French Foreign Legion

by Douglas Porch

  It remains for me to thank my family. My parents-in-law, Charles and Thérèse Lamoureux, provided generous hospitality between bouts of research in Paris and Aubagne. My wife, Francoise, and my son, Charles, heroically endured this writer's fits of frustration and bad temper. Finally comes my daughter, Olivia, who provided excellent company during a blistering Charleston summer while I completed the manuscript, and to whom this book is dedicated.

  The Citadel

  Charleston, May 1990

  SOURCE NOTES

  PREFACE

  1 . John R. Elting, Swords Around the Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armée (New York: The Free Press, 1988), 355.

  2 . Lucien Bodard, The Quicksand War: Prelude to Vietnam (Boston and Toronto: Little Brown, 1967), 240.

  3 . Service historique de l'Armée de terre [SHAT], 3H 148, 19 June 1913.

  4 . Ernest Junger,/ewx africains (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), 172.

  5 . Daniel Pipes, Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981), 87, 89, 91.

  6 . Felix Gilbert, “Machiavelli: The Renaissance of the Art of War,” in Peter Paret (ed.), The Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 26. For a more positive view of the condottiere, see Michael E. Mallet, Mercenaries and Their Masters (London, 1974).

  7 . Gunther Rothenburg, “Maurice of Nassau, Gustavus Adolphus, Raimondo Montecuccoli, and the ‘Military Revolution’ of the Seventeenth Century,” in Paret (ed.), Makers, 47.

  8 . R. R. Palmer, “Frederick the Great, Guibert, Bulow. From Dynastic to National War,” in Paret (ed.), Makers, 92-4, 99, 108.

  9 . André Corvisier, Armies and Societies in Europe, 1494-1789 (Bloomington, Ind., and London: Indiana University Press, 1976), 135-6.

  10 . Samuel F. Scott, The Response of the Royal Army to the French Revolution: The Role and Development of the Line Army, 1757-1763 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978 )T 6, 12-14. Scott's calculations disagree with those of John R. Elting, Swords, p. 10, who places the number of foreign regiments in 1790 at twenty-three. While Swiss regiments in French service were about one-quarter non-Swiss, only a few hundred French subjects gained admittance to them. In the ninety-one line infantry regiments of the Royal Army, less than eight percent of the soldiers were foreigners. About one-half of the men serving in the army's eight German regiments were from Lorraine or, especially, Alsace. The three Irish regiments were about three-quarters foreign, mostly from the Low Countries, whose inhabitants also furnished the majority of a Liégeois regiment. About one-third of the foreigners in the line infantry served in French regiments. The percentage of foreigners in the army's twelve light infantry battalions, formed in 1788, was about the same as for the line infantry, although many were northern Italians serving in the Chasseurs Royaux-Corses and the Chasseurs Corses, where Italian was the language of command. Only three percent of the cavalry was made up of foreigners, mostly Germans, who served in the Royal Allemand Cavalry and other units composed of men from Alsace and Lorraine, where the language of command was German. Six percent of the men in the hussar regiments were foreigners. The artillery remained the most exclusively French arm in the army.

  11 . Scott, Response, 154-55.

  12 . Scott, Response, 166-67.

  13 . For a full treatment of foreign troops in French service under Napoleon, see Elting, Swords, Chapter XVIII.

  14. For a discussion of French attitudes toward imperial expansion in the nineteenth century, see Christopher Andrew and A. S. Kanya-Forstner, France Overseas (London: Thames and Hudson, 1984).

  15. Douglas Porch, “Bugeaud, Galliéni, Lyautey. The Development of French Colonial Warfare,” in Paret (ed.), Makers, 388-95. Algeria was considered part of metropolitan France after 1870, while Tunisia and, from 1912, Morocco were protectorates under the jurisdiction of the French Foreign Ministry. Sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar and Indochina fell under the navy, before being passed on eventually to the colonial ministry.

  16. Jules Richard, La jeune armée (Paris: La Librairie Illustrée, nd [1890]), 132.

  17. Perhaps it is appropriate at this point to interject a word about sources. One of the problems that a study of the Legion poses for the historian is the often wildly diverse, even contradictory nature of the evidence. That men reacted in different ways to their Legion experiences is hardly surprising given different circumstances, outlooks and expectations. A more difficult problem arises, however, in dealing with official assessments of Legion shortcomings, especially those spelled out in the monthly “rapport sur le moral,” which became institutionalized in Legion units in the 1920s. Some historians in France have suggested to this author that criticisms of Legion morale and performance in these reports must not be taken at face value, but viewed in the context of bureaucratic infighting between command and field or staff echelons in the army. They provided a means for unit commanders, men who in the Legion are not usually known for their reluctance to mince words, to let off steam against a headquarters that they perceived as remote, unrealistic or simply unconcerned.

