Our Friends Beneath the Sands

  70 KB, Nos.233 and 337; Garijo, pp.213 – 16

  71 Woolman, p.181; Hoisington, pp.201 – 2; Harris, pp. 240 – 41

  72 During late summer and autumn 1925 Morocco would receive an additional 36 bns, doubling infantry strength. The first 14 of these bns arrived in Aug, with 2 MG bns, 2 tank bns, 2 cav bdes and 30 batteries.In early Sept, 2 more air sqns arrived from 32e RAO in France. At the beginning of winter 37e RAO had 9 ‘sector’ sqns spread along the Northern Front between Ouezzane and Guercif, controlled by local Army commands, and 9 ‘reserve’ sqns further back, at the disposal of the C-in-C. Between July 1925 and the end of Jan 1926 5,500 sorties were flown, of which 3,000 were bombing missions, dropping 375 tons. They also took 14,000 aerial photos covering 5,792 sq miles; and in 1925 the total of air medevacs to Fes, Meknes and Taza was 987. The 37e RAO reached, at its peak, 22 sqns; to man these units many Reserve officers were given short-service commissions to fly on active service. (Danel and Cuny, pp.45 – 7; Laine, RHdA, 1978/4)

  73 Clerisse, x; Livre d‘Or, p.252. The last 3 bns to arrive were II/3e (Maj de Tscharner) and I/ & II/4e REI (forming a rgt de marche under Maj de Corta). On 24 July half of 6e Cie, II/2e REI – already badly mauled at Bibane in May – were wiped out during a convoy ambush; Maj Goret’s remnant were then pulled back for security duties around Sefrou. (Garijo, p.217; Livre d‘Or, p.255)

  74 Initially: (west) Gen Pruneau, 128e and 35e Divs; (centre) Gen Marty, 2e and 3e Divs de Marche; (east) Gen Boichut, 11e Div and Div Marocaine. Divisions de marche mixed Metropolitan, Colonial and Africa Army units. (Clerisse, x; Clayton, p.110)

  75 Clerisse, x; Garijo, p.234; KB, No.233; Harris, pp.242, 244; Woolman, p. 186; Livre d‘Or, p.255. On tanks, Loustaunau-Lacau and Montjean, Revue Militaire Francaise, Apr – June 1928. At Ain Defali on 1 Sept, II/1er REI were issued some Danish Madsen LMGs, which suggests that supplies of the new French FM24 were not yet sufficient to replace the Chauchats. (Garijo, p.244)

  76 Clerisse, x; Livre d‘Or, p.255; Garijo, pp.222 – 30

  77 Garijo, p.235; Clerisse, xi

  78 Woolman, pp.187 – 93; Harris, pp.156, 162, 165, 167; Scurr, op cit, pp.16 – 17

  79 Clerisse, xi; Garijo, pp. 227, 238 – 9, 244; Bergot, La Coloniale, p.36; Harris, p.246

  80 Ageron, in L’Age d’Or, pp.134 – 9

  81 Hoisington, p.204; Woolman, p.195; Harris, p.245; Khoury, p.182

  82 Maurois, pp.275 – 7. D’Ormesson quote from Revue de Paris, 15 Apr 1931.

  83 Clerisse, xii; Woolman, pp.192 – 5; Livre d‘Or, pp.255 – 6; Garijo, pp.245, 248; Gandy, p.68

  84 Garijo, pp.248 – 58

  85 KB, No.233

  86 Harris, pp.246 – 7; Woolman, p.206. Of the killed, wounded and missing totals, 780, 1,800 and 225 respectively were Frenchmen – a total of 2,805, or roughly 25 per cent of total casualties.

  87 Garijo, p.255. In 1939 BrigGen Cazaban was GOC Tlemcen Subdivision, Algeria, which included 1st REI. He retired in Aug 1940, dying at the age of 98 in his native Pau in Oct 1980. (KB, No.397)

  19. The Reckoning

  1 First epigraph from Livre d‘Or de la Légion Étrangère (1931), p.260; second from Pierre van Paassen, Days of Our Years (1939), p.271

