Our Friends Beneath the Sands

  19 Woolman, pp.62 – 3, 69; Harris, p.106

  20 Harris, pp.58 – 61

  21 27 Jan 1917, Cie Montée/2e RE; 6 Apr, 1er CM/1er RE. Abd el Malek Meheddin would quarrel with Abd el Krim in 1925 during the Rif War; he entered Spanish service, and was killed while leading auxiliary troops near Melilla before he could complete negotiations with Lyautey (via Harris) to surrender to the French and go into exile.

  22 Livre d‘Or, p.229; Heintz, p.28; Laine, RHdA, 1978/4

  23 Heintz, pp.14, 76 – 7

  24 ibid, p.43

  25 ibid, pp.37, 43

  26 ibid, pp.38, 44 – 5; Gugliotta and Jauffret, RHdA, 1981/1. On 5 Nov 1916 Maj Feurtet’s Bn Mixte de Boudenib comprised: 2x coys Légion (Capts Blaise and Naegelin); coy 4e Bat d’Af (Lt Giacomini); coy 5e Bat d’Af (S/Lt Morel); 3x MG platoons (Lts Colin, Falcon and Grandjean – the latter killed at El Bourouj on 16 Nov).

  27 The Senussi lodges had long been centres of resistance to Italian expansion in the Libyan Sahara, and in Aug 1914 the Bedouin inflicted a series of important defeats on Italian units, capturing many weapons and subverting Italian native auxiliary troops. Encouraged by Turkish officers, in 1915 the Senussi attacked British Egypt, but were decisively defeated in Feb 1916. Contact with the Senussi, easy supplies of Italian arms, and Turkish agents all spread the unrest westwards among some Touareg of the French Sahara. In Mar 1916 the fall of the besieged fort at Djanet opened a year-long series of French setbacks, including the siege of Agadês in modern Niger, the loss of other posts and the capture of French prisoners including a general (few of whom survived captivity). The missionary Père de Foucauld, long a calming influence and a useful source of information on tribal affairs, was murdered on 1 Dec 1916 at his second hermitage near Tamanrasset in the Ahaggar, by a group of incoming Ajjer Touareg. Gen Laperrine was recalled from the Western Front and given command of the whole Saharan territory, restoring the situation from about Apr 1917; although small-scale raiding continued until well after the Armistice, there were no major incidents after Jan 1918. (David Nicolle, Lawrence and the Arab Revolts, Men-at-Arms 208; London, Osprey, 1989)

  28 Maurois, p.207

  29 ibid, pp.213, 221, 224

  30 ibid, pp.231 – 46. Henri Gouraud (1867 – 1946) returned to France, and commanded Fourth Army from July 1917 until the Armistice; he distinguished himself during Ludendorff’s Kaiserschlacht offensive in spring 1918. (For his tenure of the Morocco command, see Hoisington, pp.104 – 108.)

  31 Heintz, pp.19 – 20, 29 – 30

  32 If MGs unavoidably had to be abandoned, removing the complex feed block from the receiver of the Hotchkiss disabled it efficiently.

  33 Heintz, pp.20 – 21,31 – 2

  34 Vanègue, p.7

  35 Fabre, pp.9 – 10. This tends to support the suspicion that French officers often overstated in their after-action reports the numbers they had encountered.

  36 ibid, p.11

  37 Hoisington, p.84

  38 Heintz, p.38; Hoisington, p.84

  39 Skoura should not confused with the large oasis on the N10 east of Ouarzazate. The 65mm M1906 mountain gun had a hydraulic long-recoil mechanism that allowed a rate of up to 15 rpm, and broke down into four mule-loads for transport.

  40 Heintz, p.80

  41 ibid, pp.65 – 6, 80 – 82; Livre d’ Or pp.233 – 4

  42 Heintz, pp.21, 82

  43 Woolman, pp.74 – 7; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.397

  44 Heintz, pp.7 – 10, 21 – 3, 83 – 5. II/1er RE had been transferred south to Marrakesh in July 1917, spending the rest of the war dispersed between Azilal and other posts. (Heintz, p.15)

  45 Hoisington, p.85

  46 Heintz, pp.32 – 3, 67

  47 Dunn, Resistance, p.243; Hart, Ait Atta, p.165. ‘Tighmart’ seems to be Taguerroumt on modern maps, on the N12 road west from Rissani.

