o'clock. At that point, three battalions of Mexican infantry arrived on the scene, and again the legionnaires were called to surrender. They replied 'merde'. The situation worsened - the Mexicans had broken into various rooms of the hacienda and, having killed the legionnaire occupants, set fire to the rooms. For the suffering wounded there was intense heat, dust, smoke and no water. The battle continued. Villain was killed just before two o'clock and Maudet took command, but by five o'clock he had only 12 men left in a fit state to fight.
Again Milan called on the legionnaires to surrender. They did not deign to reply, and a fresh attack was launched against them. Maudet was now alone with a Caporal (Maine) and four legionnaires (Leonhard, Cafteau, Wenzel and Constantin). Their cartouchières were empty - they fired their final salvo and leaving their shelter, charged the Mexicans with their bayonets. All fell before reaching them. Maudet received two bullets. Legionnaire Catteau, who had thrown himself in front of his officier to protect him, was hit 19 times. They were the last. It was 6pm and the battle was over. Maine, Wenzel and Constantin, though wounded, were still standing. Of the 65-strong company, two officers and 22 legionnaires were dead, one officer and nine men mortally wounded, and 19 to soon die of their wounds in captivity; 12 others, all wounded, were captured. When Maine, Wenzel and Constantin were called upon in French by a Colonel Cambas to surrender. Maine replied: 'Only if you allow us to keep our weapons and treat our Lieutenant Maudet here' 'One refuses nothing to men such as you' responded Canibas. Soon after, the three were presented more as honoured guests than prisoners to Colonel Milan, who, perplexed, looked for the others: 'Are you telling me that these are the only survivors?' 'Yes sir' 'Truly these are not men, but devils!'
The Mexicans lost more than 500 men. The Emperor Napoleon III had the title 'Camerone 1863' inscribed on the banners of the Premier Regiment; and in 1892, on the site of the battle, a monument was raised on which is inscribed: "Here stood 65 men against an entire army. Its weight overwhelmed them. Life, sooner than courage, forsook these soldiers of France. 30 April 1863"
The English colonel completes his address and the ex-legionnaires continue to stand motionless before the statue of the French World War One commander, Marshal Foche, while a Guards bugler plays the last post. In the silence that follows, these former soldats francais surely reflect on the Legion's past glories and particularly on Camerone, of which today is the anniversary.
The Camerone spirit, instilled into every [recruit or] EV from his first day of service by constant indoctrination, permeates the Legion, inspires its actions and is the wellspring of its mystique and élan. The story of the battle, the Legion's credo, is recounted aloud by the senior officer present on its 30 April anniversary commemorative parades around the world and in Aubagne its most treasured relic, Capitaine Danjou's prosthetic wooden hand, recovered from the battlefield months later, is paraded through the ranks.
France has employed more foreigners as soldiers than any other nation. As early as 886 its King hired a Scottish bodyguard. For centuries the Scots were the favourites among the detachments of various nationalities who served as part of the French Royal Household troops until, in 1400, the Scottish contingent was 7,000 strong. Gradually the Irish replaced the Scots as favoured mercenaries; by 1714 there were seven Irish regiments in the pay of France.[These were the legendary Wild Geese who, in the century between the Battle of the Boyne and the outbreak of the French Revolution came to number half a million, fighting with distinction in many battles (generally against the British) notably those of Blenheim (1704) and Fontenoy (1745)[ Other nationalities were used freely, too, variously English, Germans, Swiss, Poles, Spaniards, Swedes, Italians, and Dutch. During the Revolution more than 700 Swiss Royal Guards fought to the death, defending Louis XVI from the mobs in the Tuileries. Then, after wiping out the royal mercenaries, the French Revolutionary Government faced about and hired units of foreigners to fight for it. Even Napoleon employed as many foreigners as he could obtain, and certainly when he invaded Russia in 1812 more than half of his army was composed of foreign soldiery.
La Legion Etrangère was to be different from all of those formations not only for the reasons addressed in this paper, but also on account of the uniquely unconventional circumstances surrounding its foundation.
