11 Martyn, pp.54, 71, 78; Manington, pp.25 – 6. By 1911 the planks had been replaced with iron bed-steads with allegedly flexible thin iron bands in place of springs, and the straw palliasses by hard fabric mattresses. By 1915, at least, each man was provided with a small lockable box on the shelf for personal possessions, but in the late 1880s he had to take his own precautions. (‘MM’, pp.202 – 3)
12 For those interested in such minutiae: the paybook of No.12244 Soldat de 2e classe Gustave Seewald (an illiterate 21-year-old shopworker from Hamm, Westphalia, who joined 2e RE in April 1903) also lists issue of a bonnet de police or fatigue sidecap; a flannel calotte or nightcap; a couvre-nuque, the curtained Havelock or képicover of folklore; trouser braces (suspenders); a pair of souliers (light canvas shoes?) in place of one of the pairs of hobnailed boots; two neck-stocks of bright blue calico; two handkerchiefs; a ‘housewife’ with sewing kit; a pair of foot-cloths; a belt, its Y-strap shoulder suspenders, three ammo pouches and bayonet frog; a haversack, mess tin, 2-litre waterbottle, knapsack, blanket, tent cloth with sectional pole, cords and pegs; and rifle No.43929 with sling.
13 Martyn, pp.106, 281; Silbermann, p.15. While a rifle company in Algeria had 250 men, there was no official limit on the size of the regimental depot companies, which could be very large. This naturally overstretched the senior NCOs, and made the three company officers almost invisible.
14 Martyn, p.61; Manington, p.20
15 Martyn, pp.101 – 6; Manington, pp.27 – 8. A high standard of smartness was demanded for the walking-out uniform, which changed according to daily orders – e.g. one evening it would be tunic and red trousers, the next it might be veste, white trousers and sash, and so on. With all uniforms, soldierly dignity was ensured by the belt and the long Gras bayonet, whose brass pommel and wood grips took a fine polish.
16 Martyn, pp.90 – 93
17 ‘MM’, p.207
18 Rankin, p.36; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.222; Martyn, pp.98 – 100, 120
19 ‘MM’ claimed (pp.211 – 12) that in 1915 the long blue waist-sash would fetch 6 or 7 francs – several weeks’ basic pay for a 2e classe, and enough to stupefy a whole barrack room.
20 Manington, pp.38, 40 – 42; Martyn, p.113
21 The quoted analyses are in d’Esparbes, pp.15 – 17; see also Porch, Foreign Legion, p.291; Martyn, p.112; Manington, p.36. From the sample of c.1,000 enlistees, the largest groups were day-labourers, farmworkers and gardeners (210) and shopworkers (103). There were also 58 cobblers and 28 tailors, 51 bakers and 25 butchers, 36 masons, 28 carpenters, 24 painters and decorators, 20 blacksmiths and – for some reason – no fewer than 70 locksmiths and clocksmiths.
22 Pfirmann, KB 347 and 348
23 Martyn, pp.108 – 10; Manington, pp.52 – 5 – though he gives Minnaert’s name wrongly as Mertens.
24 Martyn, p.119
25 Carles, RHdA, 1981/1
26 Martyn, pp.32 – 6, 45, 77; Manington, p.29
27 Manington, p.29; Martyn, p.36
28 Martyn, pp.32 – 6; Silbermann, p.20
29 Silbermann, pp.31 – 2
30 Martyn, p.94
31 Serman and Bertaud, pp.567 – 8
32 Silbermann, p.25
33 This highly infectious bacterial fever is usually contracted through contamination of food or water with excrement via flies or dirty hands. During the 10- to 14-day incubation period it has no visible symptoms, and by the time headaches, exhaustion, bronchial and abdominal disorders became evident, the nineteenth-century sufferer faced about three weeks of high fever, rashes, dehydration, emaciation, delirium and a chance of fatal ulceration of the bowel. There were many ways a man could die from various complications of enteric fever, and the only treatment was nursing care.