  48 Hoisington, p.86

  49 Maxwell, pp.130 – 31, 134, 138

  50 The Bn Mixte now consisted of 1 coy Légion (Lt Montrucoli, vice Capt Deschard sick), 1 coy 4e Bat d’Af (Capt Guerel), 1 Cie de Marche Metropolitaine (Capt Samoride) and 1 coy 8e RTA (Capt Doucet).

  51 The shape of the CSRG’s big crescent magazine was dictated by the sharply tapered 8mm cartridge – a legacy of Gen Boulanger’s impatience to get the Lebel rifle into service back in the 1880s – and the feed mechanism often jammed. The bolt or extractor also failed frequently due to careless manufacture, and overheating routinely caused the action to seize up for several minutes after little more than 300 rounds of fully automatic fire. Even when it functioned perfectly, the widely hated Chauchat was inaccurate above 200 yards.

  52 Heintz, pp.39 – 41, 46 – 7; Livre d‘Or, pp.235 – 6; Hoisington, p.86

  53 Livre d‘Or, p.236; Heintz, pp.34, 48 – 9; Hart, Ait Atta, p.165 – 6

  54 Moroccan commerce increased overall from 177 million francs to 707 million in 1912 – 19, and goods passing through Casablanca port from 130,000 tons to 800,000 in 1911 – 19.

  55 Bergot, in Young, p.201

  16. Flawed Blades

  1 France, Spain and the Rif, p.12

  2 Carles, RHdA, 1981/1

  3 Garijo (p.111) puts Legion desertions in Jan – Feb 1921 alone at 385. At that date Maj de Corta (4e REI) reported that warnings of a mutiny and desertion plot led to two whole companies being recalled to Boudenib from Aoufous on the Oued Ziz, and that ten ringleaders were shot while trying to escape. (Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.392 – 3)

  4 Jean Brunon, ‘Essaie sur la folklore de la Légion Étrangère’ in Vert et Rouge, No.19, 1948)

  5 Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.383 – 8; Carles, RHdA, 1981/1. The enclosed world of the Africa Army shielded soldiers to some extent from the massive inflation of the post-war years; between Nov 1918 and Aug 1919 the franc dropped from 26fr to 51fr to the pound sterling, and by mid 1926 to 220 francs (Horne, Friend or Foe; London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004, p.362). Cooper (12 Ans, p.67), who re-enlisted in 1919, puts the bounty at 500fr, paid half on enlistment, half after 3 months on completing basic training. Daily pay thereafter increased after 3 years’ service.

  6 At the Armistice just 13 surviving foreign officers were serving with the Legion. (Dutailly, RHdA, 1981/1)

  7 Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.389 – 90, quoting LtCol Rollet and Maj De Corta.

  8 See Appendix 1 for note on Rollet’s wartime service.

  9 Gandelin, RHdA, 1981/1; Garijo, p.125

  10 IV/1er and IV/2e REI were formed for Tonkin in 1920 and 1921 (the latter redesignated IX/1er in 1926), IV/ and V/4e REI for the Levant in 1921. Other bns posted to Tonkin – not as rotations, but cumulatively – were VII/1er REI (1927) and I/1er REI (1930). From 1 Sept 1930 the in-country bns formed the new 3-bn 5e REI. (Livre d‘Or, p.147; Garros, pp.83, 124)

  11 Porch, Foreign Legion, Ch 19 n(5); KB, No.394; Livre d‘Or, p.147; Carles, RHdA, 1981/1. 4e REI was formed from I/, II/ and VI/1st RE and VI/2nd RE. A decree of 31 Mar 1928 would fix Legion strength at 5 inf rgts (including the de facto rgt in Tonkin) totalling 17 bns, 1 cav regt of 5 sqns, 4 mounted coys and 4 pioneer coys.

  12 Livre d‘Or, p.281; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.385; Robinson, pp.38 – 41

  13 Hart, Ait Atta, pp.166 – 7; Dunn, Resistance, p.243. The Ait Hammou were a tribe of the Southern Ait Segrushin Berbers.