In 1831 Paris was a powder keg ready to explode. The city was not only a Mecca for political dissidents from all over Europe, but was also riven by the factional rivalries of Bourbon absolutists, Bonapartists, anti-clericalists, conservatives, liberals and a starving mob only too anxious to loot and riot against a less than popular administration. By far the most dangerous element of this volatile population were former members of the Royal Swiss Guard and the Regiment of Hohenlohe, also recruited from foreigners, which had been disbanded when Charles X was replaced on the throne by his liberal cousin, Louis-Philippe, the previous year. These men, trained, disciplined, resentful and unemployed, were willing participants in the rioting and posed a serious threat to the political establishment. The problem was, what to with them without resorting to violence or upsetting delicate sensibilities?
After one particularly serious riot involving the disbanded mercenaries the Napoleonic veteran Minister of War, Marshal Soult, is said to have mused: 'So they wish to fight? Then let them bleed or shovel sand in the conquest of North Africa!' And so the Foreign Legion was conceived.
A considerable body of French opinion regarded the formation of the Legion as a national disgrace and was deeply offended that mercenaries should be employed to fight France's battles for her. For the same reason, the Regular Army was inclined to distance itself from the Legion, although it ensured that if there were a dirty job to be done, it would be the Legion that did it.
That sentiment found forthright expression by the French commander-in-chief in Mexico, General Elie-Frederic Forey explained why had decided to waste the Legion's fighting spirit in manning the lines of communication: "I preferred to leave foreigners rather than Frenchmen to guard the most unhealthy area .................. where the malaria reigns" In 1931 when the French authorities finally accorded the Legion a place on the French Army list for the first time in its 100 year history its status remained lowly in that it was ranked below the Bataillons d'Afrique, the penal units ironically described as Les Joyeux, the joyful ones!
Already isolated from family, home, country and even from Europe itself, the Legion was
soon aware that it was also despised by the very people for whom it was fighting.
Naturally, it turned inwards upon itself and soon developed a fierce and unmatchable
esprit de corps.
Several advisers urged Louis-Philippe to call off the North African enterprise, but the
House of Orleans has as great a need for colonial conquest to boost its prestige as had the
House of Bourbon. Victories remote from mainland France could be made to sound
Impressive while defeats could be overlooked. As he cynically expressed it 'What
difference does it make if a 100 000 rifles fire in Africa. Europe doesn't hear them;"
Embarrassing allies having been disposed of by the formation of a gang of Street toughs
into the Paris Volunteers and their export to Algeria, Louis-Philippe turned his attention
to removing from France those officers and soldiers, French or foreign, who were felt to
be awkward, excitable or franldy dangerous subjects of his new monarchy. Accordingly,
he readily listened to a Belgian adventurer calling himself Baron Boegard, who offered to
enlist the fractions brawling exiles from the streets of Paris into a Légion Etrangère and
take them to the support of French forces in North Africa.
On 9 March 1831 Louis-Philippe signed the royal decree forming La Légion Etrangère
with an initial strength of some 3 500 which, Soult ordained, 'should not be employed in
the continental territory of the Kingdom'.
It was almost a year before the unit came under fire. On 27 April 1832 the Swiss and
German battalions led an assault across open ground on the walled, well-defended
township of Maison Carrée, a few miles east of Algiers. News of this success filtered
back to Paris to remind the government that this group of foreigners had no colour of its
own to demonstrate whom it was fighting for. Hurriedly a flag was stitched together and
decorated with the somewhat deadpan message, 'The King of France to the Foreign
Legion', and showed a bronze cock resting a talon on a globe marked France.
Over the period of French colonial expansion and consolidation in North Africa initially
in Algeria and subsequently in Morocco (Tunisia being also acquired in 1881) in
campaigning that lasted until 1935 the Legion incidentally built tens of thousands of
miles of roads, in acknowledgement of which the Legion detachment participating in the
Bastille Day parade in Paris is always led by its bearded and bemedalled pioneers
carrying axes instead of rifles. Commencing in 1845 it also built its headquarters at
Sidi-bel-Abbes (meaning, Lord, the Happy One) named after the religious hermit whose
lonely grave 60 miles south of Oran it marks. As invariably happened, the Legion
produced its experts from the ranks - draftsmen, masons, carpenters, and other craftsmen.
It is said that one Legion company turned out five qualified architects. Within the next
few years the Legionnaires constructed the fortified barracks blocks which still were in
use in 1962. They went on to construct a school, a church, a police station, and several
other buildings as a town began to grow about the post. When the Legion marched away
in 1962, Sidi-bel-Abbes was a thriving city of about 80 000 persons with boulevards
lined by silver beech and plane trees, reflecting the sentiments expressed about it in 1849
by General Pelissier "Out of an encampment you have made a flourishing city, from
desolation a fertile township, an image of France".