34 Manington, pp.56 – 8
35 Martyn, p.183 – 4
36 Between 1878 and 1898 the tricolour was carried eastwards along the Senegal and Niger rivers into modern Mali and Burkina Fasso, across Niger and Chad, and finally as far as the southern Sudan. Concurrently, a thrust down the Atlantic coast added Guinea and the Ivory Coast to the western base of this band of territory, and a northwards push from the jungles of Gabon and Congo through the Central African Republic linked up with the west – east corridor in Chad. (The confusing French term ‘Soudane’ for the West African savannah country has been avoided here.)
37 Pierre Boilley, in L’Age d’Or, pp.46 – 55
38 For early history of Tirailleurs Sénégalais, see Clayton, pp.334 – 5.
39 J.D. Page, in Journal of African History, Vol 21 (1980) pp.289 – 310. Page quotes a Yoruba cleric, as late as 1880: ‘Slavery is the principal source of investment and, next to polygamy, the chief thing in which wealth consists.’
40 W.A. Richards, in JAH, Vol 21 (1980), pp.43 – 59
41 Burton, A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomey (London, 1864)
42 Martyn, p.242
43 Europeans reported clothing of various unit colours, and flowerpot-shaped caps of white, blue or red often decorated with appliqué emblems – crocodiles, open eyes and sharks were all noted (shark imagery was traditional to the Fon kings after they conquered the coast). See F.E. Forbes, Dahomey and the Dahomans (London, 1851), and J.A. Skertchly, Dahomey As It Is (London, 1874). For most of the quoted material on the Dahomeyan army the author is indebted to Andrew Callan and Angus McBride, ‘“This West African Prussia”: The Dahomeyan Army 1840s – 1890s’ in Military Illustrated Past & Present, No.30, Nov 1990.
44 Serman and Bertaud, p.679
45 Behanzin’s imports in 1890 – 92 included 400 Peabody, 250 Spencer and 230 Winchester carbines, 750 Chassepot, 250 Albini and 300 Snider rifles. (Callan, op cit)
46 Morel, pp.54, 60. The bns then in Algeria were III/ and IV/1st RE, I/ and II/2nd RE.
47 For note on half-coy deployed to Mali, see end of Appendix 3.
48 Porch, Foreign Legion, p.247. Individual officers of Metropolitan units might be posted into, or might apply for, a vacant appointment in their rank in the Africa Army. Army officers of both organizations might likewise be sent to or apply for staff posts in the Navy’s colonial theatres.
49 Turnbull, pp.103 – 4
50 Martyn, pp.186 – 92
51 Silbermann, pp.55, 62
52 Martyn, p.194
53 Cohen, JHA, Vol 24
54 Martyn, pp.194 – 5; Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.252 – 6, 277
55 Martyn, pp.196 – 200; Silbermann, p.47; Livre d‘Or, pp.157 – 8; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.257 – 9; Geraghty, pp.106 – 7; Bergot, Foreign Legion, pp.102 – 3; Callan, in MI P&P No.30; R.A. Kea, in JAH, Vol 12 (1971), pp.185 – 213
56 The rest of the campaign would be punctuated by Dahomeyan attempts to negotiate between battles, and French refusals; this reflected a fundamental difference in attitudes to warfare.
57 Martyn, pp.203 – 5; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.259
58 Or Grede, or Adegon, or Poguessa – all placenames are variously reported.
59 Callan, op cit; Martyn, pp.206 – 7
60 Martyn, pp.202, 206 – 9; Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.260 – 61. The incident of Battreau’s rifle is only notable for the fact that P.C. Wren would later recycle it in a short story.
