French Foreign Legion

by Douglas Porch

  Desertion, or the threat of desertion, compromised the ability of the command to constitute battle-worthy units in the immediate postwar years. Unlike the prewar years, legionnaires now began to desert in small but significant numbers to the dissident Moroccan tribes. This appears to have been a new phenomenon, not a prolongation of desertion during the war. The problem of legionnaires taking to the hills in Algeria and Morocco during World War I does not appear to have been a great one—indeed, Lyautey's worries in those years, as far as one is able to tell by the archives, had not been about desertion but that Germans from the “Old Legion” preferred internment camps to reenlistment. Albert Bartels, a German businessman living in Rabat in 1914, claimed to have escaped internment and fought the French through the war at the head of various native tribes with the aid of three German deserters from the Legion.49 On February 12, 1921, Major de Corta reported that of around twenty-five Legion deserters living with the marauding tribes in the Tafilalt in southeastern Morocco, five had been there since the war.50

  In the immediate postwar years, the Legion appears to have suffered a rash of desertions, attempted desertions or desertion conspiracies in Morocco. Jacques Weygand recorded a conversation with Rollet in which the general claimed to have put down a 1919 mutiny in a Legion detachment by shooting every tenth legionnaire drawn by lot.51 General Aubert, commander of the Taza subdivision, complained in 1920 that each Legion battalion in his sector counted between thirty and forty deserters.52 One hundred legionnaires deserted from one battalion stationed at Ouezzane near the Rif in 1920.53 Worse, rather than simply disappear into the night, many of these deserters were actually fleeing to the enemy, where, de Corta claimed, they were given food, sometimes women and “a facile existence,” in return for “leading frequent raids.” Unfortunately, these raids were often directed against their former Legion comrades: “Hospitably welcomed and well treated, they are organized and equipped and told to lead the attacks against our posts, detachments, convoys, groupes mobiles and to encourage new desertions.”54 One such attack occurred on the night of January 31, 1921, when Legion deserters led by a former German sergeant-major named Fister, armed with automatic rifles taken in their departure, attacked “in a European manner” an isolated worksite in eastern Morocco, killing a Legion corporal, two legionnaires and three Moroccans.

  But these attacks were merely symptomatic of a general discipline problem. De Corta reported at the same time that a

  general desertion movement was announced in two companies on the [River] Ziz. These were instantly assembled and sent to the rear at Bou Denib under the surveillance of reliable native units. The ten most dangerous ringleaders were sent under special escort, but they mutinied and trying to escape, were shot. Now, this was the best commanded battalion and the one in which I had the most confidence.

  After fourteen desertions in a Legion company at Midelt on the upper Moulouya, an investigation uncovered a massive desertion plot “and a state of mind which obliged us to withdraw it from contact with the dissidents and move it to the rear.” Even west of the Atlas near Kasba Tadla, an investigation following several desertions uncovered an

  entente between legionnaires and dissidents to make themselves masters of the post by a coup de force and make common cause with the rebels.... One must remark that most of the ringleaders discovered after investigation gave the impression of being good soldiers without punishments.55

  A 1923 report speaking of these desertions concluded that they “were the result of a skillful propaganda carried out in the interior of the units by a certain number of legionnaires of German origin, acting in connivance with the Moroccan dissidents, with a view to acquire the leadership which they lacked.”56 Manue believed that many who deserted were enticed away by the stories of dissidents giving deserting legionnaires women in return for leading raids.57 Major Maire's battalion was withdrawn from near the Spanish zone in 1924 after a corporal and sixteen legionnaires disappeared. He ordered a forced march, with spahis shadowing his force to pick up any other deserters, to get as far away as possible from the tempting frontier on the first day.58 De Corta complained that “the lack of experienced NCOs and of reliable veteran legionnaires, makes it particularly difficult to know and observe” what was going on in the units.59

