The self-redeemed have always had the world’s sympathy—sometimes they
have won the world’s acclaim. Visitors to that shrine of French honor
and glory, the famous Hôtel des Invalides, may now see the battleflag
of the Foreign Legion, draped between the flag of the Cuirassiers who
fell at Reichshofen, and the standard borne by the Garibaldians in
1870-1871—not only draped in that honorable association, but wearing
on its folds the cross of the Legion of Honor. And those who know will
tell visitors that that flag was the flag of the redeemed.
It was said with shame and contempt at first that the Foreign Legion
was composed of the riff-raff, scalawags and murderous upstarts of the
nether world. So it was, but events proved that “there is a spirit in
man” that can throw off degraded conditions and rise to the performance
of nobly heroic deeds and sacrifices. This Legion, made up of renegades
and social outcasts from all quarters of the globe, men beyond the pale
of the law speaking a various language, tendered its services to France
in 1915, was recognized by the President of the Republic, accepted by
the Commander-in-Chief and admitted to the army on an equal footing
with the regular regiments of the line. The pariahs became soldiers of
France.
It was an extraordinarily nondescript assembly—all nationalities, all
colors, from the black of the negro to the blonde of the Saxon, having
but two things in common, their former outlawry and the “spirit that
quickeneth,” and through the quality of that spirit they squared their
debt to life,—for the Legion dissolved in the fire that met the “drive”
in September, 1915, so soon after it entered the service. As one of the
few survivors wrote: “War did its worst thoroughly with the Legion. We
had the place of honor in the attack, and we paid for it.” Right good
words.
There is all the material for an epic in the glory of the Foreign
Legion. A great deal has been written about it, but the best is yet
to be written—some time when the war is further away, and out of its
horror the things that glow will rise into clearer view. Really, it
is a great thing when the reject of the social order spring from
their fugitive haunts and rush to death in defense of the higher
civilization. In the meantime there is the moving story, graphically
yet simply told, by Legionary Morlae, a survivor, published in the
_Atlantic Monthly_ for March, 1916.
The Legion was placed in the van, and Morlae’s company formed the front
line of the extreme left flank.
Infinite care had been taken with the preparations, every detail
provided for, even to the extent of arming twelve men from each company
with long knives and hand grenades for use in their assigned duty as
“trench-cleaners”; this duty was to enter the German trenches and caves
and bomb-proofs and “dispose of such of the enemy as were still hidden
therein after we had stormed the trench and passed on to the other
side.”