"MARCH OR DIE!"
The Legion's war-cry : A night alarm : On the march : The counting of
the milestones : Under canvas : The brutality of the marches : The
légionnaire and the staff doctor : My fight for an opiate : The
"marching pig" : The psychology of the marches : Excited nerves :
"Cafard" : The song of imprecations
Weeks passed. Recruit time was over, and I was serving with the troops.
From the very beginning I was anxious to do my duty as well as I could.
The real soldier's duties were a pleasure to me, and like the other
légionnaires who daily debated the chances of receiving marching
orders, I longed with fantastical impatience for active service.
The Legion always seemed to me to be in a state of feverish impatience,
always on the jump, always expecting marching orders. The regiment's
traditional fiery military spirit infected even the youngest recruits.
When vague rumours of a new rising of the Arabs on the Morocco frontier
penetrated to the barracks, or when the _Echo d'Oran_ with the laconic
brevity of official telegrams announced new skirmishes in Indo-China,
the news spread like wildfire through the Legion's quarters. Everywhere
you could see groups of légionnaires, speaking of their hopes of at
last receiving marching orders. When an especially exciting report had
been spread, they sometimes stood in crowds before the regimental
offices, waiting for one of the clerks to rush down the stairs with the
news:
"Faites le sac."
Pack your knapsacks! This is the old ominous war-cry that sounds from
room to room when the Legion mobilises, the dry business-like password
calling the Legion to its military business.
The thirst for adventure, which is an element of the Legion, as
inseparable from it as poverty and hard work, always lay in the air.
For the first time I heard the alarm sounded in the middle of night. I
jumped up out of my sleep in a fright. "Aux armes!" the bugle sounded
from the barrack-yard. The sergeants and corporals rushed through the
barracks crying the alarm, "Aux armes!"--To arms!
All at once the stillness of the night was turned into a perfect
pandemonium--shouting and yelling and roaring sounded from room to
room, the barracks were in an uproar.
"Faites le sac. En tenue de campagne d'Afrique," the corporals shouted,
and renewed rejoicing answered them.
The "African field equipment" was not such a simple thing, and in spite
of all the yelling and shouting we worked with feverish excitement, for
in ten minutes we had to stand in the barrack-yard ready for marching.
There was singing and whistling everywhere while the knapsacks were
packed and everybody wondered whether we were going "au Maroc" at last
or whether the Arab tribes of the South were in rebellion again. The
cartridge-cases were brought from the magazine and their covers burst
open with hatchets. The packets of cartridges were thrown from man to
man. We tore off the cardboard covering and ... saw that they were
blank cartridges.
"Merde!" roared Corporal Wassermann.
Roaring and singing stopped as if by magic. As blank cartridges only
were served out, it could but be a question of a short manoeuvre and
the Legion would not dream of working up enthusiasm for an ordinary
"marche militaire." In this case the short manoeuvre march really
extended over three hundred kilometres--three hundred kilometres to the
South, three hundred kilometres back again; a total distance of six
hundred kilometres, which is about four hundred miles....
By the light of a lantern the companies formed up in the barrack-yard.
In a moment the baggage and ammunition carts were packed, because the
Legion always carries sharp ammunition on the march to be prepared for
any emergency. Then we went out into the night to the tune of the
Legion's march.
Any one who has once heard the march of the Legion will never forget
it, its peculiar sharp rhythm broken by the bugles' storm signal. The
Legion's band is forbidden to play it in the garrison or on the
parade--the regimental march is played before the enemy or on long
marches.
Sidi-bel-Abbès woke up as soon as the band commenced to play in the
quiet streets; windows were thrown open and out of the corners all the
riff-raff of the sleeping town came into view: miserable-looking white
men and dirty negroes looked at the marching company with sleepy eyes
in high astonishment. In a few minutes we were out of town and marched
along the yellow sandy road in dim moonlight. The marching order was in
column of four as is customary in the Legion.
I marched in the first row of fours of my company. In the front the
four drummers plodded along close behind our captain's white horse.