  14 Hoisington, p.90 n(138)

  15 Garijo, p.119. However, Turnbull (pp.152 – 4) gives Lyautey only 53 bns in 1921, of which only 32 were combat-ready.

  16 Clayton, pp.106 – 107, 211 – 12, 252, 263, 318 – 19; Garijo, p.99. In 1922 there were just over 10,500 W. African troops in Morocco, with 358 white Colonial officers and 2,408 white NCOs and cadre rankers. Legion strength in Morocco was then c.5,500.

  17 Hoisington, pp.88 – 9; Livre d’Or, pp.237 – 8

  18 Hart, Qabila, pp.45, 55; Harris, p.86; Woolman, pp.29 – 31

  19 Harris, pp.22, 40; Hart, Qabila, p.51 – 2. Their immediate neighbours, clockwise from the coast, were the Timsaman (NE), Ait Tuzin (E), Gzinnaya (E and S)
, Ait Ammarth (S and W), and Ibuqquyen (NW).

  20 Hart, Qabila, pp.60, 66, 69, 140; Woolman, pp.23, 29

  21 Hart, Qabila, pp.72 – 85

  22 Harris, pp.68 – 9, 108 – 109

  23 Woolman, pp.67, 144; John Scurr, The Spanish Foreign Legion, Men-at-Arms 161 (London; Osprey, 1985). While Franco was wounded only once, Millán Astray would lose his left arm and right eye, and was eventually awarded a special diamond-studded version of the Medal of Suffering for the Fatherland with four clasps. The difference in tone between the Spanish and French Foreign Legions is perhaps indicated by the fact that the devout and puritanical Millán Astray gave his unit a hymn called ‘The Betrothed of Death’, while the Legion’s march ‘Le Boudin’ is about Belgians not deserving any sausage. The present author has always felt that it must be significant that while the holiest relic of the French Foreign Legion is Capt Danjou’s wooden hand, that of the Tercio is Millàn Astray’s bottled eyeball, but he still cannot quite identify precisely the essential cultural difference.

  24 Woolman, pp.64 – 6, 72, 78 – 9; Harris, pp.68 – 9

  25 Woolman, pp.71, 85, 98 – 101; Harris, pp.69, 76 – 7

  26 Woolman, pp.81 – 2, 88, 98

  27 ibid, p.88; Harris, pp.70, 79 – 80

  28 Woolman, p.103

  29 ibid, pp. 89 – 102; Harris, pp.70 – 73, 80 – 3

  30 Hoisington, p.187

  31 ibid, p.90

  32 Garijo, pp.111 – 12

  33 ‘El Affrit’s’ luck would finally run out on 12 June 1924, when he commanded the Native Affairs post established at Skoura. Badly wounded in the thigh during an ambush while pursuing an Ait Segrushin raiding party, he bled to death. The Ait Segrushin boasted that they would dig up his body and skin it, so his goumiers poured cement around his coffin and booby-trapped the grave with grenades and a 75mm shell – exactly the sort of trick in which Laffite had delighted. (Garijo, p.151)

  34 Garros, pp.152 – 3; Geraghty, pp.155 – 6; Bergot, Foreign Legion, pp.136 – 7; Dorian/Maire, passim

  35 In addition to its 8 Hotchkiss guns, the MG Coy occasionally had a couple of 81mm Stokes-type mortars – ‘JDs’ – but ammunition was in short supply, and they are almost ignored in the tactical literature. In 1923 France had 3,000 tubes, but only the ridiculously small number of 100,000 mortar bombs in store (Stéphane Ferrard et al, L‘Armement de l‘Infanterie Française 1918 – 1940; Paris, Gazette des Armes Hors Série No.8, 1979). Perhaps surprisingly, the useful little 37mm man-portable trench gun, also issued to the infantry battalion in 1917 – 18, is rarely mentioned in Morocco.

