21 Silbermann, p 99
22 Pasfield Oliver, p.742; Livre d‘Or, p.168; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.274
23 Pasfield Oliver, pp.742 – 3; Silbermann, pp. 102 – 6; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.274
24 Shervington’s letter is appended to the Pallas Armata reprint of Graves’ account.
25 Graves, pp.295 – 6; Ellis, in JAH, Vol 21, No.2 (1980), pp.219 – 34
26 What Graves called the ‘12-pdr’ was a 76.2mm British licence-built version of the 78mm Hotchkiss M1892; the ‘3-pdr’ was the 47mm M1885, and the ‘revolver cannon’ probably a 47mm five-barrel 3-pdr piece also made by C Hotchkiss. (J-J. Monsuez, in RHdA, 2003/3)
27 Graves, pp.302 – 8
28 ibid, pp.354 – 7
29 About 1,200 were invalided out; some 1,400 Abyssinians, Somalis and Comorans had to be shipped in to replace losses, and of the combined totals around 1,100 died. (Pasfield Oliver, pp.729, 734, 767; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.277)
30 Porch, Foreign Legion, p.277. By 10 June, 130 Tirs Alg reinforcements had arrived at Majunga. On 24 Aug the Vinh Long (later used as an emergency hospital ship) landed 500 extra men for the 200e de Ligne, 150 for 40e Bn Chass à Pied, and 150 légionnaires. On 3 Sept, 306 men for the Inf de Marine arrived on regular mailships, plus 150 for the Vols de Réunion and 500 Tirs Haussa. In all, with specialist, service and c.240 medical personnel, reinforcements totalled 3,228 men. (Pasfield Oliver, p.725)
31 KB, No.374. The ‘captain adjutant-major’ of a French battalion was the second-in-command. Many of the more mundane tasks undertaken by a British unit’s ‘adjutant’ were performed by a French subaltern aptly termed the ‘officer of details’.
32 Porch, Foreign Legion, p.277; KB, No.282; Pasfield Oliver, p.749. The Rgt Mixte had Naval Inf, Malagasies & Hausas; Col de Lorme had 2 weak coys from 200e Ligne, 2 of Naval Inf and 2 of Hausas. The Light Column’s total strength was 237 officers and 4,013 combatant troops, with 1,515 muleteers, 2,813 mules and 266 horses.
33 Pasfield Oliver, pp.751 – 2; Graves, p.297; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.278
34 Pasfield Oliver, pp.753 – 4; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.280
35 Pasfield Oliver, p.756; Serman and Bertaud, p.548; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.283
36 Pasfield Oliver, p.757
37 Graves, pp.298, 477
38 Pasfield Oliver, pp.757 – 8; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.284
39 Pasfield Oliver, pp.758 – 62; Silbermann, p.112; Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.285 – 6
40 Pasfield Oliver, p.764 – 5; Silbermann, p.113
41 Pasfield Oliver, p.726 – 7; KB No.282
42 Reibell, op cit, p.122
43 Serman and Bertaud, p.662. The other causes were given as typhoid (12 per cent), dysentery (8 per cent), tuberculosis (4 per cent) and heatstroke (3 per cent).
44 Pasfield Oliver, pp.727, 767; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.286; Reibell, op cit, p.174; Serman and Bertaud, p.662
45 Pasfield Oliver, p.767; KB, No.125; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.286. RMdA – 492 died in Madagascar, 35 aboard ship, 26 after repatriation, 38 missing = 22 per cent (of original c.2,400 plus 280 reinforcements = 2,680). I/RMdA – 23 per cent (of original 818 plus 150 reinforcements = 968). 13e RIM: 577 dead & missing = 21 per cent.
46 Silbermann, pp.115, 120 – 23
47 Ellis, op cit. This is one of those occasions when our rich English vocabulary fails us. The exact meaning is ‘the last small piece of a bowel movement’; the author is informed that there is an exactly equivalent insult in Italian.
