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by Douglas Porch


  Second, if the legionnaires were mercenaries in the general sense that they were soldiers in the service of a foreign government, it is equally apparent that they did not view themselves simply as guns for hire. For them, the Spanish bargain was a breach of faith. One officer wrote from North Africa that many would have been willing to go to Spain as part of the French army, but not in Spanish service: “All the officers and, in general, all the soldiers are furious,” zouave Captain Demoyen wrote on July 17, 1835. “The foreign officers say that they came to serve France and not other countries.”4 Paris was informed that “almost all officers refused to follow the corps to Spain” and that “the soldiers of the Legion were pushed to desert, or to join Abd el-Kader, or to rebel so as not to embark.”5 The government at first threatened, and then wisely backed off, sending two officers from the ministry to explain that by going to Spain, the Legion was actually serving the interests of France. All legionnaires of foreign nationality were obliged to depart for Spain. Foreign officers might refuse, but lost their employment. Those French officers who still refused to be convinced were allowed to transfer to other regiments, unless they had joined the Legion straight from civilian life, in which case it was to civilian life that they returned. Those officers who agreed to go to Spain were rewarded with promotions for remaining with the Legion. “These promotions produced the desired effect,” the report to the war minister concluded.6 While these promotions, handed out on July 22, 1835, and made official on November 6, were approved by the French government, Paris subsequently refused to recognize promotions and decorations earned in Spanish service, or to credit these officers with seniority acquired in Spain upon their return to the French army.7

  However, in the short run, the turmoil over the transfer of the Legion to Spain may have helped solve some of its military problems. As has been seen, inspecting generals in Algeria had given the Legion generally low marks. Under Colonel Bernelle, things had undoubtedly begun to improve. However, Macta had exposed yawning gaps in cohesion and tactical expertise, not just in the Legion, but throughout the Armée d'Afrique. The first thing the Spanish controversy did to improve this state of affairs was to allow the departure of a number of officers who, for whatever reason, had no desire to go to Spain. The fact that eighty-five men below the rank of major were promoted would seem to suggest that the number of officers asking for other assignments or simply resigning their commissions was fairly high.8 The 123 officers who remained probably formed as heterogeneous a crowd as the 5,000 men whom they were to command— Napoleonic veterans, demi-soldes, officers of the ex-Royal Guard and Swiss regiments, ex-NCOs and a smattering of officers picked up from the dissolved Volontaires d'Isabelle, a collection of soldiers of fortune come to serve the constitutionalist cause. Thirty-eight foreigners were also to be found among the officers,9 as well as a number of naturalized Frenchmen. And the percentage of foreign officers probably increased after September 1836, when the Legion had obviously been forsaken by the French government and many French officers began to return home. For instance, in December 1838, thirty-four of sixty-three officers remaining in the Legion were foreign; some of them had been promoted through the ranks.10

  Among these men were certainly officers of quality. Several, including Bernelle, Jean-Louis Baux and Captain Hippolyte Renault, were to finish their careers as generals, and one, Second Lieutenant Achille Bazaine, as a Marshal of France. Several held decorations earned in Algeria, including Lieutenant Colonel Conrad, Italian majors Raphael Poerio and Sebastiano Montallegri, Polish major Thadée Horain, and Italian captain André Ferrary, as well as Bazaine. German sergeant G. von Rosen found the Italians and Germans among the officers a fairly common lot, but thought the aristocratic Poles very distinguished. And while he recorded complaints against individual officers and criticized the tendency of his compatriots to be a trifle brutal, on the whole he classified his superiors as “very good men.”11 The reports on the officers drawn up in 1838 when the Legion was in desperate condition give an unflattering and perhaps not an altogether unbiased assessment of some of them. Nevertheless, of 129 officers listed upon whom there is complete information, 60, or almost half, were rated as good or excellent, and another 49 received mixed reviews, often because they were too old for active service or deficient in administration. Only twenty were rated as frankly bad, charged with things like excessive brutality, drunkenness, lack of courage or shirking responsibility generally, or, in the case of Second Lieutenant Jacques Touflet, “born to be an artist.” Nor do these assessments appear to reflect a national bias, for each category is almost equally divided between French and foreign.12