Abreast of the captain walked Lieutenant Garde-Jörgensen, a Dane, a
soldier of fortune....
The silent march into the night was trying for my burning curiosity,
and I did a most unmilitary thing:
"Where are we going to, Lieutenant?" I asked.
The officer nearly burst with laughter.
"I don't know myself where we are going to," he said. "If you were an
old légionnaire you would not ask, my boy. We are marching. We are
probably marching for a long time. We are always marching. We never
know if we are only going to manoeuvre or to meet the enemy. That's
how it is. Tiens! will you have a cigarette?"
The first rows were laughing and Smith was shouting in his deep voice:
"Le sac, ma foi, toujours au dos."
Renewed laughter. Every one was talking and wondering where we were
marching to and how long the march would last. Some of them thought it
was nothing but a night march; others discussed the probability of
"real work" being in sight.
"What do you think you know about it?" said Smith to me with a grin.
"Nothing. We march, sonny, and that's all there is to do. God and the
colonel know what's going to come of it."
We heard the clatter of a galloping horse and turning our heads
curiously we saw a bright spot on the uniform of the rider, sparkling
like a star. The rider was the Commander-General of Algeria, and the
shining spot on his breast was the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.
"Oh, la la," said Smith, shaking his head. "Tell you what, Dutchy, if
the old man himself has got up in the middle of the night you may send
your little legs a message to get ready for a lot of work. Now we shall
march, sonny. You can bet your bottom dollar on that. The old man there
means manoeuvring, heaps of it, or--Arabs."
Milestone after milestone passed by and the jokes ceased very soon, as
the marching regiment settled down to business. Silently the regiment
tramped onwards. The knapsack pressed heavily; heads went down and
shoulders bent low to spread the heavy weight on the back; the
gun-straps cut into the shoulders until one's right arm was almost lame
and the painful prickly feeling caused by the non-circulating blood had
grown permanent.
After the first ten kilometres a shrill signal-whistle sounded and the
whole company wheeled off to the roadside to rest in long line for five
minutes. I pulled off my knapsack and threw it upon the ground with a
feeling of relief, joyful at getting rid of the heavy weight for a few
minutes. To my great astonishment, the other men kept their knapsacks
on their backs and at once threw themselves at full length on the
ground. Later on I did the same. The halt was so short that one lost
priceless seconds in taking off and strapping on the knapsack, seconds
only, but even seconds are precious for the marching légionnaire.
Five minutes is but a short span of time. But never in my life has a
time of rest seemed so delicious, so beneficial, so reviving as when I
lay stretched out on the hot African sand for those pitifully short
five minutes....
The company wheeled into column again and trudged forwards on the
endless road, whose straight sameness was only interrupted by the
mile-stones. With each mile it became quieter in the marching rows. The
legs and back were strained to the utmost, and a word spoken appeared a
waste of energy. One seemed to be a machine, marching on mechanically
behind the man in front when once put in motion; each man was
sufficiently occupied with himself. If any one in utter weariness took
a step to the right or a step to the left out of marching line, he got
an oath hurled at him--you were so tired that even the slight touch of
your comrade swaying out of line was an extra burden to the tormented
body.
When the morning mists and the bitter cold of the dawn were followed by
the hot burning sun, we had accomplished a march of forty kilometres,
and the time came when our legs refused to do any more. When the signal
sounded for rest, we fell down helpless, and when we started marching
again, it looked as if a crowd of invalids and old men were slowly
wandering down the road. The worn-out legs revenged themselves for the
hard usage they had received. During the halt the flow of blood was
hemmed in the limbs. Standing on one's feet again, one felt a sharp
stinging pain in the soles. Every step was torture. For five minutes
afterwards one crawled along as best one could, till one became once
more an unfeeling automaton.
Again the slow progress past the milestones. At eleven o'clock in the
morning we reached a little village. The marks on the last milestone
said that we were fifty kilometres from Sidi-bel-Abbès. We passed by
the old rickety houses of the village, and at a given signal the
regiment halted, the companies forming up on the dry, sandy piece of
ground to the left of the street.
Then followed the command: "Halt!" and immediately afterwards the
order: "Campez!"
