King's German Legion

“ They had marched, without halting, up the rise of the hill, and came upon the German Legion, who had, having been informed they were to the rear of General Hill's division, and believing they were in a second line, lain down on their arms, and when the enemy topped the hill, en masse, many were asleep. But General Hill's corps had not arrived, and the Germans were first roused by the enemy seizing them as prisoners, or firing into them at brûle-pourpoint. The flashes of the retiring fire of the broken and surprised Germans marked the enemy's success, and the imminent danger of our army. ”

“ It is their only chance of avoiding service under the hated German. They fight for France, and by their five years' Legion-service earn the right to naturalisation also. There are a good many French, too, who are 'rehabilitating' themselves. Men who have come to grief at home and prefer the Legion to prison. Then there is undoubtedly a wanted-by-the-police class of men who have bolted from all parts of Europe and taken sanctuary here. Yes, I should say the out-of-works, deserters, runaways and Alsatians make up three parts of the Legion. ”

“ If we include the Alsatians and Lorrainers who join to avoid service under the hated German flag, they form a very big class indeed. Nearly every year more than a thousand men of the annexed provinces and more than a thousand Germans flocked to the French standard, with the result that the Legion has always been disliked and slandered by Germans. ”

“ The latest recorded exploit of this gallant corps was the capture, at the point of the bayonet, of a fortified village strongly held by the enemy. The men of the [119] Legion held out so vigorously that all the enemy's counter-attacks were beaten off, and seven hundred and fifty German prisoners were sent to the rear.
The British residents in Paris and other parts of France who volunteered for service in the French army and trained at the Magic City in 1914 were drafted into the Foreign Legion, and the survivors have reason to be proud of their old corps. ”

“ Previous to this, Germany, incensed by the thousands of Alsatians and Lorraines in the Legion, whom German law practically claims as deserters from that country, served notice that any captured Legionnaire would be shot. So the Legionnaires hang together. They stay by one another. They never leave wounded comrades behind.
The Germans promised no mercy. The Legion adopted the motto: “Without fear and without pity,” and on the flag is written, “Valor and Discipline.” The march of the Foreign Legion, roughly interpreted, reads ”

“ All agreed that it had been worse than they had expected, and that the enemy had fought with great bravery.
"They are sturdy fellows and not to be despised," a captain said. "I certainly did not think they would fight so well. If they had fought like that against the French there would have been no occasion for us to send an army to help them. However, we have a right to be proud of the Legion; they have done gallantly. It is a pity that we have lost something like three thousand men by sickness. ”

“ There is no such thing as an impossible marching performance for the regiment of foreigners. Each individual is inoculated with the one idea, it is hammered into him, that he has to march as long as he can control his legs. And when he can no longer control them, then he must at least try to crawl.
It is a merciless system, which, however, produces wonderful soldiers.
Inseparable from the march of the Legion is the baggage of the légionnaire.
The French foreign soldier marches with an equipment called the "tenue de campagne d'Afrique." ”

“ As for the story of the poisoned balls, doubtless you are indebted for it to the base Germans—mercenary dogs! whom their beggarly princes and little mightinesses sell by thousands to fight the battles of all nations."
"In our service we have a legion of several thousands, and they are excellent troops."
"Monsieur, we have many legions. But the German is without chivalry or sentiment, and fitted only for the mere mechanical part of war. They fight for their daily pay: honour they value not; to them 'tis as moonshine in the water, an unsubstantial glitter."
"You are severe, Captain De Mesmai." ”

“ Their pay was always ridiculously small, their punishments barbarous, and the discipline that they were subject to more than hard. And yet there were always thousands of recruits willing to shed their life's blood, who did not serve under the Legion's flag merely to earn their living, but formed one of the best bodies of troops in the world. What misery and misfortune must there be in Europe to bring thousands and thousands of poor and desperate men flocking to the Legion's standard, whose total in the eighty years of the regiment's existence must add up to an overwhelming figure. ”

“ Nevertheless, about 200 men of all nationalities, drawn by the confidence such a leader alone could inspire, came of their own free will to place themselves under his orders. With these he organized the 'European Legion.' It included the two divisions of the French corps, a Dutch corps, and a German corps. ”

“ Is a sentinel attacked, then he must defend himself with his bayonet until he can alarm the guard and bring the officer on duty to the rescue with cartridges. Such things are significant. But they do not prevent the légionnaire from being a splendid soldier.
Individual training—Boer tactics—practical instruction ... that is the Legion. And it marches. Now and then its marching powers are increased artificially. The "compagnies montées" one with each regiment, companies mounted on mules, have even done seventy kilometres a day. Every two men have a mule. ”

“ There is no doubt that they are beginning to look at the Foreign Legion a little critically in France. The number of those who doubt that the country is right in keeping up this barbarous institution is growing daily. Referring to the great mutiny of the soldiers of the Legion at Saida, Jaurès wrote in the Humanité:
"The Foreign Legion will doubtless be a source of everlasting difficulty to us; the idea of forming a body of troops for the French army from foreign deserters is at any rate an unusual one." ”

“ A new German Legion was raised during the Crimean War, but the almost universal adoption of the Krümper system has naturally put an end to the old method, for all the best recruits are now accounted for in the service of their own countries. ”

“ It is not the cruelties of the penal battalion, not the brutality of punishments, not the poor devils who for some mere trifle are shot under martial law, that illustrate best the horrors of the Legion system. It is the marches that do this; the marches of the Foreign Legion condemn the system of the Foreign Legion!
Our manœuvre march of 600 kilometres occupied sixteen days. On the stages in the far south the rations consisted almost entirely of rice, and to the hardships of the daily 40 kilometres the pangs of hunger were added. ”

