French Foreign Legion

by Douglas Porch

  BUGEAUD'S WISH OBVIOUSLY did not come true. The Legion was not abolished, and this for several reasons. First, it served the needs of France, which required a place to send her political refugees, guests who had overstayed their welcome and other social encumbrances. Second, it served the needs of Algeria, which required soldiers. But there is a third reason why the Legion survived attempts to disband it that has been ignored by historians, which is that it was able to adapt successfully to Bugeaud's strategic system. How did it accomplish this? The indications are that the Legion actually improved as a fighting force in the mid-1840s. Just as the routine of fixed posts devastated morale, so the ambulatory life in the open air was a first step toward restoring it. Even if legionnaires did not have to fight—and many, perhaps most, razzias actually struck into thin air—the very march itself would create problems to confront, challenges to surmount, create an atmosphere of real soldiering. No one said it was easy, but the real enemy of morale, and consequently performance, especially for the Legion, is not hardship, but boredom. So Bugeaud contributed toward the salvation of the Legion at the very moment he was recommending its abolition.

  And because the Legion was actually doing something other than quietly coming apart at the seams in garrison, other things began to fall into place for it. First, the quality of Legion leadership improved, both because the corps could now attract the sort of officer interested in the active, outdoor life with its perils and promotion, and also because those good officers already with the Legion—and even Bugeaud admitted that they were not in short supply—now found an opportunity to exercise their leadership talents. In 1841, Bugeaud complained that “the colonels of the Foreign Legion have fallen short of my expectations.”56 The following year, he obviously placed his hopes for the resurrection of the 1st Regiment on the appointment of a new colonel. Apparently he was not disappointed. General Fabviez, who inspected the 1st Regiment in November 1842, reported that “This corps had fallen into a very bad state under poor leadership. It is visibly improving under its new colonel.”57 The arrival of MacMahon as colonel of the newly created 2nd Regiment in early 1843 went a long way toward solving the leadership problems there.

  The prospect of action also began to draw in a better class of subaltern, continuing a trend that began perhaps as early as 1836. When Lacretelle went on his last school holiday before leaving Saint-Cyr, he met a general recently returned from Algeria who asked him which regiment he intended to choose upon graduation. When the cadet stated his preference for the dragoons, the senior officer—obviously a wise man—objected that the glorious days of the cavalry were finished, and suggested that an officer with a future selected Algeria and the infantry, “where he will find for a long time yet, opportunities to distinguish himself, in the Foreign Legion especially, because it is never spared and it is sent on all the operations.” When Lacretelle returned to school for his final term and announced his decision to join the Legion, “My comrades were greatly surprised.... At Saint-Cyr we had never heard the Legion spoken of. We did not even know that it existed.”58 And this was more than a decade after the corps had been founded.

  A final element that helped to solidify the officer corps, according to the due d'Aumale, was an ordinance of February 18, 1844, “... which gives the right to command in the Legion to the most senior officer irregardless of origin. [This] has ended these violent arguments of principle, based on national sentiment and pride.”59 Perhaps, but this ordinance also stated that of two officers of equal grade, the one serving à titre français — that is, as a regular French officer—always had command over one serving à titre étranger —a foreigner in French service—whether a real foreigner or a Frenchman serving in that category. In September 1845, Brigadier General Thierry announced that “The general aspect of the 1st regiment of the Foreign Legion is extremely satisfactory.”60

  Other factors also helped firm up regimental control and strengthen discipline. First, Bugeaud's system allowed battalions to be united rather than scattered about in various posts where the command often exercised its influence with difficulty.61 Second, it appears that the creation of the 2nd Regiment in 1840 created a shortage of NCOs in the Legion, which was only gradually rectified.62 But a third and crucial factor was the change in life-style that occurred in 1842. The best of the Legion commanders, like MacMahon and Alphonse Bedeau, who held various command positions in the Legion between 1836 and 1839, realized that “with good officers, this band fights admirably. It can be led by appealing to its honor.”63

  Life on the march required officers to lead by example, a factor that was of dramatic importance in a democratic army like that of France in which an officer was not automatically given respect because of his upper-class social status, as in the more aristocratic armies of Great Britain or Imperial Germany. Lamborelle found that the officers acquired enormous authority over the rank and file by the simple fact that they shared their hardships on campaign: “The officer sees the soldier as a companion in danger and glory rather than as an inferior,” he testified. “His greatest preoccupation is to spare his men unnecessary fatigue and privations. In a country where rations are lacking, he does not hesitate to help his soldiers out, advancing them money so the pot will not be empty. In return, the soldier is grateful. He is not only devoted to his officer, but more, he has a filial respect. In combat, he never abandons his officer, watches out for him, will sacrifice himself to protect him, to save him, to make sure he does not fall into the hands of the enemy if he is wounded. In camp, he keeps his fire going, looks after his horse, his mule. If he finds some game, some fruit, he shares it.”64 Lamborelle was no doubt speaking only of popular officers, and of those soldiers closest to them. But the sentiment is probably not overstated given those qualifications.