  The second thing that improved the cohesion and consequently the efficiency of the Legion was Bernelle's decision to abandon the fairly homogeneous national battalions in favor of nationally mixed units. The reason usually given for this decision has been the rivalries and recriminations after Macta, which dangerously divided the Legion along national lines. However, Macta must simply have been the event that finally pushed the high command to undertake a reorganization which was in the interest both of administrative efficiency and of discipline. While German recruitment to the Legion was to remain fairly consistent for over a century, the availability of other nationalities for service was too unsteady to make national battalions the basis of Legion organization. By 1834, the outbreak of the Carlist wars had already begun to dry up the numbers of Spaniards available for service, prompting a call for the amalgamation of the battalions,13 while Germans far outnumbered lowlanders in the 6th “Belgian-Dutch” Battalion.14 It was simply more efficient to distribute men according to need rather than have some battalions periodically swollen by political events in Europe's far corners, only to shrink to insignificance after a few years.

  But the question of administrative convenience pales in comparison to that of discipline. When, in future years, the Legion was inundated with men of one nationality, it was courting trouble, perhaps serious trouble in times of political tension or military reversals. A concentration of nationality facilitates the growth of a clannish spirit, even of a rival nationalism, which makes it more difficult, if not virtually impossible, to foster a common esprit de corps. Common cultural and linguistic bonds might preempt the creation of a regimental personality and a sense of unit solidarity. At its worst, national homogeneity might give rise to a sense of resentment, a feeling of exploitation that could, and on occasion did, bubble over into indiscipline or even mutiny, which officers, confronted by a sullen mass of men whose language, values and sensitivities they imperfectly understood, were poorly equipped to deal with because they commanded Poles or Spaniards or Italians rather than legionnaires. This attitude probably contributed to the Legion's low ratings in the first four years of its existence.

  In short, Bernelle realized that, unlike a national force, whether conscript or professional, which depends for cohesion on common bonds of culture and citizenship, a mercenary unit draws its strength from its heterogeneous character, that homogeneity actually threatens it. This rule was not necessarily hard and fast. As will be seen, Bernelle violated his own principle to raise a unit of Polish lancers for use in Spain. But in all likelihood he did this because he needed cavalry quickly and did not have time to train it, preferring to call upon the Poles, who had great experience as cavalrymen. Also, in 1840, the Legion would make up a battalion out of the numerous Carlist refugees who poured into France in 1839—40, and between 1855 and 1859 attempt to recruit a Swiss Legion. This system was resurrected in the first year of World War I. But, after 1835, the Legion preferred to mix its nationalities rather than concentrate them. At certain periods, however, as immediately following the two world wars, its recruitment was so overwhelmingly German that this was effectively impossible.

  Of course, heterogeneity is not enough in itself to keep a corps whose only commonality is its very diversity marching in one direction—“divide and rule” may work as a system of imperial administration, but it offers a less satisfactory
basis for military performance. The cohesion of this newly ordered corps in Spain seems to have been assured in part by its very foreignness, the fact that it was the “French corps” in the midst of the Spanish army, and therefore felt it had a reputation to uphold—indeed, the Légion étrangère is often referred to as the Légion française, division auxilliaire française or even the Légion algérienne in contemporary accounts.15 Also, unlike North Africa, where individual battalions and companies were spread piecemeal over the countryside, the Legion for the first time was serving as a coherent unit, with its own artillery and eventually its own cavalry. This contributed to a spirit of self-sufficiency, practically of being a separate army.

