French Foreign Legion

by Douglas Porch

  However, the association between desertion and the Legion inevitably led to accusations of brutality and harsh treatment of those caught. Like many, indeed most, deserters, Premschwitz was arrested by native Algerians, who surrendered him to kindly French gendarmes for the twenty-five-franc reward normally handed out for deserters. However, he considered himself “divinely blessed,” as, he claimed, many deserters were simply killed, or returned to the Legion in desperate condition after having been dragged behind the horses of the native police.58 The French writer Hubert-Jacques ridiculed the accusations common in the German press before World War I of brutal treatment inflicted upon deserters.59 However, Doctor Alcide Casset, who served in the Sud Oranais toward the end of the century, agreed that the goumiers sent on the trail of deserting legionnaires with orders to bring them back

  “dead or alive” seldom troubled to encumber themselves with exhausted men: They are always brought back “dead.” In effect, the reward they are paid is the same. They find it infinitely simpler and more rapid to kill the man and bring back only his head. . . . I was called upon to verify their deaths by looking at the heads. In these conditions, no fear of making a diagnostic error.60

  This appears to have been the case on the wild frontier because it was a war zone and therefore desertion, especially with arms, was considered a serious offense. It was also severely punished during World War I, when the French were seldom prepared to treat desertion with indulgence—Colonel Xavier Derfner reported that four German deserters returned by goumiers were summarily shot: “The next day, their bodies were exposed beside the track, so that the column marching to El-Bordy, and the legionnaires in particular, would note that it was not easy to desert.”61

  Some legionnaires, especially those armed and prepared to defend themselves, might also have to be overcome by force. However, in the more settled regions of Algeria where desertion was a less desperate act, its policing was less harsh and far more routine. Junger was captured after only one day by an entire Arab village, which, he was later told, regularly found Legion deserters hiding in their haystacks, which were one day's march from Sidi-bel-Abbès. The native police who took them to jail consoled them by saying that they would have their wives prepare “a nice little soup” for them. “Here there is a relationship established between the hunter and his game,” he concluded.62 Nor must it be assumed that the goumiers who came to claim their reward, saddlebags filled with heads, did so at Legion posts, for they surely would have been murdered. For instance, Flutsch was told of an incident in which a Legion sergeant severely thrashed a sergeant of the Bats d'Af after he delivered a Legion deserter whom he had forced to march without shoes.63 In fact, outside of war zones, the Legion was very tolerant of desertion, and punished it severely only after the fourth attempt.

  This is not to say that desertion could not pose problems for the Legion, for when the Legion arrived at a place that offered the possibility of a successful escape, then “Katie bar the door!” The Suez Canal, as has been seen, was one such place. Even Galliéni, who requested six hundred legionnaires for Madagascar so that, if necessary, he could “mourir convenablement” [die decently], believed that desertion could in certain conditions seriously compromise Legion performance. “A clever enemy who will make them promises and will keep them could certainly provoke desertions which not only could weaken our numbers at a time when they could not be reinforced,” he wrote in 1900, “but even more could give the adversary intelligence on our military situation ... with [legionnaires], the spirit of adventure dominates the sentiment of discipline and professional pride.”64

  It may well be that the “clever enemy” that Galliéni feared was present in Casablanca in 1908. In the years before World War I, an active campaign against the Legion was carried out in Germany by pan-Germanists, army and navy leagues, and specialist organizations such as “The German Protection League against the Foreign Legion” in Munich and “The Association to Combat the Enslavement of Germans in the Foreign Legion.”65 But while this was limited mainly to hostile propaganda whose goal was to discourage Germans from enlisting in the Legion, French soldiers long believed in the existence of German-run “desertion agencies.” On September 25, 1908, their suspicions were confirmed when five legionnaires in the company of the German consul were shouted at by a French lieutenant in charge of the port guard as they attempted to row to a German freighter standing off Casablanca. The Moroccan oarsmen panicked and plunged into the sea. The surf caught the small boat and capsized it, allowing the French to arrest the five waterlogged legionnaires on the beach.66 A sixth legionnaire was arrested in the company of the Austrian consul thirty minutes later. The German consul protested that, as he had given them a laisser-passer, they fell under his jurisdiction according to treaties arranged with the Moroccan Sultan. The French countered that the deserters were under contract to the French army, and steadfastly refused to release the legionnaires and apologize, as the Germans demanded.

  In the atmosphere of growing national tension, which had been heightened by what the Germans saw as a high-handed French encroachment into Morocco, the “affaire” of the Casablanca deserters practically brought the two nervous governments, goaded by their respective jingoistic presses, to blows. However, both Berlin and Paris realized soon enough that the legal status of six legionnaires hardly offered a cause worthy of unleashing a general European war. On November 24, 1908, the two governments agreed to offer mutual excuses and refer the matter to the International Court at The Hague, which ruled that French jurisdiction over those who enlisted in the Legion was binding.

