But this was not invariably the case, especially during the Casablanca expedition of August 1907. Hardly had the Legion arrived in the town, whose inhabitants had revolted against the increasing numbers of Europeans who had settled there, than the naval commander wired Paris asking to get up a permanent court-martial and return “a certain number” of legionnaires to Algeria because of “cases of indiscipline in the Foreign Legion.”89 Ehrhart, who landed with the Legion in Casablanca, admitted that they finished off some of the wounded and pillaged fairly extensively: “In the afternoon, one could see the legionnaires carrying the most diverse things, putting one thing down to pick up another,” he wrote. “I contented myself with a pair of bronzed slippers, a white shirt and a blue sweater. Then a hundred francs in Hassani duros. One also saw drunken legionnaires.” The commanding general withdrew the Legion from the town and forced them to surrender their pillage. However, legionnaires continued to break up the stalls of the Jewish merchants who quickly moved in to serve the expedition and to steal their merchandise, imposing a sort of rough justice because they judged that the Jews were selling pillaged goods at excessive prices.90
Legion discipline was fragile at Casablanca in part because the expedition was organized in haste and the usual selection process did not have time to operate. Therefore, the Legion went into battle with men whom they would probably have eliminated had they been given time. However, it may be equally true that the Legion behaved no worse in Casablanca than they had at other times. Protestant Pastor J. Pannier noted the tendency of newly arrived Legion drafts to take Hanoi by storm,91 while young Legion lieutenant Paul Rollet arrived in Madagascar in 1902 to take charge of a contingent, nine of whose legionnaires had just run amok in the native village and raped the women.92 On the other hand, it may have been that the Legion behaved no worse than other units, indeed sometimes better. But their reputation for slipping the leash meant that they received far more attention than other units. When, for instance, the 150 Legion replacements arrived by ship in Majunga in 1895 in the company of conscript volunteers destined for the ill-fated 200th Infantry Regiment, it was the conscripts who “immediately distinguished themselves by going that very evening to assault the neighboring village of Makoas to take off their women.”93 The difference most probably lay with the fact that the Casablanca invasion had attracted international attention, and therefore the high command felt obliged to make the Legion behave for the benefit of the world press.
The last, and perhaps most important, thing to note about the Legion's discipline crisis was that much of the indiscipline was more apparent than real, part of a cultural manifestation that was indelibly bound up with the character of legionnaires. Flutsch discovered that the indiscipline that usually kept forty men per company occupied pacing the prison yard was often a creative act, if not of artistic quality at least of a highly individualistic nature, “des actes fantaisistes” motivated by the legionnaire's need to assert himself, to make a personal statement.94 Punishments, especially those inflicted for alcohol-induced infractions or for fighting, demonstrated masculine aggressiveness, which was much prized by the organization. In fact, the Legion's attitude toward punishment was highly ambivalent. Even Flutsch's colonel, while he admonished his men to try to behave during a five-day route march, felt obliged to add that “I don't expect my legionnaires to transform themselves into cowering lignards [line infrantry-men] and cease to send men to the cells at a rate much inferior to twenty percent of strength.”95
And while the Legion punished indiscipline to a point, it also rewarded it: “If you have not been in jail, when they organize an operation . . . you'll be left behind,” Flutsch was told. “When they need men, officers prefer those who have been in the box. Don't need pretty-pretties for tough jobs. You need chaps who aren't afraid to tell you to get stuffed!” Flutsch promptly deserted, marched as far as he could, mainly at night, to exhibit his stamina, and turned himself in after seven days so he could be selected for campaign, and at the same time demonstrate “an act of independence which would give me new rights to the esteem of my entourage.”96 Indiscipline, at least in moderation, demonstrated a willingness to take risks, to “faire la bombe,” to do something slightly mad.