  The Legion's sense of identity also appears to have been reinforced by an acute perception of serving the constitutionalist cause against the forces of reaction. The temptation to conclude that this was the natural consequence of the wholesale recruitment of political refugees is almost overwhelming. However, the history of the Legion suggests that it managed to retain an apolitical character at least until the 1930s. As an institution, the Legion's success lay in great part in its ability to transform often highly politicized recruits into soldiers prepared to serve any cause. Many legionnaires certainly retained their own beliefs, often on the extremes of the political spectrum, which was precisely why they were in the Legion in the first place. The job of the Legion was to turn these men into professional soldiers, not commiserate with their political misfortunes.

  However, evidence suggests that in Spain, the political commitment to the constitutionalist cause served as a unifying factor for the Legion. This came about in part by default—Spanish priests, overwhelmingly favorable to the Carlists, revived fears of the French that dated from the Napoleonic invasions of 1808-13, and advertised the legionnaires as men without religion who were not above eating children. This was to result in a cool, not to say hostile, reception in the north. But more importantly, most officers had remained with the Legion because they had been convinced that by serving Isabel they were serving French interests. “When we consented to come to Spain, it was with the positive intention to support and defend a constitutional government in Spain, in harmony with our own . . .,” Bernelle wrote. His officers agreed that “they were fighting in the name of France and of constitutionalist Europe.” This sentiment of serving a political cause had filtered down to the ranks, to the point that Legion sergeant-major Éimile Hippolyte Bon even composed a “Song of the French Legion in Spain,” which announced to these “noble outlaws, enemies of tyrants” that “Liberty has opened to you other fields/ Where the cannon of a free people peals.” Apparently this composition was sung by “the beautiful and harmonious German and Italian voices” upon disembarkation in Spain.16

  Alas, Spain was also to demonstrate to the Legion, as it was to make clear to those legions of international volunteers who flocked there a century later, that political ideology was an inadequate basis for military cohesion in the confused circumstances of civil war. A political situation that appeared to those north of the Pyrenees to be a clear-cut struggle between constitutionalists and reactionary royalists took on an altogether more murky and sinister aspect as soon as one stepped ashore on the Iberian Peninsula. Disembarking legionnaires at Tarragona were greeted by enthusiastic crowds shouting: “Long live liberty! Long live the French!” Sometimes ‘Long live the Queen,’ but only rarely,” Captain Abel Galant noted. “That surprised us.” That evening, Bernelle led his officers out of the local theatre after “seditious shouts” were heard in the audience to demonstrate to the agitators “that they could expect nothing from the French troops because our watchword was ‘Isabel II and the Constitution.’ ”17 However, this demonstration of political factionalism worried Bernelle enough for him to write to Paris for instructions on how to act in a political crisis: “If the government were replaced by despotism or republicanism, I know what I would do as an individual. But as commander of a corps composed mostly of Frenchmen or men who have adopted France as their fatherland, should not the French government give me instructions which would direct me in a difficult situation?”18 But, as the Legion was to discover to their immense bitterness, the French government was to remain deaf to their calls for guidance, and for help in the precarious situation into which they had been cast.

  VITORIA AS THE legionnaires saw it in the first days of 1836 was not an impressive town. Hunkered across the road that paralleled a tributary of the Ebro River as it snaked northeast toward Pamplona and San Sebastian, Vitoria appeared bleached of color, as gray as the leaden sky that hung upon the snowcapped mountains which dominated it to the north and east. But to soldiers covered with mud and soaked to the skin after nine days of marching over impossibly rugged terrain in the dead of winter, even this ragged burg must have appeared a welcome sight, enough of a morale booster to allow legionnaires to pull themselves together for what Abel Galant described as “an almost triumphal entry.”19

  Triumphal or not, to those who cared to look carefully about them, the atmosphere was almost poisonous. The town was largely empty of local men, many of whom were away in the mountains fighting with the insurgents. The women, almost Arab-like in their black dresses, shawls and heads swathed in scarves, collected around the fountains in tight conclaves, casting suspicious glances at the legionnaires, whose reputation as cutthroats and outlaws had preceded them. Later, legionnaires would turn this to psychological advantage before battle, wiggling their fingers like horns on their foreheads to announce to the enraged Carlists opposite that they had been cuckolded.20