  What became known as “the affair of the Casablanca deserters” served to underscore Galliéni's fears that Legion desertion not only could in certain circumstances undermine fighting strength and perhaps morale, but also made the employment of the Legion in politically sensitive areas like Morocco a hazardous undertaking. A report of October 1, 1908, said that 217 legionnaires had deserted in Casablanca in a little over a year, or roughly 30 percent of the effectives.67 A November 1907 letter to the war minister from Corporal Benedittini of the 2e étranger claimed that these “numerous desertions,” as well as the large number of courts-martial in Casablanca, could be traced to the brutality of Legion NCOs: “The foreigners arrive in the corps, above all the young ones, being treated as I have just described to you, soon learn to hate the name of French,” he wrote.68 This might possibly be true in certain cases, but brutality does not suffice to explain the fever of desertion that struck the Legion at Casablanca. The more likely explanation is that legionnaires were exercising their God-given right to take French leave.

  Yet the large number of desertions in Casablanca demonstrated that there were some theaters in which the employment of the Legion was politically dangerous and where its military effectiveness might be brought under serious strain. But more, it showed a dark side of the Legion's policy of efficiency built upon selection. The problem was summed up succinctly by General Dautelle, commander of the 3rd Infantry Brigade, in September 1910: “The best soldiers of the Foreign Legion, the most physically robust, are generally the foreigners,” he wrote. “It is also they who desert most easily.” The French did not desert because “coming often with a troubled past, they look to acquire in the Legion a retirement pension with the minimum of effort and fear neither discipline nor prison.”69 The desertion statistics of the 1er étranger for the first eight months of 1910 bear out Dautelle's observations—only 11 of 168 deserters were French, and most of these had not returned from a home leave.70 The French reported on October 1, 1908, that of 217 desertions in the Legion in Casablanca, 114 were German, 80 were Austrian and only one was French.71

  This dilemma confronting Legion officers—choosing good soldiers who were potential deserters, or bad soldiers—was especially acute in the mounted companies. The Legion, indeed, the entire Armée d'Afrique, was deeply shocked in July 1910, when eighteen soldiers of the 3rd Mounted Company of the 1er étranger fled into Morocco.72 “One m
ustn't believe that it is the bad soldiers who abandon their regiment,” Colonel Girardot of the 1er étranger reported of these men. “Many of these deserters were excellent soldiers. Among those of the 3rd Mounted Company, a large number had no, or only minor, punishments. One must keep in mind that many foreigners who enlist with us have already deserted their flag.”73 Captain Met, who investigated this desertion, blamed it on the fact that the company simply was at the end of its tether because of constant campaigning. This certainly seems to have been a contributory factor. However, in this case, as perhaps in others where nerves were on edge, an act of misplaced severity on the part of an NCO appears to have pushed the men over the brink: A sergeant forced legionnaire Weinrock, whom he suspected of malingering, to miss several turns on muleback. The sick Weinrock subsequently fell behind the column and was murdered by an Arab. This certainly triggered the exodus.74

  Also in July 1910, several soldiers of the 5th Mounted Company deserted because they believed they were less than twenty-five kilometers from the Spanish enclave of Melilla.75 The 1er étranger reported that of 160 desertions from that regiment between January and September 1910, 105 had occurred in the frontier region.76 Desertions in the mounted companies were especially galling because these were picked troops, and as they were mounted, they had the best chance of making good their escape. Legion desertion had become pervasive enough by the summer of 1910 that the army seriously considered withdrawing the Legion into the interior of Algeria.

  However, for several reasons they were obliged to accept Legion desertion as an occupational hazard. In the first place, they simply did not have enough white troops, and given the colonial calculus that required at the very least one white soldier for every two native rifles, the Legion was indispensable. General Bailloud wrote at the height of the desertion crisis in 1910 that the only other available white troops in North Africa, the zouaves, were full of conscripts, half-trained and unable to endure the climate. “In an Arab country, we cannot leave only the tirailleurs in contact with the natives.” Given the alternatives, he believed that a few desertions among legionnaires were “pas grave.”77

  A second reason why Legion desertion did not worry the high command unduly was that it tended to be a cyclical phenomenon. Lyautey believed in 1910 that the Legion's problems “Are today visible and acute in a way which is unfortunately glaringly obvious.” But he also believed that desertion would dry up because “The murder by the Riffians of most of the deserters has produced the most salutary effect which will certainly discourage desertions.”78 General Dautelle argued that it was not even necessary to advertise the fate of deserters who fell into Moroccan hands, which the Legion systematically did. Rather, desertions, always frequent when the Legion arrived in a new desertable location, subsided as it settled in. “Once sent out, he continues like a horse that does not stop until he crosses the finish line,” Dautelle reported. “Then, curiosity is extinguished and after a while desertions drop off.”79

  But while Legion desertion was not a catastrophic problem in a strictly military sense, it was nevertheless a serious embarrassment that could help to undermine efficiency. The problem of desertion in the mounted companies highlighted the reluctance of the Legion to create a cavalry regiment in the pre-1914 period. While lack of manpower and cadres probably formed the main reason why these attempted reforms remained a dead letter, when questioned on the creation of a cavalry regiment in 1902, the colonel of the 2e étranger believed that this would simply raise the scale of the Legion's problems to a new level: Legion cavalrymen could desert more easily, while their access to saddles would make the selling of equipment profitable enough to finance weeks of revelry.80