  36 French hand grenades were issued in separate ‘offensive’ OF and ‘defensive’ Fl models, the former designed for maximum blast and the latter for maximum fragmentation. As well as 100x VB rifle-grenades, the company mules carried 100x OF and 50x F1 (Vanègue, p.61). In practice, this over-complicated the munitions supply unnecessarily.

  37 Fabre, pp.11 – 13; Vanègue, pp.57 — 63; Dorian/Maire, p.307

  38 Fabre, p. 51; Vanègue, p.94

  39 The account times the first clash at 15 mins after III/3e REI left the head of the pass, which in this terrain would place the action certainly no more than a mile into the hills. The author was unable to identify any particularly plausible feature among the others in this landscape. Puzzlingly, neither the Livre d‘Or nor the rodomontade in Maire’s memoir mentions the MG Coy, although 12th would be its logical number. Maire is careless over details, but both sources are clear that 11th Coy was absent, and strongly imply that all three present were rifle companies.

  40 Officers occasionally wore khaki covers over their black-and-red caps, but most felt that they needed to be instantly identifiable to their men (who in 1922 wore sidecaps or sun helmets). Even those who covered their képis were recognizable; they carried no rifle – sometimes, only a cane rather than a revolver – and usually wore a pale, loose gandourah smock to protect their uniforms.

  41 Fabre, pp.14 – 19; Vanègue, p.25 – 6

  42 Livre d‘Or, p.239

  43 ibid, p.240; Dorian/Maire, pp.308 – 10

  44 Garijo, pp.126 – 9; Livre d‘Or, p.238

  45 Albrecht de Tscharner (1875 – 1948) came from an aristocratic family in Berne, Switzerland, with a long tradition of French military service. In Apr 1916 he transferred from the Swiss cavalry to the RMLE on the Western Front as a captain, commanding 9e Cie, III/RMLE. He was first wounded on 4 July at Belloy en Santerre, secondly on 18 Apr 1917 at Auberive, and thirdly on 26 Apr 1918 at Hangard Wood (see Appendix 1). Retained in the Legion in 1919 and promoted major in June 1925, he then commanded II/3e REI for no less than seven years. LtCol de Tscharner retired in May 1933, after 16 campaigns and 7 wounds. (Garros, p.152; KB, No.343)

  46 Cooper, March, p.135

  47 Gandelin, RHdA, 1981/1

  17. ‘The Most Indomitable Race in the World’

  1 Voyages au Maroc (1903), p.234

  2 Maurois, pp.250 – 51

  3 See Ch 7 n(31)

  4 Aage, pp.33 – 4 (punctuation slightly adjusted throughout these quoted passages).

  5 ibid, pp.43 – 8

  6 Livre d‘Or, pp.241 – 2; Clayton, p.107. Meanwhile (see Map 19), Col Freydenberg’s Taza Group – incl II/3rd REI and VI/1st REI – would march east along the Taza corridor and then hook south-westwards. Fes Group – incl I/3rd REI – moved south to Boulemane; in early June it would be joined by Poeymirau with the whole Meknes Group, incl all 3 bns of 2nd REI and its CM. In June – Aug this combined Southern Group (Fes and Meknes) would form a pincer from west and south, while Taza Group closed in from east and north.

  7 Aage, pp.59 – 61, 98 – 9. Christian Alexander Robert Aage (1887 – 1940), Count of Rosenborg, son of Prince Waldemar of Denmark and Princess Marie d’Orleans, was a direct descendant of King Louis Philippe, creator of the Legion. Aage was commissioned in the Danish Royal Life Guards in 1913. Like many officers in an army that would see no active service, he applied for foreign attachments, with Greek forces in 1913 and Italian during the Great War. After a year with 16e Chasseurs à Pied at Metz he joined the Legion with the rank of captain à titre etranger in Dec 1922. He saw active service with I/2e REI and GM de Meknes in the Middle Atlas (1923), with CM/2e REI on the Ouergha (1924), with GM Colombat in the Rif (1925), and thereafter alternated regimental service in Morocco with staff college and staff postings in France, taking command of II/3e REI in April 1935. Prince Aage died of pleurisy at Taza in Feb 1940. (Aage, p.11; Garros, p.151)

  8 Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (1889 – 1952) would be France’s youngest divisional commander in 1940 (14e Div), GOC French First Army in NW Europe in 1944 – 5, C-in-C Indochina 1950 – 51, and posthumously a Marshal of France.