In a moment we had piled our arms. The knapsacks were thrown to the
ground and the folding tent-supports and the tent-covers pulled out.
Then the corporal of each section stepped out of the line, holding the
tent-poles high above his head to mark the tent line for the whole
company. Again a short command, and in a few seconds the waste surface
of sand was covered with little white tents.
It was a miracle. We were so well drilled and each individual knew his
part so well that it only took a few seconds to pitch a tent. With
surprising quickness the long rows of soldiers were turned into a tent
encampment and five minutes afterwards the officers' tents were pitched
in a final row. In the meantime Madame la Cantinière had hauled out of
her sutler's cart folding tables and benches, ready to do a roaring
trade with the tired-out légionnaires. The heavy Algerian wine was
indeed a blessing after such a march and the poor devil who in these
marching days did not possess a few coppers felt poor indeed.
In ten minutes the narrow trenches for cooking were dug out and in
twenty places camp fires flared up simultaneously. The patrol marched
round and round the white "soldiers' city." The food, consisting of
macaroni and tinned meat, was greedily devoured.
After this the quiet of utter exhaustion reigned in the camp. The
légionnaires lay huddled together in the tiny tents, on blankets spread
out on the ground, covered with their cloaks, while the knapsacks
served for a pillow. The rifles were brought into the tents and tied
firmly together with a long chain by the corporal of each squad, who
fastened the end of the chain to his wrist as a further precaution, for
the Arabs had a habit of creeping through the lines on a dark night and
stealing the much-coveted weapons from the tents. The patrols of the
Legion have standing orders to challenge an Arab only once at night and
then to fire. Even in this first night the watch caught a thief. The
Arab was badly treated and he was delivered up to the civil authorities
in the village the next morning in a horrible condition.
By seven o'clock in the evening the whole camp was fast asleep,
sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
An hour after midnight, in the flittering light of a magnificent starry
sky, the companies formed up and continued the route to the South. This
march lasted eight days. On one day the troops covered forty
kilometres, making up the average again the next day with fifty
kilometres. The monotony of this march and the physical strength and
endurance it claimed of each of us cannot be described. At last, at the
beginning of the real desert, we depended on the oasis-wells with their
poor supply of water to quench our thirst, and the want of water was
added to our sufferings. At night, when starting on the march, the
field-flasks were filled. The distribution of water was conducted under
sharp supervision. Every man got two litres of dirty, muddy water.
Company orders warned us to save up half a litre for the morrow's
"soupe." On camping next day every légionnaire had to give up half a
litre of water to the mess of his company for cooking purposes. Whoever
had emptied his field-flask during the heat and weariness of the march
and was unable to deliver any water only got a handful of raw rice
given him; he had to get it cooked as best he could.
This is one of the many brutal rules in force on these marches and
there is method in it. Contrary to most of the légionnaires, I have
always seen the necessity for the hard marching discipline. Troops that
have to march in such droughty country must be able to economise their
water rations. This is simply a law of necessity. There is another
brutal feature of the Legion's marches: cruel at first sight but it is
really kindness to the men. A légionnaire who faints on the march is
tied to the baggage-cart. A pole is pushed through the sides of the
cart at about the height of a man's arms and the légionnaire roped to
it by the shoulders. The pole keeps him in a standing position--the
cart rolls on. He either has to march or he is dragged along the uneven
ground. Seeing the thing done for the first time, I was filled with
indignation at the apparent brutality of this torture. But afterwards I
understood. In the wars in the South the fighting value of the Foreign
Legion depends solely on its marching capability. Very often the
ambulance is not able to follow. If the légionnaire remains behind the
company in the desert, if only a kilometre, he is irretrievably lost.
Hundreds and hundreds of men incapable of marching have found a
terrible end in this way. The Arab women, who are far more cruel than
the men, soon surround the helpless man, who suffers a painful death,
after being horribly mutilated and disfigured.
