The French Foreign Legion
"Legio Patria Nostra" - The Legion Is Our Country
Motto of the French Foreign Legion
Of all the world's elite fighting forces, none have commanded greater respect or generated such an image of mystery and romance as the French Foreign Legion. Since it was founded in 1831, the French Foreign Legion, shrouded in myth, has long been the stuff of adventure and romance - thanks to the movies and novels. Romanticised by Gary Cooper in the 1939 movie Beau Geste as a haven for the lovelorn and those anxious to establish a new identity, the real truth belies the Hollywood heroism of Beau Geste's comrades in their fight for an Empire against fanatic Arabs in North Africa. This is because the foreign soldiers of the Legion were simply sent to do the dirtiest and hardest work for France. In the past, recruits joining La Legion leave behind their pasts - whether ordinary or shady - and begin anew as legionnaires, the toughest of French soldiers forged by back-breaking discipline. And while weapons and enemies have changed, the outcome has not, as one in 10 legionnaires will die during their five-year tenure. For the Legion is still France's first resort in nasty situations and, as the soldiers themselves say, they are sent because if they die "it's only foreigners".
The Legion ranks are still formed from more than 100 nationalities; these men, once accepted, know that their only family is the Legion. Discipline and training is brutal and in spite of its high desertion rate, its fatal preference for frontal assault and resistance to modernization, the polyglot, multinational force known as the French Foreign Legion has maintained a reputation for do-or-die combat ferocity since its founding a century and a half ago. Created by King Louis Phillipe II as an aid to controlling French colonial possessions in Africa and as a way to rid France of immigrants and other "undesirables", the Legion promptly went into action in Algeria and lost 27 of its 28 men. Today"s Foreign Legion has since evolved into an elite unit in the service of the French Army. The Legion's heritage is in its unique recruitment practices, merciless training methods and traditions from which it derives its special character, how it carved its colourful history in the sands of the Sahara, Mexico, the Crimea and the humid fetid jungles of Africa and Indochina.
This 1/6 scale study of the French Foreign Legion is a humble attempt to create representations of legionnaires from the epic 1863 battle of Camerone, Mexico ; the deserts of Morocco in 1934; World War 2 North Africa; the valiant last stand at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and Algiers in 1958. It also attempts to show that nearly two centuries after its founding, the French Foreign Legion remains as French... and as foreign as ever.
"It sounds good but I don't see any rough stuff anymore. The Legion is soft today. Yeah, in the old days you signed up, and that was it for five years. Off to boot camp, and no questions. Usually for your first day, just to put you in the mood, you were ordered to wipe the barrack floor with your tongue while the corporal kicked you from behind to get you moving faster. But no more. That was the old Legion, when recruits were real men. Des durs!"
Yugoslavian Legionnaire corporal, 12 year veteran, 1983
The Roll
(Le Boudin)
Hold, veiled roll, veiled roll, veiled roll,
For the Alsatian ones, the Swiss ones and the Lorraine ones,
For the Belgians, has of them there more, for the Belgians, there
has more,
They are gunners with the bottom.
I
In Tonkin, the immortal legion
A Tuyen-Quang illustrated our flag,
Heroes of Camerone and brothers modeles
Sleep in peace in your tombs.
II
During our remote campaigns,
Facing the fever and fire,
Let us forget with our sorrows,
the death which forgets us if little,
We, the Legion.
Ringing A
We are degourdis,
We are rogues,
standards not ordinary,
We are often feeling gloomy our,
We are of Legionnaires.
Ringing B
Our old knew to die,
For the glory of Legion,
We will be able all to perir well,
According to the tradition.
My grateful thanks to two special friends, Philip Garcia for his enthusiastic support and as a source of French Foreign Legion references; and to Romeo Esparrago, who unwittingly got me off my lazy butt and onto this project.