HISTORY OF THE LEGION
The Foreign Legion has a notable record, which extends back to the
Crusades. Then, French and Anglo-Saxon marched together, and fought to
save the world for Christianity. History, repeating itself, after
centuries, today, we see the same forces, side by side, fighting, dying,
not only for Christianity, but for civilization. On the result of this
clash with the barbarous Hun depends the preservation of the world.
At Pontevrault, twenty miles from Saumer, in the valley of the Loire,
rest the remains of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, whose Anglo-Saxon heart, worn
with hardship and suffering, ceased beating under the sunny skies of
France, pierced by the poisoned arrow of a mysterious assassin from the
far East.
Beneath the pavement, in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in
Jerusalem, lie the remains of Philip D’Aubigne, a French knight, who
fulfilled his vow to lay himself upon the threshold of that church which
marks the place where rests the body of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ.
As the Anglo-Saxon perished in France, and the Frenchman died in
Jerusalem, both for the cause of Right and Justice, today, millions
leave native land to meet that organized force, which seeks to conquer,
subdue, and enslave the people of all earth’s free countries.
Among ancient soldiers of the Foreign Legion were Broglie of Broglie,
Rantzan, Lowendall, the Duke of Berwick, John Hitton, the son of an
African king, and the Scottish Stuarts, with many other knights and men
of note.
For their devotion, especially that of the Swiss Guards to the French
Kings, the Legionnaires, were respected, even by their enemies, the
Revolutionists, who, April 20, 1792, appealed to them to “desert the
cause of Royal oppression, range themselves under the flag of France,
and consecrate their efforts to the defense of liberty.” They responded,
gathered under the tri-color, and, in 1795, commanded by Angereau,
Marshal of France, one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s most trusted generals,
won such renown that companies—frequently whole regiments of
foreigners—flocked to their standard. In 1799, there were incorporated a
regiment of Italians, a regiment of Poles and a regiment of Maltese.
These made the campaign of Egypt with Napoleon. In 1809, a Portuguese, a
Greek and an Irish regiment joined. In 1812, came a regiment of
Mamelukes, who, January 7, 1814, had their name changed to Chasseurs of
the Orient.
The Foreign Legion helped save France for the people in the Revolution.
They shared in the glory and pomp of Napoleon’s dazzling career. They
marched and suffered through the retreat from Moscow. Napoleon, on his
return from Elba, created eight Regiments of the Foreign Legion, who
shared the fate of the world’s greatest soldier at Waterloo.
After Napoleon’s downfall Louis XVIII created the Royal Foreign Legion
which later became merged into the 86th Regiment of the Line.
May 9th, 1831, the French Chamber of Deputies decreed the Foreign Legion
should not be employed on the soil of France, so the Regiment was sent
to Africa, with headquarters at Sidi-bel-Abee’s, Algeria.
In 1842 Patrick MacMahon, a descendant of Irish kings, was lieutenant
colonel of the Foreign Legion. Later, during the Crimean War, MacMahon’s
troops were assigned the task of capturing the Malikoff. After hours of
hand-to-hand, sanguinary fighting, to beat off the Russian
counter-attacks, the French commander, Marshal Pellisser, believing the
fortress was mined, sent MacMahon orders to retire. The old Legionnaire
replied,—“I will hold my ground, dead or alive.” He held. The evacuation
of Sebastopol followed. In 1859, he defeated the Austrians at Magenta.
He was given the title of Duke of Magenta, and rewarded with the baton
of a Marshal of France.
In 1854, Bazaine, who enlisted as a private soldier in the 37th Regiment
of the Line, and died a Marshal of France, was Colonel of the Foreign
Legion. He led them to Milianah, Kabylia and Morocco.
They participated in the Mexican War, in 1861, and in the Franco-German
War of 1870, after the fall of Sedan, and the capture of Napoleon III,
under the Republic; they served with General Garibaldi, “The Liberator
of Italy.” Three brigades of the Foreign Legion, chiefly Irishmen,
Spaniards, Italians and Franc-Tireurs, fought a bitter partisan warfare
against overwhelming odds in eastern France and the Vosges, where,
rather than surrender to the invader, many crossed the frontier into
Switzerland.
At Casablanca, Africa, in 1908, a dispute about a German, enlisted in
the Foreign Legion, almost precipitated war between Germany and France.
The Kaiser rattled the saber, demanding an apology from France; but the
response of M. Clemenceau, who stood firm, was so direct and spirited
that Germany did not then insist. The day had not arrived. In the same
town, seven years later, January 28, 1915, a German spy, Karl Fricke,
after failing to provoke a holy war among the Mohammedans, relying on
his personal friendship with his master, the Kaiser, laughed when the
French commander told him he would be shot in an hour. “You French are
good jokers,” he said, and asked for breakfast. Half an hour later, when
told to get ready for execution, he protested. “You are carrying the
thing too far, you forget who I am.” The officer responded,—“On the
contrary, we know who you are; we remember quite well—only too well.”
In 1913 Lieut. Von Forstner of the 91st German Regiment used abusive
language and insulted the French flag, while warning the Alsatian
conscripts against listening to French agents, who the Germans claimed
were inducing men to join the Foreign Legion.