Separation from the troops means death. This was not only the case at
the time of the great Arab mutiny, which affected the whole of Algeria,
but is the same to-day. Peace between the French and the Arabs down in
the far south of Algeria is a myth. At the small military stations on
the borders of the Sahara little skirmishes are a daily occurrence.
When the station is alarmed and the thirty or forty men garrisoned
there set out to pursue the pillaging Bedouin tribes, every légionnaire
knows well that now he must march, or if he cannot march any more, he
must die. March or die!
Death at the hands of Arab women! The légionnaire does not count the
Bedouin or the Arab as a personal enemy; he is rather grateful to the
robber of the desert for being the cause of a little change and
excitement in the terribly monotonous life on the border stations. But
upon the Arab woman the old légionnaire looks as upon a devil. He
thinks of the hellish tortures that wounded men have suffered at the
hands of Arab women, he remembers the mutilated bodies of légionnaires
who had died an awful death after being tortured for many hours.
In the fourth year of his service, Rassedin had been ordered to one of
the little Sahara stations, where he had seen much of the cruelty of
the Arab women. Once a scouting party of his detachment found a
skeleton in the sand of the desert. Shreds of a uniform showed that the
skeleton had once been a soldier of the Legion. The skeleton's head was
lying between the legs.... Another time the corporal of Rassedin's
squad was missed at the morning call. In the evening he had taken a
walk just in the neighbourhood of the station and had not returned.
After a short search they found him.
"He was dead. But even in death I could see the frightful agony in his
wide-open eyes," Rassedin declared. "Both legs were broken and bent
backwards. The lower part of his body was slashed to pieces, but none
of his wounds was deadly. They must have tormented him for hours. From
that time we made no difference between men and women in fighting, but
shot down every one. How did we know that it had really been women who
had tortured the corporal? The dead man clutched a piece of a glass
bracelet in his hand, which he must have torn off the arm of his
tormentor in the struggle. Such bangles are only worn by the Bedouin
women."
That is the reason why the légionnaire has come to look upon the Arab
woman as the incarnation of the Devil. I have already recorded the
story of the soldier with the skull tattooed on his forehead, who
showed me a tobacco-pouch made out of a woman's breast....
* * * * *
As an example of unnecessary, quite unjustifiable brutality I will tell
you what I had to suffer personally during the manoeuvre march.
Whether freezing under the thin blanket in the cold icy nights in that
climate of quickly changing temperatures was the cause, or the bad
water, or the physical over-exertion of the marches, at any rate I
suffered from tormenting pains in the stomach. Every few minutes during
the march I got cramps and could only painfully drag myself along,
doubled up like a worm. When we got to camp my strength was done. I
went to the doctor's tent accompanied by the "caporal du jour" with the
sick list. The doctor, an army surgeon, whose name I unfortunately have
forgotten, pulled the book angrily out of the corporal's hand, and
roared at him:
"On the march there are no sick men. Your company ought to know that."
The corporal shrugged his shoulders. "By order of the captain!" he said
laconically.
Now the doctor turned to me.
"What's wrong?"
I briefly described the cramps in my stomach, and emphasised that I
only wished to ask for something to relieve the pain, an opiate,
perhaps, and that I intended to continue my duties.
He looked at me for a moment, and then said contemptuously:
"What do you know about opiates? To judge from your accent you are an
Englishman."
"No, monsieur le docteur, a German."
"Well, I will tell you something. We know these little tricks. All the
same if you're English, German or Hottentot, I take you to be quite a
common simulator. I shall give you a certificate of being
'non-malade'--not sick. Non-malade, corporal."
I was crushed. Astonishment fought with anger. At the very moment when
the doctor was speaking to me I was almost doubled up with pain. "Not
sick!" That meant not only the loss of an opiate, but also heavy
punishment. Any one who is declared by the doctor as "not sick" is at
once held guilty of simulation, and punished with the usual four days'
imprisonment.
I saluted and said:
"Non-malade, monsieur le docteur? Without any examination?"
"Va-t-en!" roared the surgeon. "Get out of this."
