The question of desertion will be treated more fully in a later chapter. However, in the absence of legionnaires’ opinions on desertion, officers in the 1830s and 1840s advanced two theories about its causes. The first was that desertion sprang from unjust and arbitrary discipline. This was the view of General de Négrier, who, writing of the Legion discipline section, condemned “... the means which we could not effectively refuse to recognize as altogether alien to our customs, and which the barbarous employment would not even be justified by happy results, because the consequences of such a system would be to increase the number of deserters, and could successively serve as an excuse before a court martial.”57 Count Pierre de Castellane, son of General Victor de Castellane, who commanded the Army of Observation at Perpignan, reckoned that discipline in a normal Legion unit was severe enough: “It takes an iron hand to bend such diverse elements into the same mold,” he wrote in 1845. “Also discipline knows no indulgences. Misfortune upon he who disobeys! The court martial is without mercy and justice is prompt.”58
The view that brutality was a prime cause of desertion in the Legion and that it could be reduced substantially through more humane and sensitive treatment was endorsed by MacMahon. “To command his men, my predecessor believed it necessary to employ exclusively the tough approach,” MacMahon wrote. “Rarely did he speak to them without bullying them, calling them by the least flattering names and menacing them with the cells and with prison. For this reason, he had acquired no moral influence upon them and desertions under his command were very frequent. I adopted a completely opposite approach during my command. When I spoke to the men, I let on that I believed that only their desire to fight had caused them to leave their countries, and I never suggested that I doubted their honesty. In this way, I acquired a real influence over them and I seldom had any serious discipline problems.”59 The inspection report for the 2nd Regiment supports MacMahon's version of events: Henri d'Orléans, the due d'Aumale, complimented MacMahon on building an esprit de corps and noted that desertions had almost been cut in half under his command.60 But it is entirely possible that some officers with difficult or abrasive personalities were intentionally sent to the Legion.61
The second, equally plausible, explanation put forth for desertion was that many legionnaires were inherently unstable men, perpetually on the move, who thought nothing of changing sides even in the middle of a campaign: “As the Foreign Legion is made up of deserters from other armies, it is quite normal to see them change sides at the drop of a hat,” wrote Canrobert, expressing an exaggerated but widely held view on the origins of legionnaires. “As a drunkard will always be a drunkard, so a deserter moves shamelessly and for the most petty of pretexts from one army to another.”62
A third explanation for desertion, which was seldom mentioned directly, might be a feeling of injustice at the often unnecessarily rigorous conditions of service imposed on the Legion. The high sickness rates that put large numbers of legionnaires in the hospital and which was directly attributable to the unhealthy garrisons—like the Maison Carrée—that they were forced to occupy must have caused resentment. It was common knowledge that the Legion often drew the least salubrious garrisons. This might have caused some men to flee the prospect of a slow death in the hospital. On the other hand, it is also possible that a low desertion rate corresponded with a large number of hospitalizations. Statistics are fragmentary, but when desertion rates were lowest, the numbers of men in hospital or listed as suffering from “fever,” as in the 1st Regiment in 1839 and 1840 and in the 2nd Regiment in 1844 and 1845, were extremely high.63
Yet desertion was not an option to be undertaken lightly. The major difficulty with desertion in Algeria was that there were few places to desert to. A man walking to Algiers, Oran or Bone, especially if he was wearing a uniform or part of a uniform, would quickly be apprehended. Even if he exchanged his uniform for civilian clothes, he might be stopped by authorities and asked for his passport, which was required even for internal travel. This left desertion to the enemy. The leader of the Algerian resistance, Abd el-Kader, offered sanctuary to French deserters, although his amnesty was not always honored by his supporters, who had a disconcerting tendency to submit any soldier who fell into their hands to the death of a thousand cuts. But even if a deserter reached the Emir's camp with his head still on his shoulders, life there did not always live up to expectations. The Frenchman Marius Garcin, who served Abd el-Kader as his armaments advisor, wrote that Legion deserters, mostly Germans and Italians
arrive with joy in their hearts, come to offer their services to the sworn enemy of the French. But fifteen days do not go by before they are torn by terrible regrets. They would give up half of their life if they could return to their flag. Several told me that if it were simply a question of five years in chains, they would return tomorrow, but there is no longer time. Most enlist in Abd el-Kader's militia. Several prefer the artillery. Others just wander from tribe to tribe, earning a living as practitioners of the medical arts, about which they know nothing. A few escape via Tunis or Morocco, but most die miserably, or are assassinated during their travels.64
Saint-Arnaud interviewed an Italian who deserted for six months before returning to the Legion: “[Abd el-Kader] does not pay his troops, he feeds them badly, clothes them in rough garments, but he has an army,” he was told. “He has two regular battalions made up of French and foreign deserters commanded by a deserter, an artillery corporal. He also has a regular [cavalry] squadron.”65
According to Count Pierre de Castellane, Legion deserters who turned themselves in did not invariably face a harsh punishment. “About two months ago, two deserters came in, one from the zéphirs [the penal unit] and the other from the Foreign Legion,” he wrote in 1843.