  2 De Lattre, pp.39 – 41

  3 See the present author’s The Last Valley (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004), pp.112 – 19

  4 Loustaunau-Lacau and Montjean, Revue Militaire Francaise, Apr – June 1928

  5 Garijo, pp.248 – 9

  6 Clerisse, xii – xiv

  7 Woolman, pp.148 – 9, 198

  8 Garijo, p.259

  9 ibid, p. 261

  10 Harris, pp.283 – 303, 310 – 14; Woolman, pp.199 – 200, 203 – 4; Clerisse, xvi

  11 Order of battle from west to east: Groupement de Fez 128e Div (Gen Monhoven), 9 bns; 4e Div de Marche (Gen Goubeau), 13 bns incl I/1er REI; 2e Div de M (Gen Théveney), 12 bns incl I/ and III/3e REI. Groupement de Taza 1re Div de M (Gen Vernois), 12 bns incl I/ and II/4e REI; Div Maroc (Gen Ibos), 12 bns incl I/ and III/2e REI; 3e Div de M (Gen Dosse), 12 bns incl II/ and VI/1er REI. (Clerisse, xiii; Livre d‘Or, p.248; Garros, p.81)

  12 Woolman, pp.154, 204; Garijo, pp.261 – 2

  13 Clerisse, xiv

  14 ibid, xviii; Woolman, p.205

  15 Garijo, p.264; Clerisse, xviii; Livre d‘Or, pp.257 – 8

  16 Clerisse, xx

  17 ibid, xviii; Woolman, p.205; Harris, p.308; Garijo, p.265

  18 Garijo, pp.266 – 9; Woolman, pp.200 – 201, 206

  19 Clerisse, xix; Woolman, pp.207 – 8

  20 Woolman, pp.209 – 13; Harris, pp.321, 329

  21 Clerisse, xx; Harris, pp.246 – 7; and see Ch 18, n(86)

  22 Clerisse, xxii; Livre d‘Or, p.259

  23 Garros, p.82. Rgt HQ, I/ and III/3e REI, Cie de Marche II/3e, and Compagnie Montée. (Livre d‘Or, p.259)

  24 Clerisse, xxiii

  25 ibid, xxiii; Livre d‘Or, p.259 – which mistakenly tranposes lre for 3e Div.

  26 Clerisse, xxiii; Livre d‘Or, p.259; Garijo, p.271

  27 Livre d‘Or, p.260; Clerisse, xxiii – xxiv; Turnbull, p.170

  28 In 1927 the Legion had 3 bns in Indochina, 3 in Algeria, 1 (later 2) cav sqns in the Levant; and in Morocco 12 bns, 2 sqns, 4 mounted coys and 4 pioneer coys. (Carles, RHdA, 1981/1)

  29 After a war party wiped out Lt Lemarchand’s platoon, sent out to investigate an ambush on telegraph linesmen, El Bordj was surrounded by c.2,000 Ait Yahia and Ait Haddidou tribesmen. Losses were 36 killed and wounded. (Garijo, pp.279 – 80; Clayton, pp.115, 403 n(67); Livre d‘Or, p.264)

  30 1re Cie des Sapeurs-Pionniers/1er REI had been based at Ouled Daoud during the summer 1925 fighting. (Livre d‘Or, p.252)

  31 Garijo, p.273; Livre d‘Or, p.264. The plaques erected by the légionnaires and the Génie were removed after Moroccan independence, and on the ground it is today signposted simply as the Zabel Tunnel.

  32 Gandy, p.69

  33 Cooper, 12 Ans, pp.232 – 4, 264

  34 ibid, pp. 236 – 8; Hart, Ait Atta, p.3

  35 Cooper, March, pp.142, 172; 12 Ans, pp.241, 258 – 61

  36 1926, III/1st REC (Capt Schmeltz) provided security Talsint-Colomb Béchar; replaced from Apr 1927 by II/1st REC (Capt Thomas – killed 25 May on recce near Bou Anane). 1928 and 1929, I/ and III/1st REC alternated in SE Morocco. 1931, III/, IV/ and V (Mot)/1st REC in region Rich-Gourrama-Ksabi. (Livre d‘Or, pp.281 – 2)

  37 Maxwell, pp.141, 147, 158. After Moroccan independence, Mohammed ben Youssef would reign from 1957 as King Mohammed V.

  38 Hart, Qabila, p.91; Ait Atta, pp.2, 169 – 70

  39 Gandini, pp.140 – 41

  40 The Berliets were probably the chain-driven CBA, which had only a 22hp engine but weighed more than 3 tons empty. The M1918 armoured car had a French armoured body mounted on the chassis of an American White -ton truck.