The corporal shook his head as we went through the camp, and advised me
to be patient. He believed that I was in pain, and he knew that that
"pig of a doctor" had already sent many a man to his doom. But a
complaint would only make matters worse, he said. I did not answer and
thought of the coming night. I should be tied to a peg in front of the
watch-tent, and would be obliged to lie on the bare ground in the icy
cold without any covering because I had been imprudent enough to ask
for a little medicine. Maddening anger arose within me. When the
corporal had made his report, my captain sent for me:
"You have not been punished so far?"
"No."
"What is the reason of your simulating?"
Then I lost control over myself, and in a fit of excitement hurled
reproaches and accusations at the officer. The doctor was a fool and a
disgrace to his profession. His diagnosis was an infamous and
deliberate lie, and it was a disgrace that such people held authority.
I do not remember everything I yelled out then, but it was a nice
collection of the choicest epithets--rank insubordination! At length my
attack of mad fury ended with my demanding to be taken before the
commander of the regiment, and I threatened (this must have been very
ridiculous) to complain to the French Minister of War.
The captain listened to me quietly and said:
"I believe that you have been badly treated. I will write a letter for
you to the assistant surgeon, who will give you medicine. I should not
advise you to send in a complaint to the regiment."
Then after a pause:
"What do you really expect? What do you want? We are in the Legion. You
are a légionnaire--don't forget that again, légionnaire!"
If I had not in my complete loss of self-control ventured to air my
opinions in language unheard of in the Legion, I should very likely
have left the ominous peg in front of the guard-tent as a dead man.
Thanks to the opium pills of the assistant surgeon I was able, however,
to march the next day with the others, but not without exerting every
spark of my will-power. The time from one milestone to the other seemed
endless. The expectation of the five minutes' rest at the fifth
milestone was the power that drove me forward. I counted my steps in
order to make me forget the pain in the mechanical occupation of
counting. One hundred and twenty steps represented one hundred metres;
when I had counted ten times one hundred and twenty, we had covered a
kilometre, the fifth part of the road to rest....
At last we reached our paradise, the few minutes of exhausted rest. And
then the torment began afresh....
The manoeuvres in a desert covered with peculiarly sharp stones,
three hundred kilometres south of Sidi-bel-Abbès, occupied exactly
eight hours, and from the standpoint of the Legion they were
superfluous and consequently useless. The development of the
firing-line, the skilled search for cover, the rush of the bayonet
attack, the understanding of all the orders, the complete discipline
under fire, are things which, in the never-ending practical military
training of this fighting regiment, become part and parcel of the
légionnaire's flesh and blood. The closing manoeuvre was (I heard our
captain discussing these matters with Lieutenant Garde) nothing more
than a small private entertainment on the part of our colonel, who
wished to show off with his regiment; a military amateur dramatic
performance. On the other hand, the commander-general had said to his
adjutant that it was a great pleasure to him to give his légionnaires
an "airing." The regiment had already idled about barracks for six
months, and might in the end forget that its real home was amongst the
sand of the desert, and that it had no other object in life than to
march, march a lot, to go on marching.
The légionnaires knew this fad of the general's well enough, and never
called him anything else but the "marching pig." The fat sergeant of
our first "peloton" used to say, with great lack of respect:
"As soon as I see the fellow I feel tired...."
When the general was still colonel and in command of the first
regiment, he once met a drunken légionnaire in one of the side streets
of Sidi-bel-Abbès. The man, only just capable of saluting, got the mad
idea to address his colonel.
"Eh, mon colonel," he stammered, "I am still very thirsty. Ten sous,
mon colonel."
The colonel treated him to a stony stare.
This look out of the hard eyes turned the légionnaire sober in a
moment, and a brilliant idea struck him.
"You know I am the best marcher in my company, mon colonel."
At this the colonel smiled and gave him a five-franc piece.
It is these little anecdotes and the rough jokes in the jargon of the
Legion that are typical of the great weight laid on the marching
performances in the Foreign Legion, without regard to the wear and tear
of the human machine, without consideration of the many lives that are
lost.