48 Pasfield Oliver, p.765; Clayton, pp.81, 335
49 The lamba was the garment worn by Malagasy men – a sort of hybrid of a shawl and a kilt, like the old Scottish plaid; menalamba meant ‘red lambas’.
50 Morel, p.62; Livre d‘Or, p.170
51 Ellis, op cit
52 Serman and Bertaud, p.663 – 4; Jean Martin, in L’Age d’Or, p.73; Clayton, p.82
53 In the context, ‘French’ must mean Naval Infantry. (LtCol Ditte’s report of colonial warfare conference at École Superieure de Guerre, published Paris, 1905, by Charles-Lavauzelle; quoted Porch, Foreign Legion, p.285)
54 Livre d‘Or (pp.170 – 72) gives some company postings.
55 Maurois, p.65
56 Serman and Bertaud, p.664; Ellis, op cit
57 Hoisington, p.14; Maurois, p.73
58 Again, the summary that follows is based on Ralston, Ch 5, and Douglas Johnstone, passim. 58 Ageron, p.63
59 In 18 months Capt Jean-Baptiste Marchand had travelled c.2,500 miles from Brazzaville in the French Congo. The 8 French officers included Lt Charles Mangin of the Naval Infantry; with a company of Senegalese Skirmishers and the survivors of a huge train of press-ganged porters they arrived at Fashoda on 10 July 1898. A rendezvous with a second expedition expected from Djibouti never took place, and on 18 Sept Gen Kitchener arrived, steaming upriver from Khartoum with 5 gunboats, a company of Cameron Highlanders and 2 Egyptian battalions. (Serman and Bertaud, pp.682 – 3; Tombs and Tombs, p.429)
60 Porch, March to the Marne, p.148
61 Morel, pp.55, 62. Rear echelon at Majunga; 1er Cie, Tuléar and Ankazoabo; 2e Cie, Tsimanandrafozana; 3e Cie, Ambohibé; 4e Cie, Fort Dauphin; 5e Cie, Ilkongo; 6e Cie, Diégo Suarez and Nossi Bé.
62 Maurois, p.73; Hoisington, pp.15 – 16. The article, ‘The Colonial Role of the Army’, was published on 15 Jan 1900.
63 Dreyfus requested and was granted another revision of his case in Mar 1904. Ministers and governments continued to rise and fall; but on 12 July 1906 the United Appeal Court decided by majority vote that the Rennes verdict was unsound, and that Alfred Dreyfus was an innocent man. He was restored to the Army, promoted, and on 22 July he was admitted to the Legion of Honour. (Johnstone, p.197)
64 Morel, pp.55, 63; Livre d‘Or, p.172; Porch, Foreign Legion, p224
65 Clayton p.315; Morel, p.55. See also Ch 1.
66 Hoisington, p.17
67 Maurois, p.71. Lyautey had noted the source wrongly; the line is from Shakespeare, in Troilus and Cressida (Hoisington, p.13).
68 Lyautey, Lettres du sud de Madagascar, p.164
69 ibid, p.119. On 30 Aug 1897 a Naval Troops subaltern had needlessly prolonged Sakalava resistance by a gratuitious massacre at Ambiki. (Serman and Bertaud, p.664; Jean Martin, in L’Age d’Or, p.73)
70 Lyautey, Lettres du sud de Madagascar, p.302
71 Gandelin, RHdA, 1981/1. LtCol Brundsaux left Madagascar at the end of 1903, for 2 years with 12e de Ligne before returning to 1er RE. In Apr 1906 – Mar 1908 he commanded the Rgt de Marche du 1er RE at Viet Tri in Tonkin, where he added to his reputation for imperturbability under fire. He left the Legion in Mar 1908, eventually retiring due to ill- health as a brigadier-general on the Western Front in July 1916. (KB, No.374)
72 Morel, p.63; KB, No.282
8. The Instruments of Downfall
1 Rankin, p.253. Col Rankin was at that date special war correspondent of The Times of London.
2 Hart, Qabila, pp.19 – 21; Harris, p.21
3 Maxwell, pp.29 – 32
4 Dunn, Resistance, p.165; Hart, Qabila, p.34
5 Maxwell, pp.36 – 44. Cresting at more than 7,000 feet, the Tizi n’Tichka climbs and descends in a continuous series of some 1,800 hairpin bends. It is the highest point of Morocco’s road system, and its treacherous ledges frequently claim victims even today, especially during the winter snows.