61 Martyn, pp.211 – 12; Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.261 – 2
62 Martyn, pp.226 – 7
63 Cohen, JHA, Vol 24
64 Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.262 – 5
65 Martyn, pp.217, 224
66 ibid, pp.32 – 3, 216. Martyn did point out that striking a superior in the presence of the enemy would normally have meant a firing squad; that in such circumstances the only punishments available were physical; and that while serving in the British Army he had seen men ‘pegged out’ as field punishment, which he reckoned was almost as bad as ‘the Toad’. However, he noted approvingly that when Gen de Négrier was GOC 19th Army Corps he ‘put a stop to it, and a great many other abuses’.
67 ibid, pp.226 – 9. This brought the column’s strength to 69 officers and 2,000 men. (Porc
h, Foreign Legion, p.264)
68 Silbermann, p.49
69 Martyn, pp.232 – 4; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.263
70 Martyn, pp.235 – 41; Silbermann, p.50
71 Martyn, p.249. Porch (Foreign Legion, p.265) gives only 81 total French killed but 436 wounded in combat; he does not quote deaths from disease, but judges that these multiplied the combat fatalities fivefold.
72 Porch, March to the Marne, p.162
73 Serman and Bertaud, p.680; Silbermann, pp.55 – 77; Morel, p.60
74 Both coys returned to Sidi bel Abbès for disbandment on 28 Jan 1895. (Morel, p.60; Livre d‘Or, pp.162 – 3)
6. Tiger Country
1 Epigraphs from ‘Les Carnets du Sergent Pfirmann’ in Képi Blanc No.350; and Lyautey, Intimate Letters from Tonkin, p.80
2 The passages on Lyautey’s life before his posting to Tonkin are based on the Maurois biography, and Hoisington, passim.
3 Maurois, p.32; Porch, March to the Marne, p.125
4 President Sadi Carnot would be stabbed to death at Dijon in May 1894 by an Italian anarchist.
5 Maurois, p.45
6 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, p.46
7 ibid, pp.27, 44
8 ibid, pp.50 – 53. Throughout the quotations from translated sources in this text, punctuation and occasional translations of terms are slightly adjusted by the present author for the sake of clarity.
9 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, pp.57 – 9. Comparison with the contemporaneous Ferry report on the Algerian administration makes this story wholly credible. (Edinburgh Review, Apr 1893, pp.330 – 81)
10 Porch, March to the Marne, pp.140 – 44
11 Maurois, p.48; Lyautey, Intimate Letters, pp.68 – 9
12 A fifth territory, surrounding Hanoi itself, was administered directly by the civil governor-general. At the time of Lyautey’s arrival 1st – 4th Military Territories, from east to west, were commanded by Cols Chapelet, HQ at Mon Cai; Galliéni, at Lang Son; Thomasset, at Tuyen Quang; and Servières, at Yen Bai. (Lyautey, Intimate Letters, p.107)
13 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, p.73. See beginning of Ch 11 below, and ‘l’affaire des fiches’.
14 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, pp.76 – 8
15 McAleavy, pp.279, 283
16 Porch, Foreign Legion, p.239 – 44
17 Manington, pp.296 – 300
18 Serman and Bertaud, p.653; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.220, quoting Col Tournyol du Clos, ‘La Légion Étrangère au Tonkin 1883 – 1932’ in La revue d’infanterie No.525, Vol 89, May 1936, p.859; Cohen, op cit, JAH, Vol 24.
19 Pfirmann, KB, No.344; Martyn, pp.122 – 3; Manington, p.61
20 Martyn, p.127
21 Manington, pp.67, 86; Martyn, p.131; Hocquard, p.92
22 Pfirmann, KB, No.347. Many of the placenames shown on nineteenth-C French maps have changed since, e.g. on modern maps Phu Lang Thuong seems to be Bac Giang. Throughout this text and in Maps 4 and 7 the old names are generally used.