  41 Gandy, pp.72 – 5. See also Ch 12, n (36) for description of the ford.

  42 The author does not pretend to have tracked down the full sequence, but during the 1920s there appear to have been 5 Cies Montées, either autonomous or affiliated to the four REIs. In Jan 1922 the former autonomous CM d’Algérie was redesignated CM/1er REI, based at Colomb-Béchar. In Oct 1923 the CM du Maroc became 1re CM/2e REI, based at Er Rachidia; a new 2e CM/2e REI was raised, apparently at Oujda. In Jan 1922, 2e CM/3e REI became the single CM/3e REI, based at Gourrama. In Sept 1920 the 1re CM/1er REI had been redesignated CM/4e REI, based at Boudenib, later Kerranda. (KB, passim)

  43 Gugliotta and Jauffret, RHdA, 1981/2

  44 Gugliotta and Jauffret, RHdA, 1981/1 & /2; Geraghty, p.158. The officer at Djihani (see Map 23) was a Lt Fioré, who should not be confused with the Capt Fouré whose action in Aug 1930 is described next. Since 1916 the CMs had exchanged the long Lebel rifle for the handier carbine, and by 1929 each platoon had one LMG team with 5 mules and 8 men for the FM24 and 1,350 rounds (1 cpl, 2-man gun team, 3 ammo-carriers, 2 muleteers).

  45 Livre d‘Or (p.264), and KB, No.393
– from which this account is mostly taken – identify the dissidents as Ait Hammou, but Garijo (p.281) as Ait Murghad; this action took place close to the mountain home of the latter, but men of both tribes may well have been present.

  46 KB, No.393 names 18 killed and 13 of the wounded from 1re CM/2e REI.

  47 Garijo, p.281

  20. ‘Obscure and Unknown Sacrifices’

  1 First epigraph quoted by Ward Price, p.154; second, op cit, p.145

  2 13x 2-ton 15hp Laffly LC2 patrol trucks, 2x Laffly radio trucks, 7x field cars of three different Renault and Citroen models, a Fiat light truck, a Berliet workshop truck and 2x Chenard tanker trucks.

  3 Gugliotta and Jauffret, RHdA, 1981/1; KB, Nos.376 – 8; Vauvillier/Clerisse passim; Gandy, p.77

  4 Artillery: in May 1925, 1er REI had formed a Section de 80mm de Montagne de la Légion. In May 1932 cadres from 64e RACM would help form a Batterie de Marche d’Artillerie du 2e REI at El Hajeb with 4x 75mm, and an essentially identical Batterie d’Artillerie du 4e REI at Ouazazarte.

  5 Carles, RHdA, 1981/1

  6 Details of the development of Legion uniform features may be found in Guyader (see Biblio); see also caption to Fig 81 in this book.

  7 KB, No.374

  8 Gandelin, RHdA, 1981/1. Rollet’s promotion dated from 23 Mar 1931; in 1933 the Ministry announced that no successor would be appointed after he retired. In 1972 a roughly analogous Groupement de la Légion Étrangère was revived, with a commandant-general heading the central services of 1er RE.

  9 Huré, La Pacification, quoted Clayton p. 403, n(71)

  10 Fremeaux, RHdA, 2004/2

  11 Juin, pp.76 – 9

  12 Hart, Ait Atta, pp.172 – 3

  13 Juin, pp.79 – 81. Henri Giraud (1879 – 1949) served with 4e RZ in N.Africa before 1914, and after 1922 he commanded 14e RTA in Morocco, where he was present at the surrender of Abd el Krim. He was captured in May 1940 as GOC Seventh Army in France; after his escape from Germany was organized in Apr 1942 he returned to Algeria. At a meeting with Gen Eisenhower in Gibraltar on 7 Nov, just prior to the Allied ‘Torch’ landings, he accepted French military and civil command in N.Africa, but few French troops recognized this before the assassination of Adm Darlan on 24 Dec 1942. In summer 1943 Giraud was manoeuvred by Gen De Gaulle into resigning his joint presidency of the Committee for National Liberation, and he retired from the Army in Apr 1944. Intellectually he was no match for De Gaulle; one commentator described him as having ‘the incurious blue gaze of a china cat’.