The Legionnaire was also conditioned to perform prodigies of forced marching, typical of
which were to cover, carrying a full pack and equipment, a minimum of 24km a day -
every day for weeks if necessary - under the North African sun, on two very basic daily
meals. He was a well trained marksman but his field craft was rudimentary and initiative
was not demanded. This old fashioned heavy infantryman could be trusted to advance
unhesitatingly into the assault in ranks unshaken by enemy fire and, in defence, to hold
out to the last man and the last-but-one cartridge - the last, of course, being for himself as
the only alternative to capture, torture and even emasculation prior to an agonising death
at the hands of a cruel, brutal enemy. He was subjected to iron discipline by his NCO's
and warrant officers; in garrison officers were remote figures but in battle the legionnaire
would often risk his life to bring in an officer's body under fire. His pay was just 4% of a
contemporary British army regular.
Legionary mobility was improved in novel manner on 8 December 1881 by the
introduction of a mounted infantry unit on the initiative of its new commanding officer,
Francois de Negrier who opined that mobility was a weapon to be favoured even more
than the rifle in the great empty space of Africa. His instrument was the mule, whose six
kilometres an hour could be easily matched by a man carrying only his own rifle and belt
kit and alternating every hour with another man in riding the beast. That way rider and
marcher could cover 50 kms occasionally 70 kms a day, escorting valuable conveys and
force-marching to the rescue of desperate garrisons in choking summer heat and icy
winter rain and wind. By the way the mules learned to drink, like the legionnaires, from a
metal canteen.
As the first Foreign Legion had failed to oblige Louis-Philippe by getting itself wiped out
in Algeria in l835 he handed it over to the infant Spanish queen and her regent mother for
use in their civil war against the brother of the previous king Don Carlos, the French king
undertaking 'not to recall the legionnaires to the service of France unless the Queen-Regent
formally consented to this.' The responsibility for pay, pension rights, the cost of
feeding and clothing the 4 124 strong force was bestowed upon the new proprietor who
never honoured them and the first French Foreign Legion was to die slowly and painfully
between early August 1835 and 10 January 1839, when just 222 of whom only 54 were
Frenchmen reported for further service to France in Pau still carrying the regimental
colour sent to them by Louis-Philippe.
It was in Spain that a regimental tradition was born: that of collective death in battle
against hopeless odds on behalf of a lost cause. For instance in terrain that was unsuitable
for cavalry the Poles fought until their horses could no longer stand then continued
combat on foot 'without hope of winning, but until death', as an enemy conceded. In an
obscure mountain village called Zubiri a Swiss giant, Sergeant Samuel-Benoit Berset in
charge of an ambushed reconnaissance patrol stood his ground ramming his bayonet into
anything approaching him, shooting at point blank range the charismatic leader of the
Carlist cavalry El Rojo. He received 22 wounds from bayonet, lance and sabre - and
survived.
The previously mentioned General Francois de Negrier memorably addressed Legionary
volunteers for an expedition to the Far East: "You are soldiers in orders to die and I am
sending you where one dies" and, in its role as the ultimately expendable military tool for
the implementation of French foreign policy, the Legion sardonically acknowledged the
harsh reality underlying that grim promise by its actions. It supported the vainglorious
and unsuccessful pursuit of military glory by Emperor Napoleon III against the Russians
in the Crimea between 1854 and 1855 and against the Austrians in Northern Italy during
1859. Between 1863 and 1867 it was a distinguished participant in his attempt to
establish an imperial hegemony in Mexico through the installation of the doomed puppet
Emperor Maximilian, brother of the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef and during the
disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 which caused Napoleon's overthrow its
battalions including many Germans and the future King Peter I of Serbia were picked out
for grudging tribute by the Prussian General besieging Orleans, in defence of which it
lost 19 officers and some 900 rank and file out of 1 300 men.
The Legion was at the sharp end of aggressive French colonial expansion ongoing in
North Africa, Indo-China, Central Africa (most notably Dahomey) and Madagascar in the
period leading up to the First World War and, after it, during 1925 in Syria in
enforcement of the mandate granted to France by the secret 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement
against the insurgent Druzes. In Dahomey their opponent was a King Behanzin, a
monarch who required elaborate human sacrifice to satisfy his passion for ritual, with a
fanatical army whose corps d'elite were woman indoctrinated to kill for pleasure.