  The army took a very serious view of these desertions to the enemy. General Poeymirau, commander of the Meknès region, concluded in 1921 that

  it will probably become difficult. . . to use the units of the Foreign Legion in the first line, in immediate contact with the rebels, and this will require a general reorganization.... This is an absolutely new situation for, if until now we have had to fear desertions in contact with Europeans, never did we have them in contact with native dissidents. Now, it seems that today these dissidents are sufficiently in touch with the general situation to organize near them desertion agencies, to provoke [legionnaires] and count upon them.60

  On February 13, 1921, Lyautey ordered that the Legion be pulled back from the “front” and that Legion units should never be used alone.61

  The apparently large number of desertions in the Legion in 1920 and 1921 were due to exceptional circumstances, caused by the immediate problems of restructuring the postwar Legion, and reinforced by the strong anti-German sentiments in the victorious Allied countries evident at the Versailles Peace Conference.62 The fact that the Legion had begun an aggressive policy of recruiting through military attaches and consuls in foreign countries could hardly have helped matters. Not only did it raise questions about dubious recruiting methods63 and give rise to adverse comment on the Legion in foreign countries.64 But also, from the perspective of desertion and the creation of solid units, the practice of snatching men from their home towns in foreign lands meant that the Legion was bound to get a large number of recruits who had not made the psychological break from their countries, cultures, even their families, a process that the requirement to travel to France to enlist would at least have initiated. Instead, they must have collected many who enlisted on a whim, possibly the very young, or even those like London stockbroker Brian Stuart, who, after seeing a film about the Foreign Legion, rushed out of the cinema to enlist,65 which was possible to do at the French consulate on Brompton Road.

  The trip to Algeria gave the new recruits ample time to reflect upon their folly. Lieutenant Colonel Maurel of the 4e étranger recorded that those enlisted in Germany were sent to barracks in Belfort or Nancy, where they were treated, “without indulgence and with disdain. After this, they are sent to Marseille and I would not say received but tolerated at Fort Saint-Jean. As for the crossing, it is better not to speak of it.” Sidi-bel-Abbès was overcrowded, so that training was badly carried out. “He becomes discouraged, feels alone—because those who surround him will be sent elsewhere. He is in a state to listen to bad advice.” This, according to Maurel, was the source of desertions, which were often led, as in 1908, by German ex-officers and NCOs able to fill a vacuum left by the absence of strong leadership and morale in the Legion.66 Indeed, in 1920, the war minister warned the prime minister to give instructions not to enlist ex-officers or NCOs from the German army in the Legion.67

  Desertion problems on this scale probably did not linger beyond 1921. Certainly a report from the war minister on September 3,1923, in response to a request by the German Ambassador for information about a German who disappeared into the Legion, spoke of the 1921 wave of desertions as if they were ancient history.68 In January 1922, General Cottez wrote to the war minister that desertion had greatly diminished in the Legion, and blamed the problem on the postwar practice of paying legionnaires an enlistment bonus after four months' service, which “is the cause of numerous desertions.” Nevertheless, he recommended taking the Legion away from the Spanish zone, which offered a sanctuary too tempting for potential deserters.69

  It was good advice—in 1924, complaints began to filter in of desertions from the Legion, even from the mounted companies (“These units had however been selecte
d as being reliable”), to Abd el-Krim, the rebel leader. The numbers that appear in the archives, while admittedly fragmentary, seem to suggest a problem less disastrous than in 1920–21—seventeen deserters from Maire's battalion and twelve from a mounted company. Nevertheless, they were a solid propaganda victory for Abd el-Krim, who openly courted world public opinion during The Rif War (1921—26) by presenting himself as the leader of a beleaguered nation fighting for its rightful independence: “These desertions are grave at the moment,” read a 1924 report. “Abd el-Krim, in speaking of these Legion deserters, declared that civilization came to him and that we would be left only with negroes and Jews. And more the deserters serve as machine gunners with Abd el-Krim.”70 But while it is possible that desertion from the Legion during the Rif War was significant, its propaganda value was far greater than its actual military contribution to the rebellion. Abd el-Krim claimed to have no more than fifty deserters in his army, Germans for the most part, although it is not clear if most came from the Spanish or the French Legion. “More, I will confess to you that I did not trust them,” the rebel chief told the French writer J. Roger-Mathieu after the war. “If I allowed them to go to battle, it was only after having them observed for a long time by my men, so much did I fear to see these chaps betray me like they betrayed you or like they betrayed the Spanish.”71