  But the coolness of the local population was not the only factor calculated to put the French in a bad mood. After five months in Spain the Legion counted nine actions to its credit, the most important in Catalonia, where two companies of legionnaires held the village of Senahuga, near Lérida, against a four-day Carlist siege. Upon arrival at Vitoria, the proud but already bedraggled Legion was greeted by General Sir George de Lacy Evans, commander-in-chief of the British Legion, and his brilliantly presented staff. If Legion officers detected a certain indefinable smugness in the demeanor of the British, they were probably not imagining things. Evans in particular had already met the French at Vitoria in 1813, where as a lieutenant he had commanded several cavalry charges that had consummated the rout of Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's army, capturing numerous prisoners, an artillery piece and a chest of money in a victory that had driven Napoleon's forces back across the Pyrenees. He had subsequently earned the plaudits of his commanders for exceptional bravery at Bayonne, Toulouse and Waterloo. For this, and perhaps also in grateful memory of the Anglo-Spanish alliance against Napoleon, Evans had been given the rank of lieutenant general by Isabel's government, while the Legion's Bernelle was a mere brigadier in Spanish service.21 And if this were not insult enough, the French officers quickly discovered that their wealthier British counterparts had already snapped up the town's best accommodation, such as it was.22

  However, Vitoria was the front line in the war against the Carlists, and it was here that the Legion assessed the strategic situation they faced at the opening of the spring campaign season of 1836. The government's strategy of scattering forces to deal with brushfire guerrilla wars everywhere had allowed the Carlists to carve out a de facto kingdom in the three Basque provinces and western Navarre. When, in 1835, Madrid at last decided to attend to this most important center of the rebellion, they were dealt devastating defeats by the brilliant Zumalacárregui, who confidently took them on in open combat. By June 1835, beleaguered government garrisons held tenuously to the larger towns, while the Carlists roamed at will in the countryside.

  Then the government got a break—Zumalacárregui, an exceptional commander in the open field, was forced against his better judgment by Don Carlos to besiege Bilbao. It proved a disastrous mistake. Don Carlos argued that the capture of a significant town that he could then use as a capital would boost his cause both at home and abroad. Also, Bilbao was a seaport, which would give
him access to arms without having to run the gauntlet of French frontier patrols on the Pyrenees. While these were two good reasons for doing the wrong things, Don Carlos ignored two important factors. First, his movement was an overwhelmingly rural one that had little support in the larger towns and cities, least of all Bilbao. Second, his troops, while excellent guerrilla fighters, lacked the skills and elaborate equipment to carry out a complicated siege operation. Most disastrous of all for Carlist aspirations, while in the trenches Zumalacárregui sustained a very minor leg wound which, thanks to the incompetence of his surgeons, resulted in his death. The siege of Bilbao collapsed in June, and in July, Zumalacárregui's less able successor, General Moreno, lost the Battle of Mendigorría.

  Therefore, in the summer of 1835, the momentum of the Carlist insurrection had been contained. But the insurgents still counted considerable strengths. Their army of around thirty thousand men was not well trained by classical military standards, but these tough peasant soldiers showed initiative and were excellent skirmishers. They enjoyed the support of the population, which guaranteed them a virtually inexhaustible supply of manpower, access to the local food supply and an excellent intelligence network, something denied to the government. The remote, mountainous and largely roadless terrain provided a virtually inviolate sanctuary from which to operate.

  Yet the Carlists had weaknesses, and they were fairly substantial ones. On the basic military level, they suffered greatly from an almost total lack of artillery, as well as shortages of arms, ammunition and shoes, although this was offset in part by similar deficiencies on the government side. Legion Second Lieutenant Jean-Jacques Azan complained that combats were broken off and retreats ordered “because of a lack of munitions. It's something which happens continually in Spain because of poor administration and the generals’ lack of foresight.” Azan also noted that his opponents were tactically naive, especially in the sort of positional war they now chose to fight: “If their military genius had equaled their courage,” he wrote in December 1836, “I think that the Legion would have had it.”23

 

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