  General Dautelle believed that the number of deserters, though small, was important: “It is nevertheless true that there is a net loss, moral and material, with each desertion,” he wrote.81 The problem was that it gave a poor impression of the solidity of French strength in native eyes, which could tempt them into rebellion, and it also could be exploited by the Spanish, who were pushing their own claims to Morocco.82 It also served to discredit the Legion, and as a consequence the entire French imperial enterprise, in the eyes of France and of the world. The French military attaché in Berlin, Colonel Pellé, complained that desertions in the Legion gave credence to charges by ex-legionnaires like Erwin Rosen, whose book had enjoyed immense success in Germany, and outbursts by deputies in the Reichstag that the Legion “is unworthy of a country which has pretensions to the title of a civilized nation.” Writing at the height of the third Moroccan crisis of 1911, which came barely three years after that of the Casablanca deserters, Pellé wrote: “This is how that one will justify one day a war against our country, as a great cause of civilization.”83

  In the end, the Reich did not require the Legion as an excuse to declare war. But France would need the Legion to fight it.

  Chapter 16

  1914

  THE PERFORMANCE OF the Foreign Legion on the Western Front in World War I ranked among the best in the French army. The conduct of the regiment de marche de la Lègion étrangère, the celebrated RMLE, at such spots as Carency, Navarin Farm, Belloy-en-Santerre, Verdun and the Bois de Hangard made it one of two regiments in the French army to earn the double fourragère that combined the colors of the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918, one of five regiments to have earned the médaille militaire, and one of nineteen to be awarded the cross of the Legion of Honor. In all, the RMLE was cited nine times in army orders, which placed it second behind the régiment d'infanterie coloniale du Maroc, whose ten citations made it the most decorated unit in the French army. Even today, soldiers of the 3e étranger, heir to the titles of the RMLE, carry enough rope on their shoulders to furnish a lynch mob with the wherewithal to bring a substantial party of outlaws to rough justice.

  World War I posed a serious challenge to the Legion's self-image and consequently to its fighting efficiency, for it created a tension between the Legion's traditional role as a mercenary corps experienced in colonial welfare and its legal mission to integrate those foreigners who volunteered for the French army. The groundswell of support for France from young men, many of whom were patriotic, middle-class, and often politicized, was matched only by the deception of most at being placed in a unit whose atmosphere and values were diametrically opposed to their own. How did the Legion resolve this tension? By remaining faithful to its “traditions,” according to the regimental history of the RMLE. “From 1914 to 1918, the Legion, despite everything and despite everyone, continued on its road,” it recorded, “reinforced by thousands of brave hearts, troubled in the beginning, that it knew how to conquer”—the combination of experienced Legion cadres and the elimination of those lukewarm on the idea of serving in the Legion allowed the RMLE to realize its heroic deeds.1 This is essentially correct. However, by defining—or redefining—its personality as an elite, professional, even colonial unit, it limited its utility to France because it deliberately squandered or eliminated important sources of recruitment.

  The First World War provided a real moment of truth for the Legion, for it had to deal with a recruitment crisis that, in retrospect, was even more serious than the one that had occurred after the turn of the century. The situation may be summed up succinctly as follows: At the beginning of the war, the Legion was swamped with more recruits, and, from a traditional standpoint, many recruits of the wrong sort, than it could efficiently digest. However, by the last months of the war, it faced a dearth of recruits serious enough to jeopardize the Legion's continued presence on the Western Front, and from the point of view of its commander, even the Legion's existence as a unit. Why did this occur? Basically because the Legion reflected and was forced to pay the price for the ambiguous attitude of France to foreigners, for the French government's desire to “ghettoize” them in a unit perceived to be—to put it kindly—a holding pen for marginal social elements. In the long run, the mishandling of the initial wave of volunteers by the government
, the sinister reputation of the Legion, and the spread of the conflict to countries that otherwise might have furnished recruits for the Legion, not to mention the fact that before 1914 between a fifth and a quarter of Legion strength had been furnished by France's major enemies, combined almost to scupper the RMLE.

  The Amalgamation

  The indelible image of August 1914 is that of the nations of Europe marching to war fairly quivering with popular enthusiasm. Such ardor could not fail to have repercussions for the Legion, especially as French law forbade foreigners from serving in the ranks of the regular French army. As early as July 30, 1914, a manifesto called upon Italians living in Paris to support France in the coming conflict. It touched a responsive chord among those for whom the memory of the Garibaldi Legion, which had fought for France in 1870, was still fairly recent history.2 On August 1, the day that general mobilization was declared, a group of foreign intellectuals led by the Swiss writer Blaise Cendrars announced that “The hour is grave. Every man worthy of this name must act today, must forbid himself to remain inactive in the midst of the most formidable conflagration that history has ever experienced.”3 Left-wing Russian expatriates began spontaneously to drill in a cinema they hired on the rue de Tolbiac, despite protests from fellow refugees that this represented a betrayal of socialist pacifism.4