Legionary

“ The Legionary's time is, in theory, his own after 5 p.m., and the most sacred plank in the most sacred platform of all his sacred tradition is his right to promenade himself at eventide and listen to the Legion's glorious band in the Place Sadi Carnot. ”

“ XXVI.—By their arrival, so great a change of matters was made, that our men, even those who had fallen down exhausted with wounds, leant on their shields, and renewed the fight: then the camp-retainers, though unarmed, seeing the enemy completely dismayed, attacked [them though] armed; the horsemen too, that they might by their valour blot out the disgrace of their flight, thrust themselves before the legionary soldiers in all parts of the battle. ”

“ Had the Legionary's right hand descended, the recruit's left hand would have risen with promptitude and force.
"If that is too big, let the sun boil thy brains and bloat thy skull till it fits, and if it be too small, sleep in it," he remarked sourly, and added that thrice-accursed "blues" were creatures of the kind that ate their young, encumbered the earth, polluted the air, loved to faire Suisse, [#] and troubled Soldiers of the Legion who might otherwise have been in the Canteen, or at Carmelita's--instead of being the valets of sons of frogs, nameless excrescences....
[#] To drink alone ”

“ Among the loose armies of the East those fellows exercised their vocation as regular appendages; often lived in luxury, and sometimes shot up into leaders themselves. But robbery in the Roman armies required master-hands. The temptation was strong, for the legionary was the grand ravager, and like the lion, he left the larger share of the prey to the jackal. ”

“ All the legionaries, from sergeant-major down to simple soldier, feared and hated him; before he had been in the battalion a fortnight we, who had been the most joyous and careless fellows on earth, every man pleased with himself and with his comrades, became the most sullen and dogged lot in the world. ”

“ All legionary soldiers were Roman citizens. The auxiliaries were hired or drafted troops, and were always light-armed. The cavalry in Caesar's time was made up of auxiliaries taken from the different provinces. ”

“ Blame the man who does wrong if you will, but blame more the foolish people who, fancying that rapine and pillage can never stalk abroad in their own happy land, let loose the dogs of war upon their neighbours. The Carthaginian maids and matrons acclaimed their returning heroes; the day came when the Roman legionaries taught those very maids and matrons the real meaning of war. ”

“ The Roman officers were armed like the men.
Under the term utraque militia was included the legionary cavalry whose number varied little in proportion to the infantry. In Polybius’ day the ratio was two hundred to four thousand. This arm was clad in a complete suit of bronze less heavy than the Greeks and the Gallo-Greeks; [874] the buckler of ox-hide was round, oval, or polygonal. The horseman’s weapons were a Spear (contus) , often accompanied by a javelin, a waist-dagger, and a Sword worn on the right; the latter, unlike ours, preserved the form of the infantry weapon. ”

“ Every party, I may mention, had one-fourth of the legionaries and one-fourth of the Annamite tirailleurs. As for the engineers, they examined the fortifications every day, and did nothing then but cook and eat, mend and wash their clothing, and lie about and smoke. The officers commanding the parties were the lieutenant and the sub-lieutenant of the legionaries, the lieutenant and the sub-lieutenant of the native levies, while the captain exercised a general supervision over all, especially the entrenchments, the engineers, and the stores. ”

“ There were not many friends of those aboard weeping on the quay; we legionaries had none, and the Frenchmen were zephyrs—that is, men of bad character who had been assigned to convict battalions, and their friends, no doubt, were not over sad about their departure. There were some ladies and children who were affected, but they belonged to the officers—the sub-officers and the men had no friends, no relations, no home, one might [Pg 101] say, save the barrack, the cantonment hut, the tent, or, as at the time, the troopship. ”

“ However, at the depot, which we reached in good time, doing a fair day's march every day, we received additions to our numbers—self-styled recruits, really men who had learned more than a little of soldiering in other armies, and whom ill-luck or bad character or desire of French citizenship had driven or induced into the Foreign Legion. ”

“ The Roman armies consisted of vast bodies of men which, when not in actual service, were established in permanent encampments in various parts of the empire, wherever it was deemed necessary that troops should be stationed. These great bodies of troops were the celebrated Roman legions, and they were renowned throughout the world for their discipline, their admirable organization, the celerity of their movements, and for the indomitable courage and energy of the men. Each legion constituted, in fact, a separate and independent community. ”

“ In many a venturous assault, in many a hand-to-hand encounter, fought out with enemies as fierce and almost as skilful as themselves, they had earned their ominous title; and the very legionaries, though they sneered at their discipline, and denied their efficiency in long-protracted warfare, could not but admit that to head a column of attack, to run a battering-ram under the very ramparts of a citadel, to dash in with a mad cheer over the shattered ruins of a breach, or to carry out any other hot and desperate service, there were no soldiers in the army like the Legion of the Lost. ”

“ We stuck it out; and, after eight weeks, went to the front with the Second Regiment of the Foreign Legion.
No other nation in the world has a fighting force like the Foreign Legion. Here, in this finest unit in France, the real red blood of all peoples unites. Men from fifty-three countries, every land and clime, all ranks and walks of life, colors, ages, professions, or different religious and political beliefs, speaking all languages, they have come from the four corners of the globe and are fused in the crucible of discipline. ”