  9 Garijo (p.142) quotes only 150 deserters from all Legion units in Morocco in the two years 1923 – 5. All French Army rankers had lost their coloured képis by 1916; a rediscovered stock of plain khaki M1915 képis began to be issued exclusively to Legion units in Morocco from 1923. (Jean Brunon, Vert et Rouge, No.19, 1948)

  10 Aage, pp.63 – 7; Garijo, p.135. On the point of Aage’s failure to carry a weapon, he had been advised that a revolver dragging at the hip spoiled the hang of an officer’s tunic. It was long believed in many armies that an officer had no business carrying a weapon, which might distract him from his proper job: to get his men into position to fight, and then direct their fire.

  11 Aage, p.71

  12 From the head of the Tizi Adni pass above the present-day village of Skoura, a marginal and very narrow mountain track continues for some 16 miles of continuous hairpin bends over the successive ridges and ravines of the Massif de Tichoukt. A mere ledge, it climbs generally eastwards to about 6,500 feet before eventually turning south and dropping to El Mers at about 5,000 feet; in dry weather it is negotiable in a serious 4x4 vehicle with a transfer box, and it affords some striking views, many of them straight downwards. It is hard to imagine what would happen if another vehicle were encountered crawling in the opposite direction
; despite the dramatic scenery and historical interest, it is not a detour that the author can recommend.

  13 Aage, pp.73 – 9, 80 – 8; Livre d‘Or, p.242; Garijo, p.136.

  14 Aage’s description (p.89) of El Mers as situated ‘at the north end of a narrow valley surrounded on three sides by steep slopes’ is puzzling; the terrain between the GM’s overnight stop at Athia and El Mers is rolling, and the boxed-in effect he implies is certainly not evident.

  15 Aage, pp.99 – 104

  16 Garijo, pp.136 – 9; Aage, pp.74, 91. Garijo’s apparent claim that VII/22e RS alone lost 200 dead (probably twice the squadron’s strength) on that single day is one of the instances of mistranslation or careless editing that invite caution when using this source.

  17 Livre d‘Or, p.242; Aage, pp.105 – 106

  18 Livre d‘Or, p.242; Gugliotta and Jauffret, RHdA 1981/1; Aage, p.113

  19 Fabre, pp.45 – 8. LtCol Fabre recommended that before action 2 men in each squad should be designated as grenadiers and given a haversack with 6 grenades, and that the platoon’s 3 rifle-grenadiers should each carry 8 VBs, thus giving the platoon 36 hand- and 24 rifle-grenades for immediate use.

  20 Livre d‘Or, pp.243 – 4; Turnbull, p.159

  21 Livre d‘Or, p.244; Aage, pp.114, 117 – 20; Clayton, p.108

  22 All air assets came under LtCol Cheutin’s 37th Air Observation Rgt, HQ Rabat; 2 sqns each were based at Fes, Meknes and Marrakesh, 1 at Taza, with the other 3 in strategic reserve at Meknes. The 6 sqns committed in 1923 recorded a total of 16,500 flying hours and dropped 345 tons of bombs. (Laine, RHdA, 1978/4)

  23 Fabre, p.31

  24 Laine, RHdA, 1978/4

  25 Pechkoff, p.20

  26 Fabre, p.86

  27 The military Regions were subdivided into Territories. Each Territory comprised a number of Circles, which were battalion commands; it was at this level that a major maintained close liaison with a Native Affairs officer, who controlled up to four dispersed bureaux indigènes. Through these he gathered information from village and clan chiefs and local agents, and formulated the advice that governed all military initiatives. These listening-posts existed in parallel with the military posts dependent on the Circle, which was the only level where political and military chains of command intersected and where action was decided – Lyautey was determined to control ignorantly impulsive junior officers. Typically, a few adjacent military posts formed a groupe d’ouvrages (GO) commanded by a captain stationed at the largest, usually with half his company, and responsible for a couple of satellite posts held by single platoons. (Vanègue, pp.40 – 41)