  There may be something to be said for this interpretation. After all, in the Western Desert in 1942 Rommel often exaggerated his difficulties as a means to gain more materiel from Berlin. However, as a general observation I believe that there are two things wrong with the supposition that reports that point out problems in the Legion must not be taken at face value. The first is that it runs counter to the operational norms of a bureauracy, especially a military bureaucracy, in which the promotion or other rewards sprinkled over the lower echelons depend upon the good will of and good working relations with superiors. On the whole, military commanders prefer positive attitudes in their subordinates that demonstrate a willingness to take up challenges and enhance the organization's morale and efficiency, and hence their own reputations as leaders. Critics and complainers are regarded as poor team players, even as disruptive elements, messengers who risk being shot. It is to the advantage of the subordinate commander to present his unit as one that functions efficiently. A second point to make is that the reports are frequently very upbeat, even unrealistically so, which rather undermines the argument that they served as a vehicle for protest.

  18. See in this regard André-Paul Comor, L'image de la Légion étrangère à travers la littérature française, 1900-1970 (Aix-en-Provence: mémoire de maîtrise [master's thesis], Aix-en-Provence, 1971), 23.

  19. Antoine Sylvère, Le légionnaire Flutsch (Paris: Plon, 1982).

  CHAPTER 1

  1. Douglas Porch, Army and Revolution: France 1815-1848 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977), 121-2.

  2. Porch, Army, 31-6.

  3. Porch, Army, 31.

  4. Felix Tavernier, “Le régiment de Hohenlohe et la Révolution de 1830 à Marseille,” Vert et rouge, no. 105 (1956): 14-17.

  5. André Corvisier, “Le recrutement et la promotion dans l'armée française du XVII siècle à nos jours. Rapport sur les études faites par le groupe de travail”; Jean Vidalenc, “Une contre-épreuve de l'insoumission. Les engagements volontaires sous la monarchie constitutionnelle (1814-1848)”; Henri Dutailly, “Quelques aspects du recrutement de l'armée d'Afrique sous la Monarchie de Juillet,” Revue Internationale d'histoire militaire, no. 37 (fascicule 2) (1976): 31-2, 55-71, 73-5.

  6. SHAT, 5 March 1831, Xb 725.

  7. Colonel Paul Azan, L'armée d'Afrique, 1830 à 1852 (Paris: Plon, 1936), 124.

  8. SHAT, Xb 725, 5 March 1831.

  9. SHAT, Xb 725, 7 and 22 March 1831.

  10. SHAT, Xb 725, 16 July 1831.

  11. Porch, Army, 49.

  12. J. Vidalenc, Les demi-soldes (Paris: Librairie Marcel Rivière 1955).

  13. G. Bapst, Le Maréchal Canrobert. Souvenirs d'un siècle (Paris: Plon, 1909-13), Vol. I, 132.

  14. Porch, Army, 49.

  15. SHAT, Xb 725, 26 August 1831.

  16. SHAT, Xb 726, inspection report for 1833.

  17. SHAT, Xb 726, 30 June 1831.

 
; 18. SHAT, Xb 726, 29 August 1831.

  19. SHAT, Xb 726, 30 August 1831.

  20. SHAT, Xb 726, 31 March and 23 September 1831.

  21. Henry Dutailly, Les officiers servant à titre étranger, 9 mars 1831-31 décembre 1903 (mémoire de maîtrise, Aix-en-Provence, 1969), 16.

  22. SHAT, Xb 725, 22 August 1831. Until the major reforms of the post-1870 era, the Staff Corps formed a separate arm in the French army. Its officers were criticized for being excessively bureaucratic and out of touch with troop command, which they never exercised.

  23. SHAT, Xb 725, 22 August 1831.

  24. SHAT, Xb 725, 5 May 1831. An exception perhaps was Edouard-August Cou-sandier, cx-NCO in the Swiss regiments under the Restoration, who appears to have taken the post as paymaster at Langres on 12 March 1831. I thank Mr. Richard Mahaud for this information.