23 Pfirmann, KB, No.350
24 Manington, p.228
25 ibid, pp.121 – 2
26 ibid, p.117: Pfirmann, KB, No.351
27 Carpeaux, p.84; de la Poer, p.127; Sylvère, p.64; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.241
28 Pfirmann, KB, No.352
29 Martyn, pp.170 – 71; Manington, pp.134, 161 – 3, 214 – 18
30 Pfirmann, KB, Nos.353, 354; Morel (p.137) confirms the officers’ deaths. Sgt Pfirmann disembarked at Algiers on 5 Dec 1889; despite treatment and two spells of convalescence at Arzew his arm was permanently withered, and he was finally invalided out of the Legion in Feb 1892. In 1936 his son Paul joined the Legion, retiring in 1961 as CO of 5e REI; his grandson Claude was also commissioned, serving as a captain in 1er and 2e REC.
31 Martyn, p.133. Normally the coys of a 2nd Bn of a regiment were numbered 5th – 8th, but the Legion bns in Tonkin at that date ‘formed corps’, i.e. were autonomous units, so each had 1st – 4th Coys.
32 Martyn, pp.140 – 45, 170; Manington, pp.283 – 5
33 Martyn, pp.176 – 7
34 Martyn, p.152 – 8; sketch and elevations Manington, between pp.100 and 105
35 Martyn, pp. 162 – 57, 179; Manington, pp.108 – 10
36 Manington, pp.125 – 31, 138 – 55
37 ibid, pp.34, 159, 295
38 ibid, pp.176 – 91
39 ibid, pp.200 – 203
40 ibid, pp.214 – 22
41 ibid, pp.229 – 43. Like most of his contemporaries, Manington confused malaria and blackwater fever cases.
42 ibid, pp.258 – 61
43 ibid, pp.264 – 73
44 ibid, pp.279 – 81, 296 – 300. Though weakened, De Tam would remain at large in the Yen The; as late as 1909 he led another rising and he was not finally betrayed and captured until February 1913. (Serman and Bertaud, p.653)
45 Manington, pp.92 – 3. This re-equipment was some three years earlier than stated in standard sources, but Manington was interested in weapons and is most unlikely to be mistaken. The bolt-action 8mm Lebel M1886 had an eight-round tubular magazine under the barrel, and a practical rate of fire of up to 14 rpm if this was used – just as in the British Army, some officers preferred their men to load and fire single rounds except in emergencies, to avoid wasting ammunition. The Lebel was accurate to 1,000 yards and theoretically effective up to 3,500 yards. Its high muzzle velocity – at least 2,000fps, compared with the 1,475fps of the Gras – also gave it greater penetration; légionnaires recalled its lethal effect even against adversaries sheltering behind tree trunks. (Vuillemin, pp.59 – 67)
46 Manington, pp.307, 313, 329, 352. Morel (p.137) confirms Watrin’s death at Ban So, 17 Aug 1892.
47 De Neuville’s painting caused a sensation at the Paris Salon of 1873; see Philippe Chabert, Alphonse de Neuville, l’épopée de la defaite (Paris; Coppernic, 1979), Plate 7 and p.18.
48 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, pp.80 – 89
49 ibid, pp.87 – 8
50 ibid, pp.92 – 100
51 Maurois, p.52
52 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, pp.110, 157. The first experiment in arming tribesmen had been made on the Red and Black rivers in 3rd Territory by LtCol Théophile Pennequin. (Serman and Bertaud, p.652; Hoisington, p.12)
53 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, pp.108 – 10
54 ibid, pp.114 – 19
55 The summary that follows in this and the next chapter is based on Ralston, Ch 5, and on Douglas Johnstone, passim.
56 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, p.123
57 ibid, pp.133 – 50
58 ibid, pp.133 – 7, 286, 297, 309
59 ibid, pp.179 – 81
60 In 1947 Bac Kan was the headquarters of the Viet Minh, whose senior leadership narrowly escaped from a French parachute attack on 7 Oct at the outset of the first major French offensive.
