The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-07-11
F. w. Finn, in Leslie's.

F. W. Finn, in Les,ie's.
 |"HE Atlantic Monthly of a few months ago contained long ar A tcle on the Foreign Legions part in the Champagne offensive of last Sep tember It was written by one of the ed itors of the magazine and was based on the accounts of Edward Morlae, an Amer ican who deserted from the regiment last winter. The descriptions of the battle were wonderfully written, althoughsto one who saw it from the inside they seem nothing short of grotesque, but the ar ticle seemed to concern itself chiefly with
 the lurid characters of the men who are supposed to make up the Legion Etran- gere. In contrast to the prosaic sameness of most war news, the idea of regiment composed wholly of Jesse Jameses ana Captain Kidds Is undeniably attractive to the imagination and in order to supply a certain popular demand for the sensa- tional, this misconception of the Foreign Legion seems to have been nourished with particular care in America. Whenever lit is mentioned over there the Legion is invariably referred to as "a regiment made up of fugitives from justice and criminals of all nationalities." This may apply to the regiment as it existed in North Africa in peace times, but such a generalization certainly cannot be ap- piled to the Foreign Legion that has been serving in France in this present war. In the very first days of the conflict some 10000 or 12,0OO foreigners in Paris offered themselves to France as volun- teers, and without hesitation the gov ernment accepted their services. These were men of every conceivable type-la- borers, millionaires, scholars; there was not a single walk in life that was not represented. Some few had joined be- cause the war had cut off their regular means of livelihood, others, chiefly Rus sians, had volunteered as an alternative to returning and serving in their own army, but the vast majority came in of their own free will and out of the best of patriotic motives. Very nearly 5000 were Belgians; there were almost as many AL satians. Garibaldians made up a whole battalion, and there was another of Greeks, beside smaller contingents of every other nationality. In such a heter- ogeneous assemblage there was naturally a certain amount of riff-raff as well as some very unusual characters, but by far
 the major percentage were hum-drum, l God-fearing citizens who differed only in language from their comrades in the reg ular French infantry. The 200 or more l Americans who joined were as diverse and interesting as the rest, but they had one common and distinguishing charac- lteristic-almost without except they were young, healthy and well fitted to endure l the hardships that were to come. Most | of them were of French percentage or
 were men who had been living in Paris as students or in business, and they felt
 toward France precisely as they would have felt toward their own country in a
 similar crisis.
 | Officers were drawn from the regular l infantry or from the reserve, and old
 campaigners with good service records were brought up from the Legion in All giers to serve as sergeants and corporals
 and to be mixed in with the green troops l Not all these men had been criminals
 and at no time did they constitute more
 than 20 per cent of the regiment. The