  25. SHAT, Xb 725, 20 March 1831.

  26. SHAT, Xb 725, 19 May 1831.

  27. SHAT, Xb 725, 11 July 1831.

  28. SHAT, Xb 725, 19 May 1831.

  29. SHAT, Xb 725, 26 August 1831.

  30. SHAT, Xb 725, 26 August 1831.

  31. SHAT, Xb 725. “Note sur quelques faits relatifs au commandement et à l'ad-ministration de la Légion étrangère.”

  32. SHAT, Xb 725, 19 May 1831.

  33. SHAT, Xb 725, 4 May 1831.

  34. SHAT, Xb 725, 4 June 1831.

  35. H. Dutailly, “Chronique de l'ancienne Légion,” Képi blanc, no. 278 (June 1970).

  36. SHAT, Xb 725, 20 November 1831.

  37. Louis Lamborelle, Cinq ans en Afrique: Souvenirs militaires d'un Beige au service de la France (Brussels: 1862), 11.

  38. Lamborelle, Cinq ans, 18.

  39. C.-A. Julien, Histoire de l'Algérie contemporaine: Conquête et colonisation (Paris: PUF, 1964), 86.

  40. Julien, Algérie, 80, 85.

  41. Azan, Armée d'Afrique, 49.

  42. Azan, Armée d'Afrique, 47.

  43. SHAT, Xb 726, 1834 inspection.

  44. SHAT, E4 45. Cited in J.-C. Jauffrey, L'idée d'une division de Légion étrangère et le premier régiment étranger de cavalerie, 1836-1940 (Montpellier: thèse pour le doctorat de 3e cycle, Université Paul Valéry, 1978), 31.

  45. H. Dutailly, “Le 6e bataillon de l'ancienne Légion étrangère (1831-1835) étaitil beige?” Revue militaire beige, XX-8 (December 1974): 692-3.

  46. SHAT, Xb 725, 1 December 1832.

  47. Azan, Armée d'Afrique, 80-1.

  48. Azan, Armée d'Afrique, 50.

  49. Paddy Griffith, Military Thought in the French Army, 1815-1851 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1989), 78-9, 128-9.

  50. SHAT, Xb 726, 1833 inspection.

  51. SHAT, Xb 726, 1 January 1834.

  52. Azan, Armée d'Afrique, 81; Grisot, General and Coulombon, La Légion étrangère de 1831-1887 (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1888), 10. I also thank Richard Mahaud for much of this information.

  53. Dutailly, “Chronique,” October, November, December 1970.

  54. Dutailly, “Chronique,” October 1970.

  55. Dutailly, “Chronique,” October 1970.

  56. Azan, Armée d'Afrique, 81.

  57. Julien, Algérie contemporaine, 89-92.

  58. Dutailly, “Chronique,” September 1970.

  59. Dutailly, “Chronique,” September 1970.

  60. “Chronique,” September 1970; Grisot and Coulombon, La Légion étrangère. Page 12 points out that the 66th Infantry Regiment also shared some of these undesirable posts with the Legion. However, the 66th, made up from the remnants of the ex-Royal Guards of the Bourbons, was sent to Algeria, via Ancona, as a punishment after it refused to oppose a November 1831 workers’ insurrection in Lyon. See Porch, Army and Revolution, 52, 54-5, 58-60.

  61. Dutailly, “Chronique,” September 1970; Grisot, Légion, 97. Dutailly notes the error of date in Grisot, and questions the assertion that the two dead légionnaires were Germans. One was named Pierre Masse, and the second was never positively identified because he had been decapitated by the Arabs on the previous day.

  62. Julien, Algérie contemporaine, 272.

  63. Grisot, Légion, 17.

  64. SHAT, Xb 725, 22 September, 1831.

  65. SHAT, Xb 726, 1 January 1834 inspection report.

  66. Bernelle and de Colleville, Histoire de l'ancienne Légion étrangère (Paris: E. Marc-Aurèle, 1850), 78.

  67. Bernelle and de Colleville, Histoire de l'ancienne Légion étrangère, 72-84; Grisot, La Légion étrangère, 20-25; Colonel Azan, “Les unités polonaises de la Légion,” Vert et rouge, no. 21 (1949), 18.

  68. Grisot, Légion, 32; Dutailly, “Chronique,” November 1970.

  69. SHAT, Xb 725.

  70. Grisot, Légion, 32, who dates the amalgamation from August 19, is out by two

  CHAPTER 2

  1. John F. Cloverdale, The Basque Phase of Spain's First Carlist War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 170-88, 196-202.

  2. J-C Jauffret, “M. Thiers, l'Espagne et la Légion étrangère, 1835-1837,” Revue historique des armées, no. 3 (1979, spécial): 145-72; J. P. T. Bury and R. P. Tombs, Thiers, 1797-1877. A Political Life (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 57-60.