The basic point to be made is that indiscipline in the Legion was a relative concept, and not at all an indication that legionnaires were intrinsically bad soldiers. On the contrary, for the Legion, soldiering was about being able to do what was required when called upon. S. L. A. Marshal, in his well-known, if flawed, study of GIs in World War II, also found that
Some of the most gallant single handed fighters I encountered in World War II had spent most of their time in the guardhouse.... Fire wins wars, and it wins the skirmishes of which war is composed. Toss the willing fighters out of an action and there can be no victory. Yet, company by company, we found in our work that these were men who had been consistently bad actors in the training period, marked by faults of laziness, unruliness, and disorderliness, who just as consistently became lions on the battlefield, with all of the virtues of sustained aggressiveness, warm obedience, and thoughtfully planned action. When the battle was over and time came to coast, they almost invariably relapsed again. They could fight like hell, but they couldn't soldier.97
Merolli agreed that men who caused the most problems in garrison invariably were the best to have on campaign.98 Therefore, it seems that the Legion was able to institutionalize the notion of “bad soldier but good fighter,” thereby making a virtue of defying the petty restrictions of garrison life, even basic good manners, to the point that the Legion's deplorable barracks behavior became an integral part of its esprit de corps and combat effectiveness.
But there were limits—when a campaign was in the offing and the competition for selection keen, legionnaires could transform themselves into choirboys lest incarceration in the cells eliminate them from consideration.”99 The shortage of officers and NCOs, the fact that Legion life was not highly structured or controlled by the military hierarchy but rather the tone was set according to the values of the inmates, that behavior condemned in a more traditional military milieu was actually honored in the Legion, simply served to confirm the opinion of its officers, who insisted, sometimes with despair, that the Legion was “different”—“Each day it is more clearly apparent that a legion of mercenaries does not act, and is not commanded, like a regiment of good troops from France,” General Dautelle wrote in 1910.100 But indiscipline Legion-style must not be taken to mean that the Legion teetered on the brink of moral collapse. At the very least, it demonstrated an insouciance, a taste for risk and a defiance of the consequences, invaluable attributes in men whose métier was to fight their way out of tight corners. At its best, it slipped over into the performing arts.
But even assuming that the discipline crisis that hit the Legion before 1914 was in part a cultural illusion, it worried commanders and did threaten both its military efficiency and what it argued, with some credibility, to be its rehabilitative mission. The question then becomes, what might the Legion have done to improve the situation? The first problem to attack was that of recruitment, where the Legion should have exercised greater selectivity. The problems caused by the fact that the Legion did not altogether control its recruitment, and the difficulty of keeping out the worst soldiers who returned when expelled, have already been discussed. However, at least three things might have been done to filter out the least desirable legionnaires. First, the system of depositing poor soldiers into depots and discipline sections indicates that the Legion might have trimmed its strength by at least a quarter and still have counted enough men to meet its responsibilities. The other two reforms are in fact practiced by the Legion today: a more complete interrogation and background check of recruits before allowing them to enlist, and, last, the possibility of terminating the contract by either party within four months of enlistment. This was already the practice in certain native corps in the French army, so the precedent existed.
Mor
e selective recruitment would have gone some way toward curing the second Legion problem—that of indiscipline. The influence of a few bad soldiers was probably out of all proportion to their numbers because they tended to congregate in the depots, where they influenced the new recruits, and because they found a more receptive audience for their bad habits among the disoriented, the stateless, the young, and those without strong character. But there were other things that could have been done to lessen the cases of indiscipline.
It was axiomatic among connoisseurs of Legion behavior that legionnaires must be kept active: “The legionnaire, to demonstrate his qualities, needs frequent change, constant action, suffering to endure, sacrifices,” wrote Merolli. “If he is left for too long in garrison, he becomes drunken, quarrelsome, a scrounger and insufferable.”101 What was true for all troops was probably especially the case for the Legion because of their recruitment and their alcoholic habits. Unfortunately for the Legion, the command more often used it as a work crew in this period than as a fighting unit. Despite the fact that officers often praised the virtues of empire building, legionnaires appear to have been rather less enthusiastic about the “civilizing mission,” which for them usually translated into hard labor. Morale was the first casualty: “[The legionnaire] is an outlaw who has fled a society where he felt uncomfortable, who needs to run risks,” GM argued.102 But these camps offered few risks for men who, after all, had enlisted to see action.