6 In 1893, Abd el Malek el Mtouggi controlled c.6,000 warriors, and Tayib el Goundafi c.5,000; Madani el Glaoui had only 2,000 – 3,000 men. (Maxwell, pp.41 – 2) . For the ballistically pedantic: the ‘77mm’ Krupp gun was probably a Franco-Prussian War surplus C64 80mm breech-loading 4-pounder. In Morocco it would typically have been employed at only a few hundred yards’ range, for direct fire to breach fortress walls and blow in gatehouses.
7 Maxwell, pp.40 – 53
8 El Rogi’s true name is reported as Jilali ibn Idriss el Zarhuni; a drooping eyelid gave him a superficial resemblance to the sultan’s brother Moulay Muhamma
d, known to be blind in that eye, who was living in secluded retirement. The career of the legendary robber baron and intriguer Ahmad er Raisuli (or el Raysuni) – brave, resourceful, cruel, and utterly unscrupulous – defies brief summary; see Harris, pp.90 – 98 et passim. It is intriguing to wonder how Raisuli would have enjoyed his portrayal by Sean Connery in the John Milius film, The Wind and the Lion (1975), a cheerful Hollywood fantasy inspired by one of his most insolent but less bloody exploits.
9 Tombs and Tombs, pp.436 – 42
10 Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny (London; Penguin/Allen Lane, 2007), pp.336 – 7, 345 – 7, 379 – 84. Eventually, in 1911, Italy would throw an army into the empty sands of Libya, simply because no other nation had.
11 Hart, Qabila, pp.13 – 18
12 ibid, pp.27 – 33
13 The Arabic plural of ksar is ksur, but in this text anglicized plurals – e.g. ksars, oueds, kasbahs – are used for simplicity.The journey across the mountains between the Tafilalt and Fes took about 12 – 15 days on horseback; caravans of 50 – 100 pack-animals had to pay tolls to the tribes whose lands they crossed, who provided a token escort to ensure – theoretically – their safe passage. (Dunn, Resistance, pp.114 – 16).
14 Dunn, Resistance, pp.31 – 5
15 ibid, pp .38 – 9, 59 – 60
16 ibid, pp.38 – 9, 52 – 7. The ‘fifths’ were the Ouled Jallul, Ouled Yusif, Idarasa, Ouled abu Anan and Ouled bil Giz. These had a loose internal clan structure, and there was no single chief of a ‘fifth’. This fivefold structure – representing the five fingers of a hand, and the five elements of a traditional battle array – had ancient and prestigious roots, in Arabia even predating Islam.
17 ibid, pp.68 – 70; Hart’s several studies also explain the intricacies of the Ait Atta social structure.For the purposes of this book, the only important point is that while there was a shared aggressive pride in Ait Atta identity, there was no effective cohesion higher than tribal (taqbilt) level at best, and while elected tribal chiefs had a liaison and mediation function, all segments were fiercely independent and usually mutually hostile. For the record, the basic ‘wiring diagram’ was as follows: the Ait Atta nation comprised the Ait Wahlim, Ait Wallal, Ait Unigbi, Ait Aisa Mzin, and Ait Isful/Ait Alwan ‘fifths’. The Ait Unigbi ‘fifth’ (khums) comprised the Ait Khabbash and Ait Umnasf tribes. The Ait Khabbash tribe (taqbilt) comprised five clans; each clan (ighs) comprised between two and four lineages, each separated into sub-lineages.