The outbreak of the First World War in which the Legion fought with predictable
distinction on the Western Front and in the Near East, including Gallipoli found its
veteran cadre in a predicament. More than two-thirds of its members and nearly all of its
non-commissioned officers in North Africa were Germans or Austrians. The French high
command, feeling that they were not to be trusted to fight for France against their
countrymen ordered them to be kept on duty in Algeria and Morocco. In the event while
a few hundred of such legionnaires who spoke out too vociferously against the French
were jailed for a time the great majority of Austrians and Germans served loyally
throughout the war, some being sent to France to help train the many foreigners who
enlisted for the duration, all of whom were directed to the Legion.
Of the 42 883 Legion volunteers (including 36 644 foreigners) who had fought on the
Western Front nearly 31 000 were killed, wounded or recording as "missing in action"
that euphemistic phrase that describes the occupant of an unknown grave. A leading
Legion historian Hugh McLeave has estimated that of 8 000 professional Legionnaires
sent to France in 1914 fewer than 50 survived the war, while a further 5 000 professionals
were killed in the Near East. The regimental colour was to become the second most
decorated in the French army.
World War II shook the Legion out of the delusion that it existed in a political vacuum.
Kept under-equipped by the military authorities in its role not so much as poor relation as
bastard child (it still had a regiment of cavalry armed with sabres and carbines even
though the horse had long since demonstrated its ineffectiveness in modern warfare);
unprepared at the end of the long weekend between the wars; paranoid about the potential
for conflict within its ranks; and low on morale the Legion was in microcosm what
France proved to be in the summer of 1940. It was to be a France divided between the
minority of Free French who supported de Gaulle and a majority who, either actively or
by inactive omission conceded to the Vichy government of Petain, as much the country's
betrayer as he had been its saviour 23 years earlier.
The national division was to be reflected within the Legion from which only the 13th
Demi-Brigade was to go into lonely exile with the Free French in the process winning
prestige as the outstanding repository of French military honour.
The defining moment for the Free French cause was to be 13 DBLE's epic 15 days'
defence in May/June 1942 of Bir Hakeim at the southern end of the Gazala line in the
Western Desert. At a personal level it was noteworthy for the involvement, as a driver to
the Divisional commander, of the only female legionnaire ever, Susan Travers, the tall,
slim, good looking 32 year old daughter of a comfortably retired naval officer. She came
from an unlikely background of a finishing school in Florence and junior championship
tennis at Wimbledon and her cool, fastidious somewhat aloof manner proved a deceptive
mask for all the fortitude resourcefulness and courage demanded of her in Bir Hakeim.
Her decorations were to include the Croix de Guerre rewarded after Bir Hakeim, the
Medaille Militaire and the Colonial War Medal.
13 DBLE became the core of the formidable Free French force that was to fight its way
through to victory at the heart of Nazi Germany in May 1945, and retains that unique unit
designation to this day in acknowledgement of its heroic achievements. 9017 legionnaires
were killed in action with the Allies during World War II.
In the immediate aftermath of WW II, France faced the challenge of recovering her
colonial possessions not only from the hands of former enemies, but also from indigenous
resistance movements that had grown up in 1941-5. In French Indochina, guerrilla
resistance to the Japanese by the Vietminh had become organised and united under the
leadership of Ho Chi Minh, and perforce had to be defeated if French authority was to be
restored.
He could not be for a variety of reasons most notably; terrain (80% of Indochina was then
classified as forested, much of it dense and humid jungle); climate (the south west
monsoon limited campaigning from October to mid May); the 1949 triumph of
Communism in immediately adjacent China; lukewarm support from the USA torn
between its traditional anti-colonialism and a more recent appreciation of the communist
threat; a French government, or series of governments, that were indecisive, bureaucratic
and largely half hearted about a distant war; and a series of under-resourced commanders
given scant encouragement from home. The result was agonising defeat in an eight year
was culminating in surrender at a place, the name of which is scorched into Legion
consciousness: Dien Bien Phu.