Béric believed that this, together with the aimless monotony of these posts, had blunted the Legion's fighting edge as well as its morale. “Never an exercise, never firing practice, never an armed reconnaissance around the camp,” Béric complained of one of these interminable assignments building walls and tearing them down again to rebuild them better. “Thus, these camps in the Sud Oranais were like a prison into which were thrown passionate souls, where fragile spirits were corrupted, where energies were wasted.... Was it prudent to let such arms rust away?”103 Boredom fostered the “cafard” a state of depression which led to other problems that might quickly contaminate an entire unit. “[The captain] knew by long experience, how the contagion of evil is active among men who are bored.”104
This was a poor state of affairs, especially because, as already seen, these were among the most stable and dependable legionnaires, the worst having already been left behind in the depots. That said, however, the Legion might have undertaken more vigorous efforts to maintain esprit de corps in these isolated outposts through exercises and training. It is possible that there were not enough officers and NCOs to do this. But the more likely explanation is that it was not part of their military culture. Officers seemed to rely on periodic bouts of drunkenness as a way of allowing legionnaires to let off steam. As a last resort, the legionnaires might be encouraged to organize a grande fête. The results surprised Béric, who expected a raucous and ribald production. On the contrary, “the program was chaste and tearful”; skits based on banal romances alternated with songs that reflected deep melancholy, homesickness, and perhaps regret for a misspent life.105 Indeed, one may well wonder if, in the long run, such thespian exercises did morale more harm than good.
The fact that legionnaires were paid next to nothing has already been noted. However, what has not been discussed is how low pay contributed to the Legion's discipline problems. “In the final analysis, the legionnaire is a mercenary,” General Herson wrote in 1905. “As in all troops of this type, the question of money plays a capital role.”106 One role the Infantry Director believed that it played was in attracting recruits—he attributed the dropoff in recruitment to the Legion in 1905 to the fact that the Dutch colonial army and the American and German navies were a better financial proposition.107 However, it is unlikely that higher pay would have attracted more recruits, or a better class of recruit—the pay seems to have been the last thing on the minds of most legionnaires when they enlisted, although some did volunteer for the regular meals. But better pay would have helped solve many endemic problems that ultimately affected morale and efficiency, the first of which was the enormous number of problems associated with drunkenness.
Alcohol and the Legion were virtually inseparable. Merolli, who was very upbeat about the Legion, called drunkenness the unit's one great defect.108 Even in an era when alcoholism was a serious social problem, the Legion's addiction to drink was regarded as extravagant. Premschwitz found it to be the Legion's “favorite vice,”109 while Private Dangy was advised by his corporal at Saïda that “You must always be prepared to take a drink wherever you find it.”110 It was advice that legionnaires took to heart. The “collective drunk” became a tradition in the field—for instance, Flutsch's detachment of 120 men consumed seven hundred liters of wine in a matter of minutes. “There is only one place in the world where life is ‘drinkable,’ ” one of his comrades noted. “In the Legion!”111 Pastor J. Pannier attributed 75 percent of the courts-martial in the Legion to the effects of drink.112 Alcohol was often the cause of many of the fights that punctuated Legion life, especially the devastating ones between sections and companies that occurred on paydays. “When I have my pay,” a Belgian legionnaire told Pannier, “I can't keep from drinking.”113
Drink also helped to undermine efficiency. One of Flutsch's comrades got drunk on guard duty and forgot the password: “It's always the same thing,” he confessed. “When I'm smashed I do anything and I never remember.”114 Legionnaire L. Wagner was summoned to the officers’ mess at eleven forty-five one morning in 1908 to prepare lunch after the company doctor discovered the cook passed out on the kitchen floor.115 Flutsch was impressed for guard duty late on payday night because the entire guard room was paralytic.116 Dangy substituted at the last moment in an operation in Morocco because so many of the legionnaires selected were too drunk to march.117 During the Bou Amama revolt of 1881, Charles des Ecorres saw some legionnaires become uncontrollable, assault the brandy barrel and eventually fall down drunk after the Arabs had successfully pillaged the convoy,118 perhaps a small preview of the drunkenness observed among some legionnaires during the retreat from Lang Son in 1885, and at Casablanca in 1907. Opinion was divided on why legionnaires were so addicted to alcohol. Some said it was caused by the “cafard” the wave of depression that periodically descended upon those in the colonies, while others believed that drink brought on low spirits. Pannier was told that legionnaires drank to forget,119 but they seldom forgot to drink. The psychologist Roger Cabrol believed that alcohol facilitated communication in the polyglot Legion world, and perhaps, too, masked a number of psychological problems among legionnaires.120 Paul Rollet conceded that the “sensational drunks” of legionnaires were often criticized, but he excused them as perhaps the last relaxation of men who led a dangerous life.121