18 Dunn, Resistance, pp.68 – 78
19 ibid, pp.31, 146 – 7; Hart, Ait Atta, pp.159 – 61
20 Dunn, Resistance, pp. 41 – 4
21 Purely for firearms – enthusiasts: Remington-action rifles were made in a wide range of calibres up to 12.7mm – 0.50in, the calibre of a modern heavy machine gun. After firing the Remington, you thumb back the external hammer to full-cock position by its big cocking-spur, then flip back a sturdy steel catch on the pivoting breechblock behind the chamber at the breech end of the barrel. This simultaneously revolves the block backwards to open the chamber, and brings back a small section of the chamber lip underlying the rim of the empty cartridge, acting as an extractor. Although modern drawn-brass cartridges are sturdier than the old brass foil cases with a heavier brass base, extraction must still have been simple enough unless the chamber was hot and fouled by continuous firing. You pull out the old cartridge and insert another, flip the block closed again, and you are ready to fire; 6 to 8rpm is an entirely practical rate. The rifle is comfortable to shoot; the kick with black-powder cartridges – even the 12.7mm – is hardly more noticeable than that of a 12-bore shotgun, since the parallel-sided 12.7 x 44mm holds a much smaller propellant load than, say, the longer, fatter, tapered .45in x 54mm of the savagely kicking Martini-Henry. The only obviously breakable part is the little extractor arm. The Remingtons fired by the author were a Swedish 1874 12.7mm rebarrelled in 1891 for 8mm, with nitro propellant, and an original Swedish 1876 12.7mm, with both nitro and black powder rounds. The Spanish Army’s 11mm was the most common model in Morocco, although a number of others models also found their way into the country. (The Remington was also made in rim-fire, but such cartridges are impossible to reload, so only centre-fire models would have been any use to the tribes.)
22 Hart, Qabila, p.143, writing of the Ait Atta of the Djebel Sahro.
23 Dunn, Resistance, p.121 – 7
24 ibid, p.145
25 ibid, pp.83 – 101, 152 – 60
9. Sixty Thousand Dead Camels
1 Gandini, p.41
2 Dunn, Resistance, p.112
3 Porch, Sahara, Ch XIV. The kasbah of the Moroccan south fulfilled the same function as was the ksar, but was more deliberately designed. It essentially a walled village of tawny-red mud brick, and could be of impressive size, with crenellated walls and tall loopholed towers worthy of a Norman castle.
4 The divisional cavalry were 2e Rgt de Spahis at Sidi bel Abbès and 2e Rgt de Chass d’Af at Tlemcen, each with 4 sqns of which 3 were theoretically available for field operations.
5 Dunn, Resistance, pp.180 – 81
6 In March 1900 troops from Ain Sefra also reached Djenan ed Dar, due south of Figuig, and began to build a post there.
7 A column this size was normally allowed about 250 camels to carry its kit, baggage, tents and rations (e.g. each infantry coy had 10 camels, each officer 2), plus 750 more carrying 5 days’ water. Because of the terrain, the Igli column had to carry three times that amount, or roughly 42,000 gallons. (Hale/Massoutier, op cit)
8 Gandini, p.46
9 ibid, pp.34 – 8
10 ibid, p.33; Livre d‘Or, pp.209 – 10; Turnbull, pp.74 – 5
11 Gandini, pp.41 – 2.
12 ibid, pp.74 – 5; Turnbull, p.41
13 Tombs and Tombs, pp.432 – 3
14 Dunn, Resistance, p.177; Livre d‘Or, p.210
15 Gandini, p.49
16 The distinction between goumiers and moghaznis in Algeria was essentially one of radius of action, although some French sources use the terms indiscriminately. Both were native irregulars; but while goumiers were tribesmen who enlisted for a single campaign season to accompany manoeuvre units of French troops, moghaznis were a longer-term localized gendarmerie. Led and armed by a Native Affairs officer, they lived with their families in tents outside his post; they drew some rations, and pay that varied according to whether they were afoot or provided their own horses (Gandini, p.15). In Morocco, from 1908, the term Goum would be used for a more formally organized company of 100-plus military auxiliaries – see p.361.