  The marching and combat that now became part of the daily life of the Armée d'Afrique also introduced an element of competition that stimulated regimental pride as well as a healthy competitive spirit among the various nationalities of legionnaires. In 1840, General Schramm was of the opinion that “As for an esprit de corps, there is none, or very little.”65 But the seeds of a regimental spirit had been planted and, ten years after the formation of the Legion, were beginning to take root, not surprisingly, as part of an oral tradition whose custodians were the old veterans: “In the evenings, our sergeant talked of his campaigns,” Lamborelle wrote of his first months in the Legion. “He was an old Africa hand who had been in the regiment since its formation. During the fifteen days I was with him, he told me in great detail of all the campaigns in which the Legion had taken part. He was at the Mouzaia Pass, at the Battle of Macta, the storming of Constantine where he was part of the assault column commanded by Colonel Combe. He told us of the heroic death of this brave man who, wounded by two musket balls, still had the strength to walk with the slow steps of a dying man toward the due de Nemours and to say to him in a calm and firm voice these sublime words: ‘My Lord, I am mortally wounded, but I die happy, for I have seen a splendid day for France. Alas, those who survive me are happier, for they can speak of victory.’ ”66 It was a somewhat imaginative version of the death of Combe, but that is hardly the point. Or rather, that is precisely the point, for these heroic accounts of the regiment's past served as a bond for the present and a standard to emulate in the future.

  And that standard was maintained on March 15, 1844, when the due d'Aumale personally led a charge of a bataillon de marche made up of the elite companies of the 2nd Regiment against the fortified village of M'chouneche in the Aurès Mountains after several attacks by line regiments failed to reach the walls. So impressive was the courage of the legionnaires in their successful storming of M'chouneche that Aumale asked his father, King Louis-Philippe, to reward the regiment with its own standard.67 Such events, which were quickly incorporated into regimental lore, were especially important to legionnaires because, according to Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil, who commanded the 1st Regiment in 1895, “His tendency is to dramatize, to drape every
thing in legends. To the stark truth which bores him, he prefers his invention which is amusing. He develops a passion for it and will not give it up until, absorbed in his own story, little by little he begins to believe it is part of his own past.”68

  Regimental pride led naturally to an individual pride. At its origins, it was rooted in nationalism, which, as Schramm believed, “serves to create emulation among the men in battle or on the march.”69 National diversity served to unite the Legion rather than divide it so long as the units were kept heterogeneous, for just as no legionnaire wanted his regiment thought a weak link in the Armée d'Afrique, likewise no one wanted to disgrace his country. Lamborelle saw an exhausted legionnaire perish from heatstroke rather than report to the ambulance. And after one action, he boasted that “The Belgians of the Legion proved once again that they were worthy of the reputation for courage that they knew how to conquer in the Armée d'Afrique:”70

  By general consent, the Spaniards usually reaped the highest praise as marchers: “The Spanish, while weak in appearance, give away nothing in this respect to the Belgians and Germans,” Randon wrote.71 Even the Carlists appeared to have lived down their deplorable reputation by 1844, when General Francois du Barail advanced the opinion that “In Africa, the Spaniards are more or less at home. The climate and to a certain point the habits and manners of the countries are similar. These Carlists, used to fatigue and the dangers of war, were for our Foreign Legion an almost inexhaustible source of recruitment. Tireless marchers, of an absolute sobriety, they were the true elite soldiers and became, in addition, upon their liberation the solid elements of colonization.”72 MacMahon praised the Germans in his command, “most of whom were very energetic veterans, who marched well, but as skirmishers they were far from equalling the Spaniards. These were the true soldiers of Africa, nimble, intelligent, inexhaustible marchers and enormously brave. In the summer if we crossed a stream, their comrades would stop, plunge their heads in the water and drink unimaginable quantities. Several times I saw in such cases Germans die on the spot. As for the Spaniards and the Turks, they would not even stop but merely scoop up a little water in the hollow of their hand.”73

  Randon rated the Italians at the bottom of the Legion's roster of nationalities,74 but MacMahon found that forty Englishmen who had deserted to the Legion from Evans's British Legion in Spain ran the Italians a close second: “They were good fellows, but incapable of supporting the long marches if they did not get supplemental rations,” MacMahon wrote. “Often, after four days, they had eaten up their eight days’ rations and we were obliged to reprovision them or see them fall behind.” MacMahon decided to demonstrate the dangers of falling out on the march. “The first time I saw them lying by the roadside, I sent out twenty spahis [native cavalry]. Disguised as [Abd el-Kader's] horsemen, and shouting at the top of their lungs, my cavalrymen shot at the English taking care not to hit them. As they did not want to lose their heads, they decided to rejoin the column. The next day, I wanted to do the same thing, but they had discovered the trick and shot at the spahis without bothering to move.”75