Even General de Négrier, the only commander that the Legion loved
because he loved the Legion and knew how to come into personal touch
with each légionnaire, knew no mercy in the matter of marching. When he
was commander of the Foreign Legion he did everything in his power for
his troops. Each légionnaire was allowed to come to him with his
personal affairs, every wounded man was a hero in his eyes, a brave
man, for whom he could not do enough. But when he saw an exhausted
légionnaire stumble out of the ranks and collapse during the terrible
marches in Madagascar, the expression in his face became hard and
pitiless. That was a grievous crime in his eyes. Then he would cry out
the three words that have since become a proverb of the Legion:
"March or die!"
Marches which no European commander would attempt are nothing out of
the common; they are the basis on which the Foreign Legion has won its
laurels. But they are also the foundation for illness, decline, and
death.
In each of these marches is embodied the principle of absolute
disregard for human life. The possibility of such disregard is one of
the chief advantages of the Foreign Legion in the eyes of the
authorities. From a military point of view the marches of the Legion
are splendid, a triumph of training and discipline; from a humane
standpoint they are the height of unprincipled exploitation. No New
York Jewish clothes-dealer, who keeps hundreds of people at starvation
wages at the sewing-machines, does such a splendid piece of business as
"la Légion," which for a mere nothing saps the life from thousands of
human creatures. It is not the cruelties of the penal battalion, not
the brutality of punishments, not the poor devils who for some mere
trifle are shot under martial law, that illustrate best the horrors of
the Legion system. It is the marches that do this; the marches of the
Foreign Legion condemn the system of the Foreign Legion!
Our manoeuvre march of 600 kilometres occupied sixteen days. On the
stages in the far south the rations consisted almost entirely of rice,
and to the hardships of the daily 40 kilometres the pangs of hunger
were added. In spite of that the distance daily covered remained the
same.
I still suffered from pains in my stomach. To-day it is a puzzle to me
how I managed to march 300 kilometres in this condition in the burning
sun and to stand the cold during the nights. But others were no better
off. They marched with open wounds in their feet; with blisters between
neck and shoulder-blades, where the straps of the heavy knapsack
pressed; with eyes inflamed by the sun; with severe bronchial troubles;
with bleeding and festering sores on their thighs. Many limped, and
most marched bent wellnigh double, sunk together--a miserable, pitiful
sight. Surly, silent, raging bitterness pictured in the hard lines of
the face and in the tired eyes, we stamped onwards. The only words
heard were curses.
Our nerves were strained to bursting-point. Over the whole troop lay
the strain of over-exertion, bodily and mental nerve-sickness. The
Foreign Legion has manufactured a special expression of its own for
this mental state--"Cafard."
The "cafard" reigned. The "cafard" of the Foreign Legion, a near
relative to tropical madness, is a collective name for all the
inconceivable stupidities, excesses and crimes which tormented nerves
can commit. The English language has no word for this condition. In
"cafard" murder hides, and suicide and mutiny; it means self-mutilation
and planless flight out into the desert; it is the height of madness
and the depth of despair.
Many nights we were roused from sleep by a pandemonium of noise.
Légionnaires--légionnaires in "cafard"--jumped round the tents in the
dim light of the watch-fires, roaring the old Legion song out into the
night. The "song" commenced with abusing the corporal and went on
through the whole scale of charges up to the commander-general--in a
horrible Legion French, of which the chief advantage was its
extraordinary power of detailed expression. No officer was passed over
in this song and each one was carefully mentioned by name, so that
there might be no mistake....
The song was painted with insults in rainbow colours. The insinuation
that Captain So-and-So kept up his private harem with the funds of the
company was one of the most harmless, and with the assertion that he
was an old monkey, the register of the regiment commander's sins only
began.
At the top of their voices the "cafard" madmen shrieked this song of
insubordination out into the still night, until the camp became lively.
With many oaths the sentries tussled with the mad singers, and from out
of the darkness bawling voices roared applause.
Such things were not taken seriously. The "singers" were bound to pegs
in front of the guard-tent over the night, to give them a chance to
cool down, and they had to join their companies at day-break--to march
on.
When we got back to Sidi-bel-Abbès, our uniforms and our spirits were
in sad condition....