“ And as the valour of the legions has shown itself worthy of their most illustrious generals, the senate will with great eagerness, now that the republic is recovered, bestow on our legions and armies all the rewards which it formerly promised them. And as the martial legion was the first to engage with the enemy, and fought in such a manner against superior numbers as to slay many and take some prisoners; and as they shed their blood for their country without any shrinking ”

“ The legionaries were recruited from Roman citizens or from provincials who received Roman citizenship upon their enlistment. Their units of organization, the legions, comprised nearly 6000 men, of whom 120 were cavalry and the rest infantry. The number of legions was at first eighteen, but was later [pg 212] raised to twenty-five, giving a total of about 150,000 men. The auxiliaries, who took the place of the contingents of Italian allies of earlier days, were recruited from among the most warlike subject peoples of the empire and their numbers were approximately equal to the legionaries. ”

“ V. THE ARMY.—The Roman army was originally called Legio; and this name, which is coeval with the foundation of Rome, continued down to the latest times. The Legion was therefore not equivalent to what we call a regiment, inasmuch as it contained troops of all arms, infantry, cavalry, and, when military engines were extensively employed, artillery also. The number of soldiers who, at different periods, were contained in a legion, does not appear to have been absolutely fixed, but to have varied within moderate limits. Under Romulus the legion contained 3000 foot-soldiers. ”

“ It is always so with the Legion, and that is what makes the Legion so terrible in battle—They are not so much fighting with the enemy, monsieur, they are bayoneting the Past, and what the Past has done to them. ”

“ Great and incredible are the services done by this legion to the republic. This was the first legion to tear itself from the piratical band of Antonius; this was the legion which encamped at Alba; this was the legion that went over to Caesar; and it was in imitation of the conduct of this legion that the fourth legion has earned almost equal glory for its virtue. The fourth is victorious without having lost a man; some of the martial legion fell in the very moment of victory. Oh happy death, which, due to nature, has been paid in the cause of one's country! ”

“ The Legion is a shifting panorama, international debating ground, continuous entertainment, inspiriting school of practical human nature. The Legionnaire lives in realms of romance, experiences, fantastic as are dreams, horrible as the nightmare. ”

“ The Roman legion--whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in the early ages of the republic, or six thousand, as in the time of Augustus--was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed of Hastati (raw troops) , Principes (trained troops) , Triarii (veterans) , and Velites (light troops, or skirmishers) . The soldiers of the first line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, who were distributed into fifteen companies, or maniples. Each company contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. ”

“ Advancing steadily, fighting side by side with the magnificent French Regiments who regard the Legion with respect, almost with jealousy,—the Legionnaire feels himself a personage. His comrades have suffered and died by thousands to gain the position the Regiment holds. Each living member must now maintain that enviable record.
35July 14, 1917, anniversary of the fall of the Bastile, Independence Day of France, the Foreign Legion was decorated with the braided cord, the Fouragere, the color of the Medaille Militaire, by President Poincare. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They raised an enormous army. It consisted of eight legions. The Roman legion was an army of itself. It contained ordinarily four thousand foot soldiers, and a troop of three hundred horsemen. It was very unusual to have more than two or three legions in the field at a time. The Romans, however, on this occasion, increased the number of the legions, and also augmented their size, so that they contained, each, five thousand infantry and four hundred cavalry. They were determined to make a great and last effort to defend their city, and save the commonwealth from ruin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The term legion has been used to designate regiments or corps of all arms in modern times, perhaps the earliest example of this being the Provincial Legions formed in France by Francis I. (see Infantry) . Napoleon, in accordance with this precedent, employed the word to designate the second-line formations which he maintained in France and which supplied the Grande Armée with drafts. The term “Foreign Legion” is often used for irregular volunteer corps of foreign sympathizers raised by states at war, often by smaller states fighting for independence. ”

“ With a hundred rounds of ammunition in our pouches, joy in our hearts, and a terrific load upon our backs, we swung out of the gates to the music of our magnificent band, playing the March of the Legion, never heard save when the Legion goes on active service. ”

“ Besides the legions, composed of citizens, the Roman army included contingents from the Italian “allies” (socii) , subjects of Rome. These contingents appear to have been large: in many armies we find as many socii as legionaries, but we are ignorant of details. The men were armed and drilled like the legionaries, but they served not in legions but in cohorts, smaller units of 400-500 men, and their conventional positions seem to have been on the wings of the legions. They were principally infantry, but included also a fairly large proportion of cavalry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So, today, 142 years later, American soldiers in khaki cross leagues of ocean, fight, suffer and die to save France from invasion even as France saved us.
27 CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF THE LEGION The Foreign Legion has a notable record, which extends back to the Crusades. Then, French and Anglo-Saxon marched together, and fought to save the world for Christianity. History, repeating itself, after centuries, today, we see the same forces, side by side, fighting, dying, not only for Christianity, but for civilization. ”