The latter one is named Glockner. He is a Bavarian, son of an ex-war contractor in French service, nephew of one of the most prominent military people of Bavaria. His story almost reads like a novel. He first entered the military college of Munich, then following several thoughtless acts was sent to a regiment of Household Cavalry. But his ardent imagination, his love of adventure was soon to draw him to new follies. He deserted and went to France. Having received a cool reception, like all deserters, he was enlisted in the Foreign Legion. Hardly had he arrived in Africa than his deception was even more cruel. And, always drawn toward the desire for the unknown which tormented him, one morning he went over to the Arabs. He remained there for three years.... He returned to us like the prodigal son, bemoaning his indiscretions, weeping for his family, for his father especially, and asking for the favor to be enlisted as a French soldier. When we spoke to him of returning to the Legion: 'Oh! No, I beg of you, don't send me to the Legion,’ he replied. ‘Send me into a French regiment, in your zouaves whose name is known throughout Europe. I will not disappoint you.’ We enlisted him as an Arab.66
Not all deserters were smitten with remorse or allowed to perish anonymously in the bled. One of the most celebrated deserters of this period was a Frenchman named Moncel, a Hercules of a man who terrorized his comrades as much as the enemy. After having been punished by his superior for slaughtering wounded Arabs, he deserted to the enemy and conspired to draw his ex-comrades into an ambush from which few escaped. Among the bodies was discovered that of the offending superior, completely stripped, with “2 novembre 1836 Moncel” carved on his chest. Despite his fierce hatred of the French, Abd el-Kader found Moncel to be something of a liability and conspired with the chief of the Arab bureau— created to govern the tribes under French jurisdiction—at Blida to betray him to the French, who took him to Algiers and shot him, swearing and threatening to the very last. Canrobert claims that Moncel was a Legion deserter.67 His interesting life and almost majestic death makes him entirely worthy of that great corps. Alas, by the autumn of 1836 when Moncel was carving insults in his ex-sergeant's chest, the Legion had been out of Algeria for over a year. Moncel was, in fact, a deserter from the spahis, a regiment of native cavalry.
> All of this might suggest that many, if not most, of the Legion's discipline problems might be traced to poor or tactless leadership rather than to the incorrigible nature of the legionnaires. This was the opinion of Lieutenant General Schramm, who, in October 1840, praised the combative qualities of the Legion, the “glory” that they had won during the last expeditions, and wrote that it “takes second place to no other corps in bravery and in resolution.”68 Perhaps he was referring to the Legion's performance in the Mouzaia pass in May 1840, or in the Bois des Oliviers in June of that year. But more likely Schramm was referring to the siege of Miliana, when a battalion of the Legion, one from the 3rd Light Infantry Regiment, forty-five artillerymen and a detachment of engineers held off thousands of Arabs throughout the brutal summer of 1840. A burning sirocco out of the Sahara drove temperatures to 120 degrees as the French troops struggled to repulse repeated Arab attacks against the crumbling fortifications. The garrison was so decimated by disease brought on by fetid water and strict rationing, which soon limited them to one meal per day, that the colonel ordered dummies made that were dressed in the uniforms of the dead and placed on the walls to give the impression of strength (an act which perhaps inspired P. C. Wren, the author of Beau Geste). When the Arabs began to count the graves, he had several dead placed in each hole, but the rotting corpses soon pushed up the ground. By October 4, when a relief column under General Nicolas Changarnier finally reached Miliana, only 600 of the original 1,232 men in the garrison remained alive, and of these only 150 were capable of fighting. The soldiers were emaciated, barely able to stand, and some actually died on guard duty. So bad was their state that two months later only seventy of those rescued had survived, including Captain Bazaine, who had already fought with the Legion through the Spanish campaign. Only twenty-five legionnaires had deserted during the siege.69
Indeed, the uneven quality of Legion leadership offers one possible explanation as to why a corps that performed so well in battle labored under such a poor reputation among officers in the Armée d'Afrique. For beneath a crust of officers of incontestable worth—MacMahon, Saint-Arnaud, Bazaine, Bedeau, Collineau, Vinoy, Espinasse, Mayran, Lacretelle, Luzy-Pélissac, Mellinet, d'Autmarre, all future generals—who, in the opinion of Clemens Lamping, “... look upon [the Legion] as a short cut to advancement,”70 inspecting generals in the 1830s suggested that many of the rest were little better than average. The main complaint leveled against the officer corps of the Legion was that many were too old for active service. Of course, this was true of the entire French army, which was fairly top-heavy with Napoleonic veterans, most of whom mercifully began to disappear in the 1840s. Canrobert argued that a concentration of older officers was fatal to performance in the harsh campaign conditions of Algeria: “One cannot stress enough ... the importance of having young officers on campaign... . Under an energetic and brilliant leader, the least acclimatized troops are capable of heroism. Under tired leaders, the best soldiers are like a herd being led to the slaughterhouse. They are ready to die if they don't run, but incapable of virile acts.”71
The Legion owed its good battle performance, as at Constantine, essentially to the fact that both officers and soldiers were rigorously selected. Those left behind were accused of being bad administrators, having “little education,” or “lacking command experience.”72 In addition, as a general rule officers in this period took little interest in the welfare of their troops.73 And while this may have been less important in more homogeneous corps, in a unit as diverse as the Legion, many of whose soldiers had been cast adrift by life and who as a consequence were disoriented and psychologically fragile, it could prove disrupting indeed.
