Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-03-17
UNIQUE FOREIGN LEGION.
Soldiers Of Many Nationalities Who
Fought BraveIy for France.


The dispatches which mention the
conspicuous bravery of the Foreign
Legion in the fighting between the
French and the Moors around
Casablanca will have the effect Of
directing attention to this peculiar
organization, which is probably the last
survival of the condottieri system.
Many nations raise native" crops for
colonial service The United States
has the Puerto Rico regiment and the
Philippine scout battaions, but the
Legion is not to be COMPOUNDED with
organizations Of this character. SO far
from being composed of French
colonists or 'indigenes, it IS pre-
requisite of enlistment that the recruit
shall not have been born in Franco or
in the French allegiance. If he is
native of France or any one of the
French possessions a positive denial IS
given his application for enlistment
however short the Legion may be of its
authorized strength. Consequently the
Legion. which is divided into two rcSi-
mcnts of four battaliOns each. is the
most polyglot crops that marches
under the banner of any Power in the
world. In its ranks are found
Austrians, Germans, Spaniards, Ital-
ians. Portuguese. Englishmen. wander
ing South Americans and an occasional
native of the United States. German
dcserterS are ''rairoaded'' into the
Legion. the French believing that a dog
that will fetch will carry.
Everything in France capable Of
ice, Il h.iG. *, nr.I
and the picturesque aspects of the
Legion have not been neglected. A
few years ago VI. Georges d'ESparbes
Tor lack Of q better wrote most enter
tainingly of life in the corps His book
was readable. but there was an absence
of certainty as to his basic calculations.
which was not unnatural considering
how many of the lcgionarics have good
reason not to reveal their antecedcnts.
NJ. d'ESparbcS, however. got at general
truths accurately enough and divided
the Legion into two elements, one COM
posed of men who had failed and whose
pride inspired them to hide themselves
from a world that had known them be-
fore their failure. and the other made
up Of those who had left their countries
for their countries good. He found i'll
the Legion many with the accomplish
mcntS of educated men Of til" world
and not Il few scholars, ON" lcginnary
was converSant with so many
languages that he vas turning an
honest penny as an instructor in his
few hours Of leisure. Another was be-
licvcd TO be an Italian tenor who once
charmed Paris. \ corporal who died
in the service was discovered by
papers he left to have once been an
Austrian colonel of engineers The
Legion is prc-cmincntly distinguished
FOR three qualiticS--itS courage. its
intelligence and its dissipation. Most
IF its soldiers do not want to rcmcm-
Der Liquor is cheap in Algeria, where
the Legion has its headquarters, and is
consumed in enormous quantities by
men who. like Sir Walter SCOTS out
laws, forget what once they were nor
think what they are now.
The early history of the Legion is
somchat cloudy. but its name seized
upon the imagination of the world
when Mrs. Norton wrote her famous
poem The soldier of the Legion
must have died in Algcrs early in the
French campaign of conquest of that
country which opened in 1880, but
which was Waged for II years. He
came from Germany. from Bingen on
the Rhine. and was not the first Ger
man by scores of thousands who had
fallen under the Tri-color. Napoleon
employed German soldiers in masses,
and not only Germans but all foreign
erS on whom he could lay his hands.
F'renchmen were in such a minority in
the army he led into Russia that he
boosted to a Russian officer that ne
should lose only one Frenchman and
four pigs" for every five Russians that
fell, and therefore had the advantage
over the Car. His great rival. Eng
land. was most energetic recruiter of
foreign regiments. Not only was the
Kings German Legion distinguished
in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, but
other foreigners drew British pay.
There was a foreign regiment in the
attack on Plattsburg in 1914, from its
name presumably Swiss The Swiss
hired out" as soldiers almost down to
our time. The last conspicuous APP
pearance of Swiss regiments was less
than fifty years ago, when those in the
service of the Neapolitan BOurbons,
pampered mercenarieS, mutinied and
were suppressed with great bloOdshed.
Save the Pope's Swiss Guards, which
are more for ornament than for use,
the Swiss are no longer the mercenaries
they once were, faithful, brave and
detested by the people among whom
they were stationed as the unthinkinS
agents of eSpotism.-Boston Tran
script