  14 Garijo, pp.282 – 3; Hart, Ait Atta, p.174

  15 Garijo, pp.284 – 5; Hart, Ait Atta, p.174

  16 Confusion arises from some sources still using the unit’s former designation CMot/2e REI.

  17 Garijo, pp.285 – 6; Clayton, p.116.This Tafilalt occupation was followed in May 1932 by ops against Ait Haddidou and Ait Aysha Berbers around the Assif Melloul valley, south of the Plateau des Lacs in the High Atlas, by c.30 bns from Meknes, Kasbah Tadla and Marrakesh, with some Legion involvement including CM/2e REI.

  18 Porch, Foreign Legion, p.408

  19 Hart, Qabila, pp.91, 111. The Ilimshan were a clan of the Ait Zimru tribe of the Ait Wahlim ‘fifth’ of the Ait Atta people. Assu u-Ba Slam was the hereditary chief of the clan’s Ait Bu Tghuratin segment, which historically had provided the bearers of an Ait Atta holy battle flag.

  20 Hart, Ait Atta, pp.177, 180 – 82

  21 ibid, pp.179 – 80; KB, No.394; Garijo, pp.289 – 91

  22 Garijo, p.288 – 91

  23 Not to be confused with the LtCol Jeanpierre who became renowned with 1er BEP and 1er REP in Indochina and Algeria in the 1950s – the latter did not graduate until 1936.

  24 Garijo, pp.291 – 4; Turnbull, p.172; Vial, p.268

  25 Hart, Ait Atta, p.182. The Ait Murghad or Morrhad were a tribe of the Ait Yafalman confederacy which had blocked Ait Atta expansion to the north-east for more than 200 years.

  26 GM de Meknès 2x bns Legion, 4x bns Tirs Maroc, 1 bn Tirs Sénég; 2x sqns Spahis, 3x btys; 4x Goums, 1,500 irregulars. GM des Confins 4x bns Tirs Alg, 3x bns Tirs Maroc; 3x CMs & 1 CMot Légion; 4x sqns Spahis, 1 sqn (Esc Mot) Légion; 5x btys, 1 Légion bty; 2x Goums, 800 irregs. GM de Marrakesh 3x bns Legion, 1 bn RIC, 2 bns Tirs Maroc; 2x sqns Spahis; 3x btys, 3x btys Maroc; 4x Goums, 2,000 irregs. GM de Tadla 3x bns Légion, 4x bns Tirs Alg, 5x bns Tirs Maroc; 2x sqns Spahis, 1 sqn Chass d’Af; 6x btys; 6x Goums, 1,500 irregulars. (Clayton, pp.116 – 17)

  27 Ward Price, p. 101

  28 Clayton, pp.116 – 17; Ward Price, p.74

  29 Air navigation chart TPC-H2A shows a peak of 10,105ft due N of Ait Daoud ou Azzi, but this seems too far W; another of 9,570ft about 13 miles ENE of Ait Daoud seems more plausible.

  30 Ward Price, p.274

  31 ibid, pp.102 – 3

  32 ibid, pp.74, 98 – 9. The 43 daily tons for each GM comprised 17 tons of munitions, 10.5 tons of rations for the regular troops and 1.25 tons for the auxiliaries, 10.25 tons of forage for the animals – which still died at a shocking rate – plus 4 tons of miscellaneous loads such as tools and barbed wire.Trucks and drivers were provided by the civilian firm Compagnie des Transports Marocains, which contracted to supply whatever was needed at short notice for a flat ton-per-km price scale. Most trucks were 28hp Sauer 6-ton or 32hp Panhard 5-ton with double wide-track rear wheels. All used ‘unpuncturable’ Viel-Picard tyres filled with a honeycomb of 900 soft rubber cells.

  33 Ward Price, pp.75, 108, 138, 173, 210

  34 ibid, pp.127 – 30, 151

  35 ibid, pp.131, 133, 153

  36 ibid, pp. 114 – 15, 158; Blond, p.256

  37 Ward Price, pp.167 – 75; Blond, p.258

  38 Porch, Foreign Legion, p.408

  39 Cie Montée/4e REI was motorized on 15 Apr 1933, as Cie Mixte Automobile/4e REI (KB No.394). Combat vehicles Feb – Mar 1934: V/1er REC 3x Laffly 50 AM armd cars, 15x Berliet VUDB light armd carriers, 5x Panhard 179 heavy armd carriers. VI/1er REC same, minus Panhard troop. Cie Auto/1er REI 8x Panhard 165/175 TOE armd cars, 14x Panhard 179 carriers. Cie Mixte Auto/4e REI 8x Panhard 165/175, 12x Laffly LC2 trucks. (Vauvillier/Clerisse)