The valley of Dien Bien Phu 13 miles long and seven miles wide, some 27Okms from the
French stronghold in the Red River delta, was the militarily significant route between
Tonkin and Laos, and it was undoubtedly important in the opium trade, revenues from
which were vital to the cash-starved French forces. Also, peace negotiations were
underway and both sides hoped to influence them by winning a major battle. The
mistaken calculation by French theatre commander Gen Henri Navarre was that, at best,
his elite airborne forces and Legionnaires could turn the valley into a killing ground, at
worst they would draw in disproportionate Vietminh forces, granting him greater freedom
of manoeuvre elsewhere. The French were therefore airdropped into the valley to build a
series of strong points, not all within supporting distance of each other, around the 0.62
mile (1 km) airstrip upon which the fortress was to depend for supplies. In a further fatal
miscalculation the hills commanding the valley were only lightly held, in the belief that
French artillery could deny them to the enemy.
Giap accepted the provocative invitation without hesitation. In a heroic logistical feat
employing mainly bicycles (the secret weapon of the Vietnam wars), he secretly
surrounded the position with artillery in dugouts, some tunnelled through from the far
side of the hills. From the opening barrage the airstrip and French artillery were
neutralised, while anti-aircraft fire was to force supply planes to make drops from a
height that precluded accuracy. Many of the defenders, aware that they were doomed,
became internal deserters and left the fighting mostly to the Paras and the Legion. The
siege with the attackers sapping towards the French strongpoints, all incongruously given
girls names. Following a massive bombardment, outer strong point Beatrice was overrun
on 13-14 March. The core positions of Eliane, Dominique, Claudine, and Huguette were
closely invested and finally overwhelmed on 7 May.
To the south in the shrunken perimeter of the isolated Isabelle strongpoint the remnants
of the 13 Half-Brigade maintained a steady fire. Its commander, Colonel Andr&ecute; Lalande
(called affectionately by his men Le Barouder, The Brawler) believed he had reached the
end of the road. At 01:15 on 8 May he radioed that he was going to attempt a breakdown
and half an hour later the last charge, le baroud d'honneur, of the 13 spent itself in the
masses of the enemy. Lalande expected to die at the head of his men, but death eluded
him and he was captured. At 0150 a calm voice sent the last radio message from Isabelle:
"Breakout failed. We must break communications with you. We are going to blow up
everything. Fini, Repeat, Fini. An revoir". Minutes later the anxious impotent French
aircraft circling Dien Bien Phu were rocked by the shock waves from exploding Isabelle.
In the days of Imperial Rome a legion commander would accept responsibility for
disaster by falling on his sword; amidst the dying embers of France's last empire one of
its legionnaires by adoption, the artillery commander who had fatally underestimated the
Vietnam's ability to bring overwhelming firepower to bear on Dien Bien Phu, made
expiation by destroying himself with a hand grenade.
Dien Bien Phu cost the French some 2200 dead, 1700 missing presumed dead, and 6450
wounded. Of these, at least 1500 of the dead and missing and perhaps 4000 wounded
were legionnaires; it is impossible to be exact, since only some 3000 of the 6000-7000
men marched into captivity from Dien Bien Phu by the Viets ever returned. The Legion's
five infantry and two para battalions, in addition to three mortar companies, were wiped
out together with the many volunteers from two other infantry battalions who had
parachuted in during the siege.
During the war in Vietnam, from 1946 to 1954, the Legion suffered 10 482 killed and
more than 30 000 wounded. Of 6 328 who were captured, only 2 567 were returned alive.
When word of the fall of Dienbienphu reached Sidi-bel-Abbes on May 8, the Legion's
trumpets sounded "Aux Morts". The ranks stood stiffly at attention as Colonel Gardy
read the order of the day in a voice that shook with emotion.
A Frenchman, Robert Guillain, the correspondent for Le Monde in Vietnam, suggested in
a dispatch to his newspaper why they - and all the other defenders - had been willing to
die at Dienbienphu:
Generally soldiers are not the most articulate members of any society. Legionnaires are
not members of any society, of course, but the survivors of what the French themselves
called the 'Dirty War' would probably have regarded his article as a journalistic
indulgence and remembering the scattered forgotten graves of their 10 482 comrades
would have been inclined to encapsulate his sentiments in just three words that are almost
part of Legion history: 'Nous sommes trahis' - 'We were betrayed'.
After a brutal local rising, bloodily avenged, at Sétif in May 1945, Algeria had remained
ostensibly quiet until 1954; but a number of Arab and Berber underground nationalist
groups had been forming, and groping their way toward unity of purpose. Defeat in
Indochina robbed the French of much of their baraka-spiritual force - in Muslim eyes;
and on 1 November 1954 the National Liberation Front (NLF) issued a general call to
arms, attacking small military and police targets in many areas to obtain weapons.