“ These things mean something to a man who has led the life of an outcast, and the Légionnaires have proved their loyalty many times over. At Arras there are more than four hundred kilometres of trench-line which they have restored to France. The Legion has always boasted that it never shows its back, and the Legion has made good.
In my own section there were men of all races and all nationalities. There were Russians and Turks, an Annamite and a Hindu. There were Frenchmen from God knows where. There was a German, God only knows why. ”

“ Keep your hat on," said the lieutenant-colonel. He spoke pure German. "No, you need not stand at attention. I have heard of you and would like to say a few words to you. I have served in the Foreign Legion as a common soldier. I consider it an honour to have served in this glorious corps. It all depends on yourself: men of talent and intelligence have better chances of promotion in the Legion than in any other regiment in the world. Educated men are valued in the Legion. ”

“ They were willing to die for France, though they hated death, and in spite of the first great rush of the German legions, they had a fine intellectual contempt of that army, which seemed to me then unjustified, though they were right, as history now shows. Man against man, in courage and cunning they were better than the Germans, gun against gun they were better, in cavalry charge and in bayonet charge they were better, and in equal number irresistible. ”

“ Innumerable instances of their stubbornness can be given, and it is the quality which has made them, time after time, invaluable as a "stiffening" whenever it has been considered necessary to draft a number of soldiers of the Legion into a regiment of less experienced troops. "The most pusillanimous of them," said an old French officer, who had seen much service in Africa, to us, "will hold out to the death when side by side with a legionary and inspired by his superb courage." ”

“ It is only quite of late that the Foreign Legion has come to be looked upon in France as a problem. To-day the Foreign Legion is not an institution that every Frenchman considers quite in the natural order of things. Even the French Ministry of War has busied itself with the "Legion problem." It could not, however, quite make up its mind to give up the Legion. The possibility of employing a soldier who receives five centimes a day, and who can be made use of for all sorts of dangerous undertakings in the worst of climates, is too great a temptation. ”

“ It is their business to shoot women, whom they first violate; "they are our slaves," they say; "we have won them by the sweat of our brows." "Those who have the misfortune to be spared, become in their hands mad in a couple of days; in any event they are re-arrested shortly afterwards and shot.—The last band, which is styled "The German Legion," is formed out of German deserters and mercenaries speaking little or no French. They are employed by the Military Commission to dispatch the Vendeans picked up along the highways, and who are usually shot in groups of twenty five. ”

“ They were sweeping low with their machine guns so as to hit us in the legs and drop us. With a shot through the stomach we might go on for minutes and maybe kill a Prussian before we died. But a hit in the legs drops a man and the artillery can blow him to pieces later, when the assault has been repulsed.
It is a scientific war.
A few of the first company reached the Prussian trenches before us. We clubbed and stabbed and slashed with the long knives they had given to us. The legion does not take any prisoners, because legionnaires are not taken prisoners. ”

“ But here it is as clear as words can make it: 'Bring every man of the Legions by forced marches to the help of the Empire. Leave not a cohort in Britain.' These are my orders."
"But the cause?"
"They will let the limbs wither so that the heart be stronger. The old German hive is about to swarm once more. There are fresh crowds of Barbarians from Dacia and Scythia. Every sword is needed to hold the Alpine passes. They cannot let three legions lie idle in Britain."
The soldier shrugged his shoulders.
"When the legions go no Roman would feel that his life was safe here. ”

“ The Legion was a regiment of foreigners, and one nation was treated in exactly the same way as another: a German soldier in it had naturally exactly the same rights as every one else. He would be very sorry if his men took to deserting. It was quite hopeless to try! A description of the deserters had been telegraphed long ago to all the stations in Algeria, the police all along the coast were on the look-out, and in a few days we should see the truants brought back to the regiment.
"You only get into trouble when you desert, as it is very heavily punished!" ”

“ Contrary to most of the légionnaires, I have always seen the necessity for the hard marching discipline. Troops that have to march in such droughty country must be able to economise their water rations. This is simply a law of necessity. There is another brutal feature of the Legion's marches: cruel at first sight but it is really kindness to the men. A légionnaire who faints on the march is tied to the baggage-cart. A pole is pushed through the sides of the cart at about the height of a man's arms and the légionnaire roped to it by the shoulders. ”

“ If, as Colonel Roosevelt predicts, the membership shall eventually comprise 4,000,000 men who were in the military and naval service of the United States in the late war, it will have possibilities of power that must be reckoned with. But if, in the long life before it, the American Legion shall have no more to its discredit than is summed up in the history of the G.A.R. whose ranks are now so pathetically thin, it will have been a worthy follower of its fathers. ”

“ Brilliant marchers—independent soldiers.
In addition to these two advantages we have the financial consideration, on which the Foreign Legion's existence depends—the advantage of cheap, splendidly trained mercenaries, with whom the most daring military operations can be undertaken without consideration of the sacrifice of life involved. No nation, no parliament asks for an account of the dead. The Legion marches and acts independently, dies without attracting attention.
The légionnaire can march. Forty kilometres a day is the fixed minimum performance. ”

“ The non-coms. are all-powerful and tyrannical; the officers are utterly uninterested in the men as individuals, and do not even know their names.
And I was not one of their own officers of the Legion. I was a Spahi officer, superintending the organising of mule-cavalry out of infantry; or rather, making ordinary infantry into mounted infantry, that the Legion might hope to compete with the Touaregs in mobility. We wanted mounted riflemen down there just as you did in the Boer War, or else the Arabs served us as the Boers did you at first. ”