On Nov. 29, 1913, at Severne near the Rhine-Marne Canal, the civilians
assembled in protest. The soldiers charged the crowd, arrested the
Mayor, two judges, and a dozen other prominent citizens; who in response
to the universal demand of the population were later released,—while the
officers responsible for the outrage were court-martialed and acquitted.
A short time afterward Lieut. Von Forstner had a dispute with a lame
shoemaker and cut him down with his sword.
This brutal act resulted in the officer being again court-martialed for
wounding an unarmed civilian. Sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, said
sentence was annulled by a higher court, who claimed that he acted in
“supposed self defense.”
The demand for justice caused by the injustice of the decision was so
loud and threatening that the Reichstag was compelled to investigate the
matter. For the first time in the German Empire a vote of censure was
passed on the Government, 293 to 54.
This vote, which challenged the supremacy of the military dynasty,
together with the refusal of the Social Democrats in the Reichstag to
stand up and cheer the Kaiser, was one of the determining factors that
helped bring on the war.
In the spring of 1915 the Foreign Legion in Europe consisted of four
regiments. In November, the small nucleus gathered about the 1st
Regiment was all that remained of those splendid men.
The 2nd Regiment, after passing the winter of 1914-15 at Croanelle in
front of Croane, went into the Champagne attack, September 25, 1915,
with 3,200. October 28th but 825 survived. These were merged into the
1st Regiment.
The 3rd Regiment, officered by Parisian firemen, had a very brief and
sanguinary existence, and later were merged into the 1st Regiment.
The 4th Regiment, the Garibaldeans, 4,000 strong, after a famous bayonet
attack in Argonne, captured three lines of trenches, losing half their
effectives, including the two Garibaldi brothers, Bruno and Peppino. The
survivors went to Italy to aid their own country, upon her entry into
the war.
Many English, Russians, Italians, Belgians went home during that summer.
When Legionnaires marched inside the long range of heavy German guns,
with attacks and counter-attacking machine gun emplacements, with wire
entanglements in front, which, owing to shortage of artillery, could not
be blown up or destroyed, but must be hand-cut, or crawled through, is
it any wonder they were scattered? Killed, missing, the hillsides were
dotted with their graves; their wounded were in every hospital.
During this last generation, the Foreign Legion made history in the
sand-swept plains of the Sahara and in the spice-laden Isle of
Madagascar. They marched to Peking during the Boxer troubles; fought
against the pig-tails in Indo-China, and the women warriors of Dahomey.
They have been in every general attack of the present great war.
Advancing steadily, fighting side by side with the magnificent French
Regiments who regard the Legion with respect, almost with jealousy,—the
Legionnaire feels himself a personage. His comrades have suffered and
died by thousands to gain the position the Regiment holds. Each living
member must now maintain that enviable record.
July 14, 1917, anniversary of the fall of the Bastile, Independence Day
of France, the Foreign Legion was decorated with the braided cord, the
Fouragere, the color of the Medaille Militaire, by President Poincare.
The only other regiment permitted to wear that decoration is the 152nd,
which has been cited four times. The Legion now stands cited five times
in the orders of the day.[A]
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Footnote A:
July, 1918. The Legion has again been decorated, this time with the
Legion of Honor.
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The fifth citation of the Foreign Legion reads:
“General Orders, No. 809.
“The General commanding the 4th Army Corps cites to the order of the
Foreign Legion: Marvelous Regiment, animated by hate of the enemy, and
the spirit of greatest sacrifice, who on the 17th of April, 1917, under
the orders of Lieut. Col. Duritz hurled themselves against the enemy,
strongly organized in their trenches, captured their front line trenches
against a heavy machine gun fire, and, in spite of their chief’s being
mortally wounded, accomplished their advance march by the orders of Col.
Deville under a continuous bombardment, night and day, fighting, man to
man, for five uninterrupted days, and, regardless of heavy losses and
the difficulty of obtaining ammunition and supplies, made the Germans
retreat a distance of two kilometers beyond a village they had strongly
fortified, and held for two years.
“THE COMMANDING GENERAL,
“Authoine.”
During the attack on the Bois Sabot, September 28, 1915, a captured
German exclaimed: “Ha, ha, La Legion, you are in for it now. The Germans
knew you were to attack; they swore to exterminate you. Look out. Go
carefully. Believe me, I know. I am an old Legionnaire.”
Previous to this, Germany, incensed by the thousands of Alsatians and
Lorraines in the Legion, whom German law practically claims as deserters
from that country, served notice that any captured Legionnaire would be
shot. So the Legionnaires hang together. They stay by one another. They
never leave wounded comrades behind.
The Germans promised no mercy. The Legion adopted the motto: “Without
fear and without pity,” and on the flag is written, “Valor and
Discipline.” The march of the Foreign Legion, roughly interpreted,
reads:
Here’s to our blood-kin, here’s to our blood-kin,
To the Alsatian, the Swiss, the Lorraine.
For the Boche, there is none.
[Illustration: FOURAGERE OF THE FOREIGN LEGION]
In Artois, after the Legion attacked and captured three lines of German
trenches, in 1915, a captured officer, interviewed by the Colonel of the
Legion, said:
“Never have we been attacked with such wild ferocity. Who are those
white savages you turned loose upon us?”