The ALN (National Liberation Army) the military wing of the ALF faced far greater
difficulties than had the Viet Minh. It was not truly unified; it was weakly armed; and the
civilian population was far less automatically supportive. Most Muslims were
traditionalists, long accustomed to French rule, and apathetic if not downright hostile
towards the insurgents. A white settler population of over a million was much longer
established and better integrated than in Indochina; while the extreme demands of these
'Pieds Noirs' were politically destabilising to weak, short-lived French governments, they
did provide keen eyes and ears, and a pool of high-quality recruits.
It must suffice to say that, in the eight years that followed, the French army with the
Legion and Paras at its sharp end effectively destroyed the ALN both as an urban threat
in the so-called Battle of Algiers in 1957 and in the rugged mountainous hinterland
wherein their strongholds were based, particularly in the areas close to the borders of
Morocco and Tunisia, both of whom attained independence in March 1956.
Remorseless campaigning, which kept the legionnaires out in harsh terrain for weeks on
end, under canvas in extremes of heat and cold; it involved ugly encounter skirmishes in
thick cover; and even if French casualties were a tenth of the ALN's losses, they mounted
up over the weeks and months. No casualty rate is 'negligible' if it involves half a squad
of your best mates; to the individual infantryman, this was a hard, bitter war, in which the
Legion lost 1855 dead.
It ended in bitterness indeed. De Gaulle, accepting the inevitable, worked quietly for a
negotiated peace; he had every hope that their military defeat would induce the FLN to
agree terms which could salvage something for France and the settler community. But the
settlers, and some soldiers, smelled only betrayal and in April 1961 four retired generals,
backed by three para regiments including the Legion's crack 1 REP, led a coup in
Algiers. The putsch collapsed in days, its officers going into detention while the men
clambered into the trucks they had used to fight their mountain war; as they moved off
they sang an Edith Piaf number which had long been a regimental favourite 'Rien! Je ne
regrette rien!' 'Nothing! I regret nothing!: The FLN was handed a priceless negotiating
chip, and after a last sullen year of ahnost fruitless operations which kept the intervention
regiments far out in the djebels the ceasefire came in March 1962. After 130 years, and a
victorious war, the Legion was to leave Sidi-bel-Abbes eight months later.
1 REP was disbanded and has never been re-constituted. It had bled to death twice in
IndoChina and on this occasion almost took the rest of the Legion with it, because de
Gaulle demonstrated a vindictive quality in dealing with his defeated opponents. Some
Legion veterans believed he was only dissuaded from dismantling the whole Legion
organization - though only just - by his Defence Minister, one Pierre Messmer. With
other legionnaires Messmer had saved France's honour at Bir Hakeim; more to the point,
Messmer was a living reminder that at Bir Hakeim the Legion had given de Gaulle,
sitting in London as a noble figurehead, but not much else a political credibility he had
lacked until then.
The aftermath of the Algerian War was the unhappiest period in the Legion's history.
Although only one regiment had taken part in the April 1961 'Generals' Putsch', numbers
of former legionnaires had joined the GAS (Secret Army Organisation). This terrorist
group waged a continuing campaign of atrocity both in Algeria - in an attempt to
destabilise the preparations for independence - and in France itself, making several
determined attempts on the life of President de Gaulle. A febrile atmosphere of guilt by
association cast into some doubt the future of the whole corps. Some held that with the
loss of Algeria the Legion's raison d'être had passed into history, and that a mercenary
corps had no place in France's post-colonial army. By the time the residual Algerian
bases were given up most Legion units had been reduced or widely dispersed.
However, in the late 196Os a growing recognition that a new and rewarding role might be
within the grasp of a demoralised to an extent by its association with the Generals' Putsch
Foreign Legion gave birth to a whole new style, pioneered by the paras of the 2nd REP
but soon embraced by the other combat unit~7 Historically the Legion had provided old-
fashioned heavy infantry, to take and hold colonies; for the 1970s-80s the emphasis
would be on flexibility, rapid mobility, multiple skills, new equipment and new tactics.