17 Order by Gen Mercier, 12 July 1894. The exact administrative numbering of the Compagnies Montées within the two Legion regiments changed at frequent intervals, making it difficult to trace their lineage continuously, and this text does not attempt to do so. Note that in 1900, Maj Bichemin’s IV/2nd RTA also had 13e and 14e Cies Montées, and Capt Droit’s 14e CM marched with this July convoy from Igli to Duveyrier. (Gandini, pp.55, 89)
18 Gandini, pp.51 – 6. This also reproduces a photo that has been published elsewhere, mistakenly captioned as the battlefield of El Moungar, Sept 1903 (reasonably but confusingly, Zafrani has also been termed ‘first El Moungar’). Guillaume’s account was published in Légion Étrangère, Apr 1932.
19 Hart, The Ait Atta, p.159; Dunn, Resistance, pp.182, 198; Porch, Sahara, pp.228 – 32. The Ait Murghad belonged to the Ait Yafalman confederacy, enemies of the Ait Atta nation for centuries – sultans had encouraged them to block Ait Atta expansion northwards into the High Atlas.
20 Bernard, pp.155 – 6
21 Dunn, Resistance, pp.176 – 8
22 Gandini, p.57. Both were actually middle-aged ex-NCOs rather than the young paladins suggested by a sentimental press.
10. Blood and Sand
1 Gandini, p.62
2 ibid, p.13, from Notes du Route (Charpentier and Fasquelle, 1914). In fact Zoubia/Duveyrier was the railhead for two and a half years; south of there the tracks swung westwar
ds to Beni Ounif, approx 5 miles south of Figuig, where a station was built in spring 1903. (Dunn, Resistance, p.211)
3 Dunn, Resistance, pp.23 – 5
4 ibid, pp.179 – 80, 194. The Maghzan soldiers at Figuig were Dukkalas from the Atlantic plain – see Harris’s description below.
5 Dunn, Resistance, p.185; Maxwell, pp.73, 76, 79. Walter Burton Harris, the permanent Tangier correspondent of The Times, was an independently wealthy man who lived in Morocco for decades. An Arabic-speaker who could sometimes actually pass for an Arab, he enjoyed excellent contacts, and was used as a discreet conduit between many of the major players in Moroccan affairs over many years.
6 Maxwell, pp.77 – 8, quoting Harris, The Morocco That Was (London; Blackwood, 1912), no page.
7 ibid, p.79; Dunn, op cit, JAH, Vol 21 (1980)
8 ‘Flipsonn’ sounds odd; could he have been British – Philipson?
10 Gandini, pp.59 – 62. I owe this account – like much else in this and the previous chapter – to M.Gandini’s meticulous research in the Archives d’Outre-Mer at Aix-en-Provence.
11 ibid, p.134
12 ibid, p.65
13 The Legion’s historical service (SIHLE) have been unable to discover any War Ministry document authorizing or regulating the grant of commissions à titre étranger to foreign officers. Since 1831 these had always been given or denied individually and pragmatically, depending upon vacancies, personal connections or foreign policy considerations. As noted in Ch 5 n(4), during 1871 – 95 the great majority of ‘foreign’ commissions in fact went to Frenchmen. During the 1890s, a door was opened for officers wishing to transfer from the Danish and Swiss armies, at a time when France was seeking to cement relations with those countries in competition with Germany. Selchauhansen was one of 10 Danish and 6 Swiss officers who eagerly took the opportunity of gaining active service experience; 7 of the 16 would die in French uniform during the Great War (Dutailly, RHdA, 1981/1). Incidentally, there seems to have been only one ‘Anglo-Saxon’ officer in the Legion pre-1914, the New Zealander, James Waddell (see note, Appendix 1).
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