For whatever reason, heavy drinking was part of the Legion culture. As usual, the Legion attempted to make a virtue of necessity. Legionnaires advanced the opinion, unsupported by any shred of medical evidence, that alcohol prevented disease.122 Officers sometimes lamented the discipline problems caused by excessive drinking—“When I get the order to pay them, I am tempted to transfer to the infantry,” Flutsch's Lieutenant Leclerc told him after an evening spent quelling drunken legionnaires. “At Géryville they must say to themselves when they sign the order, ‘It's Leclerc's turn tomorrow.’ ”123 Nevertheless, received wisdom held that a good hangover was preferable to the cafard.
However, quite apart from the discipline problems caused by excessive drinking, the major drawback of the immoderate consumption of alcohol was that legionnaires seldom had any money to pay for it. The only obvious source of cash for the excessively thirsty was to sell equipment or uniform parts. This practice drove the French command to distraction, and they reacted by imposing draconian penalties for this offense. However, when the idea of a collective, or even a solitary, drinking spree was in the air, this deterred no one.
To get money for drink, the legionnaire had two options: Either steal someone else's equipment, or sell his
own. “In matters of stealing, the Legion draws the line very sharply,” Rosen wrote. “The theft of equipment, to replace lost or stolen parts, was considered absolutely respectable and gentleman-like. There was no other remedy, as the man who loses something is punished severely.”124 Not only did this create an atmosphere of “each man for himself,” but it also set men on a cycle of punishment that, once begun, was difficult to break. Often entire sections would decide to sell equipment to get money to have a monumental binge, absolutely heedless of the consequences. When Flutsch's section decided to sell their drawers to get money for drink, “... I declared that wine did not sit well with me and I couldn't drink with them but I did not mean to break the laws of solidarity. I therefore threw my underpants on the pile which was already formed. This gesture was fully appreciated and I had only to do everything to calm my reason which violently disagreed.” 125 One can only wonder how many potentially good soldiers were lost in this way.
Of course, the counterargument would be that the more legionnaires were paid, the more they would drink. This is possibly true—when Legion pay was raised after World War I, most of the extra cash was invested in alcohol. But the fact remains that they would not have had to steal and face years in discipline sections from which they returned—if they returned— thoroughly corrupted and as men lost to decent soldiering. The reports for the interwar years do not list the selling of equipment as a problem in the Legion. A. R. Cooper wrote in 1933 that the selling of pieces of kit continued, however, but usually during a campaign when they were traded to Arabs for scarce food and when the loss was less likely to be noticed, could more easily be explained away or could be replaced by stealing from the dead.126 Indeed, although Flutsch held himself to be a sterling example of the redemptive qualities of Legion service, the fact remains that twice he was saved after he had sold uniform parts by sergeants who forced the clothes merchants to give back their purchases—“If [Sergeant] Siegel had not figured out what you did at Zouireg,” his lieutenant told Flutsch, “your goose was cooked, my boy! It would have been too bad, perhaps, but you were cooked!”127 Others were not so lucky. This was a real injustice of Legion service in this period, not merely because it exploited legionnaires for low pay, but especially because it helped lend credence to Clément-Grandcourt's assertion that the Legion spoiled more recruits than it redeemed. There was probably little the Legion could do about their soldiers’ endemic alcoholism. Indeed, they took the view, largely against the evidence, that these periodic binges were essentially therapeutic exercises for men denied all other pleasures. Yet they might have helped legionnaires to avoid some of the dire consequences of their acts.
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