Large overseas gamsons would be replaced by small, hard-hitting forces dispersed to
strategic points as regional 'fire brigades'. These would be regularly supplemented by
units rotating through from France for field training; and could be deployed and
reinforced by air at short notice in case of regional unrest. At the same time, the heavy
core units of the Legion - 2 REI and 1 REC - would be fully integrated into the French
line of battle facing the Iron Curtain in Europe.
In its new role the Legion has seen service action three times in Chad between 1969 and
1984 (where it was successful in curbing the expansionist plans Col. Goddafi of Libya);
Djibouti (1976) when it rescued school children held by hostages); Zaire (1978) where it
prevented the wholesale massacre of Europeans; Lebanon (1982-3) as part of the multi-
national peacekeeping force; Gabon (1990) to safeguard French citizens; Iraq (1991) in
the First Gulf War, in which, uniquely, it occurred no casualties and most lately in Bosnia
from 1993. To the 4eptics and doubters, therefore let me say that the Legion does not
merely exist, but lives, breathes and, has its being as a unique and dynamic organisation
ideally equipped to meet the challenges of terrorism and warfare in the 21st century.
The road that the French Foreign Legion has travelled in its 175 years must surely have
been the hardest of any military formation in history. Its milestones have too often been
associated with needless suffering, unnecessary sacrifice and avoidable disaster, but
never with defeatism, humiliation or cowardice. it's companions on the journey have
been the soldierly virtues of duty, service, loyalty, honour and courage, regularly
unrequited and, on occasions, betrayed. And there has been one other companion, best
described as heroic fatalism. It has found expression in many different ways: the last
charge at Camerone; le baroud d'honneur at Dien Bien Phu where Colonel Graucher
commander of 13 DBLE's 3rd Battalion dying in agony, having received the last rites,
refused a lethal injection on religious grounds saying: 'I shall be overcome I shall not
submit'; the rear echelon troops truck drivers typists and the like (all non parachutists)
who jumped into Dien Bien Phu to join the fight when all hope had gone; the eight times
wounded legionnaire who responded to the enquiry as to how long he 'would go on like
this' with the words 'For the rest of my life if i'm lucky' the list is endless, but to my
mind the most poignant is some poetry that I must paraphrase. It was written by a young
American serving with the Legion on the Western Front in the spring of 1916:
I have a rendezvous with Death
And I to my pledged word am true,
Seeger with his impeccable Ivy League antecedents has dual citizenship for all time: that
of France 'per le sang verse', by 'blood shed' and the other citizenship is that by the right
enshrined in the Legion's unofficial motto: 'Legio patria nostra', 'the Legion is our
country'.
Vive la légion etrangère française, et Mesdames et messieurs, merci.
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After a somewhat chaotic start in which drunkenness and desertion were rife, and attacks
on officers were not uncommon, discipline was finally established by Colonel Stoffel, a
hard-bitten Swiss veteran. Using experienced ex-regular troops, mostly from old Prussian
and Swiss regiments, Stoffel enforced his authority and by 1832 had built up a force that
had begun to resemble a military formation. At first his troops were considered fit only
for pioneer duties and were put to work constructing block-houses and building roads.
"We are gathered here to commemorate the heroes who fell in that epic struggle. Let us
present the honours to the flags of our units which have disappeared in battle, then named
them one by one of other Foreign Legion units dropped into the fortress during the
siege..."
"Let the enemy come," said our troops at Dienbienphu, "and we'll show them," We'll
show them? We'll show what, and to whom? "We'll show those who face us in battle,"
they said. "We'll show the enemy. And we'll show them in Hanoi. We'll show them in
Saigon, the people busy sipping cool drinks on shaded café terraces or watching beautiful
girls in the pool at the Sporting Club. We'll show the people of France, the people of
France above all. They have to be shown. They have to be shown what their neglect, their
incredible indifference, their illusions, their dirty politics have led to. And how best may
we show them? By dying, so that honour at least may be saved..." Our dead at
Dienbienphu died, I claim, protesting, appealing against today's France in the name of
another France for which they had respect. The only victory that remains is the victory of
our honour.
I have a rendezvous with Death
Legionnaire 19522 Alan Seeger, Harvard graduate and Paris poet, found his disputed
barricade in the French village of Belloy-en-Santerre in the valley of the Somme, out of
which its German defenders had fashioned a virtual fortress, on 5 July 1916 in a
successful attack which nonetheless cost his unit, commanded by a Swiss baron, a third
of its strength.
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air -
When Spring brings back blue days and fair ... ...
I shall not fail that rendezvous.