  40 Gandy, pp.79 – 80; Vauvillier/Clerisse

  41 Clayton, p.117; Hart, Qabila, p.39

  42 Hoisington, p.205

  Epilogue: The Fort at the Edge of the World

  1 Correspondence with author. The late Andreas Rosenberg served in the Legion in the 1940s, and was subsequently recognized as a Peintre de l’Armée.

  2 Hart, Ait Atta, p.184. Zayd u-Mhad was an Ait Murghad, and a fellow-clansman of u-Skunti, the leader at Mt Baddou.

  3 Most of what follows is from the author’s correspondence with the late AdjChef Charles Milassin in 1977 – 9.

  4 Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.435, 443, 448

  5 Caries, RHdA, 1981/1

  6 Richard Trench, Forbidden Sands (London; John Murray, 1978), pp.2 – 3

  7 Gandelin, RHdA, 1981/1. In 1945 Gen Rollet was reburied at Sidi bel Abbès. In Sept 1962, on the eve of Algerian independence, his bones were exhumed once again – along with those of Prince Aage, and the body of Pte Zimmermann, the last légionnaire to be killed in Algeria – and reburied in the cemetery at the Legion retirement home at Puyloubier in Provence, near the new depot at Aubagne.

  Appendix 1

  Sources: Garros; Livre d‘Or; Bergot, Foreign Legion and in Young; Turnbull, and Geraghty, passim.

  1 At the time of the successful assault by 4th Canadian Div on 9 Apr 1917, ‘Hill 140’ was identified as Hill 145. If visitors standing on top of Vimy Ridge facing eastwards towards the Canadian War Memorial turn and look over their left shoulder, they will see a more modest tribute to Cot’s légionnaires and the other dead of the Moroccan Division in May 1915.

  2 The life of James Waddell (1872 – 1954) was researched by the NZ historian Christopher Pugsley. Born in Dunedin, Waddell was commissioned into 2nd Bn, The Duke of Wellington’s Regt in S.Africa in 1896. After marrying a French wife he left the British Army and
, on 25 Apr 1900, obtained a commission as sous-lieutenant in 1er RE, serving thereafter in N.Africa and Indochina. By 1915 a captain with French citizenship, he won the first of his eventual eight Croix de Guerre avec Palme, and the Knight’s Cross of the Légion d’Honneur, at Gallipoli on 4 July, and his second on 27 August. He won three of his subsequent citations in army orders within three months as commander of II/RMLE on the Western Front, and was made Commander in the Legion of Honour in 1920. LtCol Waddell retired from the Legion in 1926, and returned to New Zealand in 1950 after the death of his wife; his funeral at Levin Cemetery on 20 Feb 1954 was attended by the French ambassador.

  Appendix 2

  Sources: KB, Nos.376 and 407; Livre d‘Or, pp.269 – 73, 283 – 6; Gandy pp.15 – 31, 36 – 49; Khoury, pp.151 – 9.

  1 Other French troops included a 2-bn Colonial Inf Rgt of the Levant (RICL), and 5 rgts of Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan Spahis. (Clayton, pp.275, 318)

  2 17e Cie Montée, IV/4e REI had also remained in-country when that bn returned to Algeria in Nov 1924, but was stationed at Deir ez Zor on the Euphrates.

  3 REC casualty figures from Gandy; KB, No. 376 gives 1 off and 20 men killed, 3 offs and 19 wounded. An eyewitness account of the fighting in Post A will be found in Bennett Doty, Legion of the Damned (Garden City Pub Co, 1928), pp.97 et seq.The V/4e REI were prominent in the relief of Suwayda on 23 – 24 Sept, and late in Oct they operated around Damascus. In Dec 1925 they were in the Lebanon Mts; throughout 1926, in the Djebel Druze (being redesignated VIII/1er REI on 1 July); and in 1927, on the volcanic Laja plateau near the Transjordan border. The bn remained in the Levant as part of the permanent garrison, based at Horns in 1931. (Livre d‘Or, pp.275 – 9; Garros, p.128)