The French Foreign Legion

491 Pages·2016·3.83 MB·English

by  Douglas Boyd

The French Foreign Legion

Douglas Boyd
© Douglas Boyd 2015

Douglas Boyd has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published 2006 by Sutton Publishing, Thrupp Second edition 2010 by Ian
Allan Publishing This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Sans honneur? Ah, passons. Et sans foi? Qu’est-ce à dire ?
Que fallait-il de plus et qu’aurait-on voulu ?
N’avez-vous pas tenu, tenu jusqu’au martyre, la parole donnée et le marché
conclu ?

They say that you’re without honour or faith, But what more could they have
asked?
Did you not fulfil unto death the sworn duty with which you were tasked?

Legion Captain Borelli, to his legionnaires who died at Thuyen Quang in 1885
Table of Contents

Foreword to the First Edition
Introduction
Part I
Chapter 1: A bullet for my pal
Chapter 2: You gotta die sometime.
Chapter 3: Terrorism and torture
Chapter 4: Dare call it treason
Part II
Chapter 5: The legion of the lost
Chapter 6: The scarecrow soldiers
Chapter 7: No pay, no bullets, no mercy
Chapter 8: Blood on the sand
Chapter 9: A Head on a Spear
Chapter 10: Chaos in the Crimea
Chapter 11: Theirs not to reason why
Chapter 12: Myth and madness in Mexico
Chapter 13: Death in the afternoon
Chapter 14: With rifle-butt and bayonet
Chapter 15: Blindfolds and bullets on the boulevards
Chapter 16: Tweaking the dragon’s tail
Chapter 17: As good as it gets
Chapter 18: War on the belly of Dan
Chapter 19: The cut-price campaign
Chapter 20: Miracle and massacre at Taghit
Chapter 21: In the kingdom of the west
Chapter 22: Chaos and Confusion
Chapter 23: Guns and gas in the trenches
Chapter 24: Rendezvous with death
Chapter 25: Identity crisis
Chapter 26: At both ends of the Med
Chapter 27: Veterans and Volunteers: Confusion and Courage
Chapter 28: Whose side are we on, sergeant?
Chapter 29: Which side did you say, Miss?
Chapter 30: ‘La Miss’ and the heroes of Bir Hakeim
Chapter 31: The stormy re-marriage
Part III
Chapter 32: Who needs the Legion now?
Chapter 33: The Legion reborn
Chapter 34: The Dove that was a Tiger
Chapter 35: Go! Don’t go! Go!
Chapter 36: Kill or be killed at Kolwezi
Acknowledgements
Foreword to the First Edition
By Brigadier Anthony Hunter Choat, OBE

Since King Louis Philippe created the French Foreign Legion in 1831,
thousands of books and articles have been written and countless films made
about this mysterious, myth shrouded body of men which has been almost
continuously in combat in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas ever since.
Legionnaires – I was one myself – have always loved a fight, man against man,
section against section, company against company. The other characteristic that
makes them good soldiers is their craving for the satisfaction of duty done and
orders obeyed.
Their Latin motto Legio patria nostra means ‘the Legion is our country’ and
tens of thousands of legionnaires have fought for this adopted country, winning
themselves worldwide respect and admiration. Many have died and many more
been wounded performing deeds of the most amazing valour, but until now little
has been known of the social and geopolitical circumstances in which they were
achieved.
Living in France and speaking French like a native, Douglas Boyd has long
been fascinated by the Legion and explored the subject in earlier writings. He
understands what motivates the French and what motivates the Legion. The two
are not always the same. This major work weaves French political warp with the
weft of the Foreign Legion to produce a comprehensive, tight and fascinating
history. Boyd’s knowledge of French politics over a span of nearly two
centuries, particularly in Indochina and North Africa, gives him a clear
perspective on the Legion’s activities, and throws light on the reasons for its
successes and failures, and for its sometimes recalcitrant attitude.
For the greater part of its existence, the Legion has been unashamedly used by
French governments for operations overseas that attracted little support or
interest at home and for which the average Frenchman had no taste.
Legionnaires have accepted this so long as the deal was fair and honest.
Although France's treatment of the Legion now is excellent – perhaps because
Paris has at last realised that it is an asset not to be wasted or disparaged – in the
past, the deals have sadly often been far from fair and honest. Nonetheless,
legionnaires have carried out their mission whatever the cost. Reading the
accounts of the battles of Camerone, of Highway Four and Dien Bien Phu will
tell the reader just how high that cost has been.
As a former legionnaire, I welcome this book, for both its depth and clarity. It
will greatly enhance the Legion’s already superb reputation.
Tony Hunter Choat (formerly 116798 Sergeant Choat of 1 REP) Hereford,
September 2005
Introduction