  Stronger esprit de corps improved performance, Lamborelle argued, because courage was inseparable from the milieu, an esprit de corps developed gradually in the soldier until it became virtually a reflex: “There is a strange observation to make,” he wrote, “and that is by daily growing accustomed to danger, a man imperceptibly comes to play with death as easily as if it were a game of cards. I refer to those who have been in combat, [that] the heart grows used to peril, as the ears become accustomed to the noise of a fusillade. Courage is also a little a question of habit, and often one does not find it in himself on the first day. One must not forget either that he has an older brother who is called: The sentiment of honor and duty.”76

  The Legion had fought some honorable actions between 1837 and 1841 that had demonstrated that the corps had potential as a military unit. By moving it out of its static positions, Bugeaud allowed it to realize that potential to a much greater degree after 1842, especially as it fought often as bataillon de marche with elite companies. However, this still does not tell us how good it actually was, or resolve complaints about poor training or its inability to march. The answer is that the Legion was probably as good as it had to be. One of the advantages of Bugeaud's system, and one reason why it was so well adapted to his military instrument, was that the level of training and military skill required in Algeria was not as high as a European regiment would be expected to attain. The Legion did not need to be drilled to parade-ground perfection to carry out a razzia, so the problem of poor training was minimized. What was required was the ability to undertake brutal marches. While no statistics exist for this period on the attrition rate on the march, one can assume, judging by the complaints, that it was fairly high. But the important thing is that, in the end, this did not matter because enough men got to the point of conflict to keep the Legion effective against an opponent often taken by surprise, who sought first to protect his family and property, and who had poor collective discipline. And even if these marches were costly in manpower, it made little difference, for there were plenty of replacements.

  So while commanders sometimes complained that Legion recruits were unpromising material from which to fashion warriors, the point is that the supply was virtually inexhaustible, so long as political upheaval made France a preferred place of exile, and so long as urban overpopulation made Algeria and the Legion a potential social safety valve. So the recruitment of many men who fled into the Legion for want of an alternative actually became a strength, for it solved the problem that often troubles professional military organizations, especially in wartime—that of finding cheap and plentiful replacements. One of the results was that the Legion may have been no Wehrmacht, but then in the conditions of colonial warfare it did not have to be.

  The 1840s appear to have been critical years in the history of the Legion, perhaps among the most important. The razzia was hard, dirty, unspectacular work in which battle honors were more rare than sober legionnaires on Saturday night. But battle honors would come. The essential accomplishment of these years is that the Legion had begun to forge a collective spirit that was to carry it into mid-century and beyond. In short, despite the disappearance of the “old Legion” in Spain and attempts by Bugeaud to extinguish the “new” one virtually in its cradle, it had survived childhood. At the same time, it was already apparent to those who cared to look closely that the Legion required special handling—it was a unique corps with a distinct personality and quite separate leadership requirements. Those officers who assumed that legionnaires were simply stateless brutes and proceeded to treat them accordingly obtained poor results. “One must, to lead them, mix firmness with affection, a severe discipline but which one knows at certain times how to relax,” Lamborelle recommended.77 Also, the Legion could not be allowed to molder in garrison, where the least attractive aspects of its personality tended to gain the upper hand. If the conditions of sensitive leadership and action were met, the Legion was capable of demonstrating a determination and resilience that in this period could make it as good as the best in the Armée d'Afrique. And in 1849 it would require all the reserves of energy and courage it possessed to meet one of its most grueling challenges—the siege of the desert fortress of Zaatcha.

  Chapter 5

  ZAATCHA

  THE NAME ZAATCHA elicits only the faintest echo in modern histories of the Legion. In 1849, this desert village marked the southernmost penetration of the French in eastern Algeria. Anyone staring south from the fringes of the oasis complex crowded with date palms into the savage immensity of the Sahara must have wondered if the French could, or should, go any further. Indeed, they would soon have cause to wonder if their conquests had taken them too far already. By mid-century, the Tell, as the coastal highlands were called, had been “pacified.” But the journey south from Constantine had not yet been deprived of interest, for the inhabitants still retained their attachment to many of those p
ractices that gave North Africa its flavor of perilous exoticism. Important visitors could still be greeted by village chiefs offering a “diffa”—a wooden bowl filled with meat and couscous, a semolina of wheat that was a staple of the Maghreb (the coastal highlands of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco)—as a mark of respect. But isolated travelers might still be murdered, or at the very least robbed, if nightfall caught them outside one of the small posts and way stations constructed at intervals along the route.

  The track wound south out of the high country around Constantine until it reached Ain M'lila, where the rivers and wadis that had slashed meandering courses out of the mountains spilled over a flat plain to form a sebbka, or shallow salt lake, which, in summer, evaporated like a mirage. Figures who might have plodded out of Biblical scenes, leading camels or mules that swayed beneath outsized sacks of grain or dates, often surmounted by a woman who quickly covered her face at the approach of strangers, followed paths worn through the bluish salt fields. Over this dazzling plain, which resembled a Siberian steppe in mid-winter, aquatic birds circled seeking puddles that the summer sun had yet to reclaim.