  The Legion provided Abd el-Krim with his most celebrated deserter— Joseph Klems, who told the American journalist Vincent Sheean that he had deserted around 1920 after a drunken French officer had called him a “boche.”72 A 1924 report acknowledged that the rebel chief used Legion deserters to man telephones, construct bunkers and as machine gunners, and concluded that “one can use the Legion for a baroud [a fight] on condition that it is not left there afterwards.”73 Certainly, Abd el-Krim openly encouraged Legion desertion with leaflets printed in German— “Why do you fight with the French?” one sample ran.

  Abd el-Krim means freedom. Come into the Rif with your arms, and if you do not want to continue fighting, you will be repatriated through Tangier. Lt. Klems will help you. At Ajdir, we make war the modern way, and you, Germans, will understand. You have been with the French for adventure.... Abd el-Krim fights for an ideal, to defend his native land.74

  A. R. Cooper claimed that the 3rd battalion of the 1er étranger was denied active service in 1926 and withdrawn to Aïn Sefra in Algeria because of desertion.75 The desertion of legionnaires to the enemy in Morocco appears to have lasted as long as the fighting. Jean Martin wrote that as late as the seizure of the Djebel Sagho in 1933, the last strongly defended area of the Atlas to submit to the French, deserters shouted insults in German at the attacking legionnaires:

  There were numerous deserters among these last dissidents, gone over to the enemy several years earlier, some thirty years ago, who could not surrender, knowing full well that they would be executed. They were the most ferocious of these last rebels. We still found them in the Atlas during the summer.76

  While the number of deserting legionnaires, at least after 1921, though significant, was probably never catastrophic, and while they never contributed significantly to the military success of the dissident tribes, that is not to say that Legion desertion had no military effect. As has been noted, desertion made the army reluctant to station the Legion close to dissident areas, especially near the Spanish zone. The fear of desertion contributed directly to the initial success of Abd el-Krim against the French, for despite the worsening situation in 1924 and 1925, commanders held the Legion, regarded as their most solid troops, back from the Spanish zone.77

  1925 proved the most challenging year for the Legion in the interwar period, when it had to confront both the Rif rebellion and the Druse revolt in the Levant. The Rifian leader Abd el-Krim was the most remarkable and talented leader faced by the colonizing powers in Morocco. Born around 1882 at Ajdir near Alhucemas Bay in Northern Morocco, Krim's father moved the family to Tetouan in 1892. Very ambitious for his son, Krim's father placed him in a Spanish school where he received an education far superior to that of most of his contemporaries, whose learning seldom extended beyond memorization of Koranic texts. After perfecting his Moslem education in the celebrated Qarawiyin medersa in Fez, the twenty-four-year-old Krim took his first job as the editor of the Arabic supplement of El Telegrama del Rif the Spanish newspaper in Melilla. He soon combined this editorial post with an important position in the Bureau of Native Affairs, as well as serving as a cadi, or Moslem judge. However, Krim became increasingly disenchanted with the inequality and corruption of Spanish rule. In 1917, Krim was imprisoned by the Spaniards for his outspokenly nationalist, pro-German and anti-French statements. Released in 1918, he resumed his job at El Telegrama del Rif. But when the Spanish authorities began extraditing Moroccan refugees in Melilla who had been fighting against the French to the French zone, Krim began to fear for his own safety. In January 1919, he took a twenty-day leave from his job and never returned.