While researching this book, I met at the bar of a West London cricket club a
former SAS sergeant and naturally asked him whether he had ever bumped into
the Legion during his service years. Not exactly a chatty guy, he eyed me
suspiciously before admitting that he had – several times.
I asked, ‘When was the last time?’
‘A while back,’ he replied.
‘Where?’
Luckily, I was with a mutual friend – with whom I served in the RAF – so the
man of few words took another draught of beer and said, ‘Western Sahara.’
The disputed territory to the south of Morocco? That sounded promising, so I
pushed my luck and asked, ‘What was the Legion doing there?’
By now, he had had enough of my questions, and muttered, ‘Same as us, like.’
‘And what was that?’ I asked innocently.
He finished his beer, said, ‘Don’t be f---ing daft,’ and left.
It can be difficult, researching the Legion. As Brig Hunter-Choat says, it’s a
mysterious, myth shrouded body of men which has been in combat somewhere
on the globe more or less continuously for nearly two centuries. So, where does
one begin?
Well, the most famous Frenchman of all time was a soldier who was not even
born in France, but on Corsica when Italian was its first language. The two best-
known French presidents of the twentieth century were both military men.
Marshal Philippe Pétain was the Hero of Verdun in World War I who became
the Traitor of Vichy in World War II, after which his former protégé and
wartime enemy General Charles De Gaulle sentenced his senile ex-patron to
death, and commuted the sentence before turning France from ‘the sick man of
Europe’ into an independent nuclear super-power.
In a country where politics and the military are so closely interwoven it is no
surprise to find that one branch of the armed forces has provided many generals,
marshals and high-ranking politicians up to Prime Minister. That it should be the
Foreign Legion gives cause for thought.
What makes the French Foreign Legion different from any other army – apart
from its unequalled mixture of races – is that it numbers in its ranks men from all
social and educational backgrounds: musicians like American Cole Porter,
philosophers like Hungarian-born Arthur Koestler, writers like Switzerland’s
Blaise Cendrars and the grand old man of German letters Ernst Junger. Poets,
painters and professional sportsmen have served alongside bemedalled veterans
prepared to work their way up again from the lowest rank after donning Legion
uniform.
For 179 years jobless, homeless and loveless men have found a sense of
purpose worth all the rigours and risks of serving in the world’s longest-standing
mercenary army, but so too have many born in palaces. Royal legionnaires
include King Peter I of Serbia, Prince Louis II of Monaco, Crown Prince
Sisowath Monireth of Cambodia and princes Aage of Denmark and Amilakvari
of Georgia. Of slightly lesser pedigree was Prince Napoleon, son of Princess
Clementine of Belgium and great-grandson of the Legion’s founder King Louis-
Philippe. The Prince served as Legionnaire Blanchard, No 94707. His haughtier
cousin the Count of Paris enlisted as engagé volontaire D’Orliac with the
number 10681. Maxim Gorky’s adopted son rose from enlisted rank to general’s
stars, yet chose to be buried beneath a stone inscribed simply Legionnaire Zinovi
Pechkoff.
Twenty-first century recruits are unlikely to be motivated by the romance of
Edith Piaf’s hit-song about her legionnaire lover, whose skin ‘smelt deliciously
of hot desert sand’.[1] Fewer still will ever have read the Beau Geste novels or
watched 1930’s black-and-white films in which legionnaires dying from booze
and boredom inside remote Saharan mud-brick forts snap out of it just in time to
rescue rich and glamorous lady tourists from the rapacious veiled warriors of the