  3. Jauffret, “Thiers,” 151.

  4. Paul Azan, Armée d'Afrique, 162.

  5. SHAT, Xb 776, 1835.

  6. SHAT, Xb 776, 1835; Grisot and Coulombon, La Légion étrangère de 1831 à 1887 26-8

  7. SHAT, Xb 776, 22 December 1838.

  8. Grisot, Légion, 29.

  9. Paul Azan, La Légion étrangère en Espagne, 1835-1839 (Paris: Charles-Lavauzelle, 1906), 407-11.

  10. SHAT, Xb 776, 26 December 1838.

  11. G. von Rosen, Bilder aus Spanien und der Fremdenlégion, Erster Band (Kiel: Bunsow, 1843), 48.

  12. SHAT, Xb 776, December 1838. Reproduced in Azan, Légion, 581-95. The assessment categories are my own.

  13. SHAT, Xb 725, 1834.

  14. H. Dutailly, “Le 6e bataillon de l'ancienne Légion étrangère,” 687-98.

  15. SHAT, fonds privés, 1K 256; Abel Galant, Précis historique de la Légion étrangère en Espagne (unpublished manuscript, no page numbers).

  16. Azan, Légion, 140, 142-3, 177, 649.

  17. Galant, Précis.

  18. Azan, Légion, 177.

  19. Galant, Précis.

  20. Azan, Légion, 141.

  21. Edward M. Spiers, Radical General: Sir George de Lacy Evans, 1787-1870 (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1983), 5, 69.

  22. Galant, Précis.

  23. Paul Azan, “La Légion étrangère en Espagne d'après les lettres du sous-lieutenant Jean-Jacques Azan, 1836-1838,” Garnet de la sabretache, no. 167 (November 1906): 648, 650 (henceforth “Lettres”).

  24. See Cloverdale, Chapter 10, for the ultimate fate of the Carlist movement.

  25. Azan, Légion, 166.

  26. Cloverdale, Carlist War, 188, 202-3.

  27. Spiers, Evans, 93, 96-7, 99-100.

  28. Azan, Légion, 223-4.

  29. J.-C. Jauffret, L'idée d'une division de Légion étrangère, 33.

  30. Azan, Légion, 224-6; F-H Bernelle, “Le général Joseph Bernelle,” Vert et rouge, mai–juin, juillet–août 1943: 10-14, 14-17.

  31. Azan, “Lettres,” 654.

  32. SHAT, Xb 776, Bernelle report 19 April 1836. Bernelle refers to the action being fought at Lescaros. However, Azan believes that the fight took place at “Leranos.” Azan, Légion, 431.

  33. SHAT, Xb 776, Bernelle report; Azan, Légion, 170-71.

  34. SHAT, E4 45, April 1836.

  35. Azan, Légion, 174.

  36. Azan, Légion, 179—81.

  37. Azan, Légion, 177-78.

  38. SHAT, E4 44 & 45, eighty-three deserters from August 1835 to April 1836.

  39. Von Rosen, Blinder ...,46.

  40. Azan, Légion, 256.

  41. Azan, Légion, 230-2.

  42. Mémoires de Madame Dosne, l'égérie de M. Thiers (Paris: Plon, 1928), Vol. 1, 131-32.
<
br />   43. Comte Pelet de la Lozère, “Souvenirs du roi Louis-Philippe,” Revue universe lie, LXII, no. 7 (1 July 1935): 6-29.

  44. SHAT, E4 44, 25 August 1836.

  45. Azan, Légion, 247-8.

  46. Azan, Légion, 251-2.

  47. Azan, Légion, 251.

  48. SHAT, E4 45, 26 December 1836.

  49. SHAT, E4 45.

  50. SHAT, E4 45, 3 January 1837.

  51. SHAT, E4 45, 9 February 1837.

  52. Azan, Légion, 288.

  53. For strength see SHAT, Xb 776, “Etat présentant l'éffectif de la Légion ... jusqu'au 30 juin 1837.”

  54. Quoted in Azan, Légion, 539.

  55. Azan, Légion, 621.

  56. Azan, Légion, 299.

  57. Azan, Légion, 622.

  58. Azan, Légion, 304. Galant, Précis, gives the number of casualties as four officers dead, eight wounded, and eighty legionnaires killed or missing.

  59. Azan, Légion, 633.

  60. Azan, Légion, 266.

  61. Azan, Légion, 274.

  62. Azan, Légion, 307.

  63. Galant, Précis.

  64. Wilhelm von Rahden, Wanderungen ernes alten Soldaten, vol. 3 (Berlin: 1851), 251. Quoted in Azan, Légion, 327.