  In the mountains, Krim, together with his father and younger brother, began to recruit support for a rebellion. By the spring of 1921, he had succeeded in organizing the tough but notoriously faction-ridden Rifians into something resembling an army of between three thousand and six thousand men, accumulate supplies and weapons, and even establish a diplomatic corps to plead his cause abroad. His plan was to draw the Spaniards out of their bases at Tetouan and Melilla, cause them to extend their supply lines, and use the superior mobility and knowledge of terrain of the Rifians to defeat them piecemeal. This was a sound conception, for at that very moment the Spanish commander General Manuel Silvestre was pushing his troops west from Melilla toward Alhucemas Bay in an attempt to extend Spanish control over the Rif, only one-third of which they effectively occupied. By May 1921, Silvestre's twenty-five thousand men were scattered in 144 small blockhouses and outposts that ran west from Melilla for thirty-five miles, terminating at the garrisons of Anual and Meyan, into which he had crowded eight hundred men each.

  While on the surface Krim appeared to be hopelessly outnumbered, when on July 17, 1921, his Rifians struck all along the Spanish line, both the morale and efficiency of the Spanish army proved to be shockingly low. When one of the outer garrisons of Anual was overrun after three days of fighting, Silvestre ordered a general evacuation. However, what should have been an orderly retreat was overtaken by contagious panic. All down the line, poorly disciplined Spanish soldiers threw down their weapons, abandoned their posts and began running for Melilla through the hot, dusty mountains. Most failed to arrive—between thirteen thousand and nineteen thousand soldiers, including Silvestre, were hacked down by Rifians. The victorious rebels reached the outlying suburbs of Melilla, but Krim declined to take the town although it was defended by only one thousand eight hundred poorly trained Spanish conscripts. Subsequent attempts by the Spanish to make headway against a rebellion of what was considered the toughest and most resilient portion of tough and resilient people foundered upon the poor morale of Spanish conscripts and military leadership of more than ordinary incompetence. After more than three years of indecisive campaigning, in November 1924, the Spanish again met disaster when they abandoned Chaouen in the central Rif. Although he had only seven thousand troops, Krim was able to strike successfully at the forty thousand Spaniards extended along the crude track that wound through the mountain defiles between Chaouen and the Mediterranean coast. When the Spanish rear guard commanded by Francisco Franco finally stumbled into Tetouan on December 13, between seventeen thousand and twenty thousand of their comrades lay dead behind them.

  For the first four years of the rebellion, the French remained passive, but not disinterested, onlookers from their southern zone. In May 1924, the French crossed the Ouerrha River into territory claimed, but not occupied, by Spain and proceeded to establish a series of blockhouses running along a seventy-five-mile front from Biban north of Fez to Kifan above Taza, blockhouses they garrisoned with Algerian and Senegalese troops. The French justified their grab for territo
ry by saying that the Rifians were pillaging the Beni Zerwal tribe, meant to be under French protection. Not all of the tribesmen welcomed the French advance, especially after a French native affairs officer beat a caïd and shot thirteen others, allegedly for plotting with Abd el-Krim, and they petitioned Krim for deliverance.

  The French move was probably not calculated to start a war with Abd el-Krim, who had insisted throughout that he had no quarrel with France. Although the establishment of an independent Moslem republic in the Rif was not in French interest, the French sought to strengthen their control over tribes who had proved restive during World War I and who might prove so again. The question is, why did Abd el-Krim react to the provocation by attacking the French? It is possible that Krim believed his prestige threatened by the French move. His food supply certainly was, as the Ouerrha Valley was a major breadbasket for the Rif. His success against the Spanish may have caused him to underestimate the French. Still, the decision to attack south was a fairly desperate one for the rebel chief. He was already engaged in a war on two fronts against Spanish forces, and hardly needed to add a third front against the better-organized and numerous French. His only hope of victory was to provoke a general uprising in the French zone, where admittedly he enjoyed some sympathy. But this hope was a fairly remote one—the French had disarmed the tribes and kept a watchful eye on them through a network of native affairs officers. Krim lacked the men to seize and hold territory, especially politically significant objectives like Fez. Besides, the military success of his forces rested upon their dispersion and mobility. To concentrate them at key points was simply to offer the French a target against which they could concentrate their superior firepower. Furthermore, the sultan, a holy figure in Morocco whose attitude was critical to any popular uprising, was very much the creature of the French.