61 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, pp.189 – 201, 225
62 ibid, pp.217 – 22, 256
63 ibid, pp.232 – 4
64 ibid, p.249
65 ibid, pp.263 – 8, 283; Morel, p.137
66 It is noticeable that nowhere in his letters from Tonkin does he ever mention formed Navy units, only individual naval officers leading Tonkinese Skirmishers.
67 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, pp.274 – 8. The present author has corrected some obvious errors in Mrs Le Blond’s translation.
68 ibid, pp.289, 300, 308
69 ibid, pp.289 – 90
70 ibid, pp.299, 318
71 ibid, p.304
72 For a listing of Legion deployments in Tonkin 1897 – 1911, down to company level, see Morel, pp.57 – 60.
73 Maurois, p.63; Lyautey, Intimate Letters, p.319
74 Lyautey, Intimate Letters, p.63
7. ‘A Calling Devoid of Allurement’
1 Epigraphs from Two Campaigns: Madagascar and Ashantee (London, T.Fisher Unwin, 1896), p.173; and Silbermann, p.115.
2 Malagasy (Fr. malgache) is the collective adjective for all the inhabitants, who mostly spoke recognizable dialects of the same language.
&n
bsp; 3 Jean Martin, in L’Age d’Or, pp.70 – 73
4 Queens Rasoherina (r.1863 – 8), Ranovalona II (r.1868 – 83), and Ranovalona III (r.1883 – 96)
5 Campbell, in JAH, Vol 21 (1980), pp.341 – 6
6 Pasfield Oliver, pp.724 – 5, 731 – this source draws throughout upon Gen Duchesne’s report.
7 Porch, Foreign Legion, p.268; Gen Emile Reibell, Le calvaire de Madagascar (Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1935), p.50. The 200e Rgt de Ligne and 40e Bn de Chasseurs à Pied were temporary units formed by drawing lots among second- and third-year conscripts who answered a call for volunteers.
8 Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.269 – 70
9 1er Bde (Metzinger) – Rgt de Marche d’Algérie (Legion, I/RMdA; Tirs Alg, II/ and III/RMdA); 200e de Ligne (3 bns) 2e Bde (Voyron) – 13e RIM (men from 1er and 3e Rgts); Rgt Coloniale (bn Tirs Malgaches, mainly Sakalavas; bn Tirs Haussa; bn Vols de Réunion) Divisional troops – escadron 1er RCA; 40e Bn de Chasseurs à Pied 38e Rgt d’Art (5 mtn and field btys) and Rgt d’Art de Marine (3 mtn btys) – 30x 80mm mtn guns, 12x 80mm field guns, 4x 120mm short howitzers 4 cies Génie; 6 cies 30e Esc de Train plus 1 cie Sénégalais (Serman and Bertaud, p.660; Pasfield Oliver, pp.724 – 30)
10 Porch, Foreign Legion, p.271; Pasfield Oliver, pp.730 – 31
11 The carts were supposed to move in convoys or échelons of 150, each of these with a total payload of 30 tons (Pasfield Oliver, p.734). Rather than sending them back to the coast empty, they were pressed into service for evacuating a couple of casualties each – a task for which these iron boxes were horribly unsuited.
12 Livre d‘Or, p.167; Silbermann, pp.80 – 81
13 Pasfield Oliver, p.730
14 ibid, p.739
15 Porch, Foreign Legion, p.273; E.F. Knight, Madagascar in Wartime (London; Longmans Green, 1895), p.162
16 Graves, pp.476 – 7
17 Pasfield Oliver, p.740
18 Silbermann, pp.92 – 4
19 ibid, p.97
20 Pasfield Oliver, p.741. Melinite – so named for its honey colour – was an explosive based on picric acid, tested in shells from 1886 but not yet standard issue. The expeditionary corps had a special reserve of 500 melinite shells, in addition to 350 conventional black-powder rounds per gun. Since 1880 shells had been provided with combination time/impact fuzes.
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