But the complaints did not stop there. Lieutenant General Schramm reported that the professional knowledge of Legion officers was “very weak. They hardly concern themselves with their theory. They are very backward in the study and application of military regulations.” Several, he claimed, had backgrounds that were “peu honorable.”74 In their defense, it must be said that the army in Algeria had a very practical orientation and was little concerned with mastering the sort of theoretical war that preoccupied officers in France. Also, a fair percentage of the officers were foreigners and therefore less well grounded in French military practice. For instance, the 2nd Regiment in 1844 contained thirteen captains, seven lieutenants and four second lieutenants of foreign nationality.75
One of the more serious charges leveled at the officer corps of the Legion was that they failed to supervise the NCOs, a complaint that would continue to be voiced, not least by legionnaires, throughout much of the Legion's history. Inspecting generals found many Legion NCOs drunken, poorly trained, too old, sometimes sent into the Legion from other units as a punishment, and even capable of “exploiting the soldier for their own pleasures and unbridled passions.”76 The lack of supervision and the often indifferent quality of the cadres was bound to be felt further down in the form of poor training. In 1840, Schramm declared that training was so neglected in the Legion that “They are barely even shown how to fire their rifles, because there is no [basic] training camp.”77 Lamping confirmed Schramm's accusation—upon enlistment, “I was asked whether I knew how to load and fire, and on my replying in the affirmative, I was, without further question, transferred to the third battalion of the Legion... ,”78
Therefore, the Legion in 1840, like much of the French army in North Africa, appears to have been sifting for a purpose and a direction. The absence of any coherent strategy of conquest on the French side, of any clear mission to rally spirits and channel energies, translated into poor training, often limp leadership and a general deficiency of morale in Legion units scattered over Algeria in isolated posts in which sickness and desertion rates were high. And this at a time when its adversaries appeared to be more than holding their own, and in some areas even growing stronger. It was clear that the French needed to take a new direction; otherwise, their African enterprise would prove a stagnating and expensive one. That new direction would be provided by General Thomas Bugeaud.
Chapter 4
LA CASQUETTE DU PÈRE BUGEAUD
AFTER A DECADE in North Africa, the French occupation was in a perilous condition. Despite individual successes like the creation of the zouaves and the Legion, the French had failed to adapt their military system to the demands of North African warfare. Under the dynamic leadership of Abd el-Kader, the North African resistance had turned their traditional hit-and-run attacks, ambushes or even sieges of isolated French garrisons into a fairly coherent strategic system. At first the French adapted poorly to what was, for them, a new form of warfare, by scattering their forces in outposts such as Miliana where they could be isolated and overwhelmed, or where they dropped like flies from disease. Then, in 1840, things began to change.
The nomination of Thomas Bugeaud as governor-general in 1840 was to alter radically the way the French army did business in Algeria. Fifty-six years had done little to soften Bugeaud's almost permanent look of stern determination. A strong chin, a square Roman nose, a face cratered by smallpox and a pair of stern blue eyes set beneath bushy brows made him look, Saint-Arnaud believed, as if he had been “carved in granite.”1 An occasional smile and a bald crown with a border of white hair that still contained traces of its original red were the only features that hinted at a milder, almost grandfatherly quality, which Clemens Lamping recognized when Bugeaud inspected the Legion in 1841: “[He] was very gracious,” Lamping wrote.
He appears to be about fifty, and has an air of great determination and coolness. He is of middle size and strongly built; his face is much sun-burnt, but pleasing; and he would be taken for a younger man than he is, did not his snow-white hair betray his age. Bugeaud is a man of restless activity, and keeps everyone alert by his continued presence. At three every morning he gives audience, to which all who have any complaint are to be admitted.2
If Bugeaud looked as if he had raised bluntness to the level of a moral principle, this was no exercise i
n role playing. He was no pampered political general, but a man who had seen life from the bottom. The French Revolution had destroyed his childhood, scattered his family and confiscated his inheritance. Because he was an aristocrat—albeit a backwoods one—officials of the Terror had imprisoned him before he was ten. He never lost those rustic qualities bequeathed to him by his early education, which consisted largely of hunting, fishing and exchanging blows with peasant lads in his native Périgord in southwestern France, qualities tempered to steely hardness by his years campaigning against guerrilleros and Wellington's redcoats in Spain. In 1815, Colonel Bugeaud was denounced for having rallied to Napoleon during the Hundred Days and retired from the army. Therefore, he turned to practice that other passion of his life, farming. A pioneer in agricultural experimentation, he never ceased to preach that “After God, your wife and children, it is clover you must adore.” And even as governor-general in Algeria, he continued to repatriate money from raids to Périgord for agricultural improvements.3 Reintegrated into the army with his rank of colonel in September 1830, he was promoted brigadier general (maréchal de camp) on April 2, 1831, soon after which he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies.
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