French Foreign Legion
Page 106
41. Rockwell, American Fighters, 54.
42. Albert Erlande, En campagne avec la Légion étrangère (Paris: Payot, 1917), 67–8.
43. King, “L.M. 8046,” 60–3.
44. Seeger, Letters and Diary, 153.
45. Szajkowski, Jews, 28.
46. Jean Reybaz, Le 1er Mystérieux. Souvenirs de guerre d'un légionnaire suisse (Paris: André Barry, 1932), 16–17.
47. M.M., Memoirs, 171.
48. King, “L.M. 8046,” 17.
49. Rockwell, Americans, 240.
50. Cendrars, La main coupée, 154.
51. M.M., Memoirs, 198. In the preface to “M.M.'s” memoirs, D. H. Lawrence, who knew Magnus well, cautions against the tone of righteous indignation that permeates the book. Magnus, whose mother was believed to have been an illegitimate daughter of the Kaiser, was an impecunious, high-class social parasite. “The Legionaries must have been gentlemen, that they didn't kick him every day to the lavatory and back,” he writes on page 78.
52. Kosta Todorov, Balkan Firebrand (Chicago and New York: Ziff Davis, 1943), 50.
53. SHAT, 26N 861, 3e régiment de marche du 1e régiment étranger, 6 September 1914.
54. Cendrars, La main coupée, 154.
55. Cendrars, La main coupée, 154–5.
56. Cendrars, La main coupée, 73, 98–9, 138–9, 153–4.
57. Farnsworth, Letters, 102–3, 139, 206.
58. Farnsworth, Letters, 206–7.
59. Seeger, Letters and Diary, 131, 154.
60. Szajkowski, Jews, 34–5.
61. SHAT, 7N 1287.
62. Szajkowski, Jews, 33.
63. Guy Pedroncini, Les mutineries de 1917 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967), 20–26.
64. Russell A. Kelly, Kelly of The Foreign Legion: Letters of Légionnaire Russell A. Kelly (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1917), 46.
65. Max Niclot, “Le 4 aoÛt dans le bled marocain,” Almanach du Combattant, XXXVe année (1964), 61–2.
66. Joseph Galliéni, Mémoires du Maréchal Galliéni: Défense de Paris, 25 aoÛt-11 septembre 1914 (Paris: Payot, 1926), 175–76.
67. Marabini, Les Garibaldiens de l'Argonne, 141–8.
CHAPTER 17
1. M.M., Memoirs, 240–4, 250.
2. Cendrars, La main coupée, 198–9.
3. Russell Kelly, Letters, 26.
4. M.M., Memoirs, 168.
5. Rockwell, Americans, 213.
6. Cendrars, La main coupée, 156.
7. Rockwell, Americans, 283.
8. Rockwell, Americans, 141.
9. King, “L.M. 8046,” 30.
10. Rockwell, Americans, 29, 39.
11. Cendrars, La main coupée, 80–87.
12. Seeger, Letters and Diary, 29.
13. Cendrars, La main coupée, 198–9.
14. Seeger, Letters and Diary, 72.
15. Rockwell, Americans, 47–9.
16. Seeger, Letters and Diary, 69.
17. Seeger, Letters and Diary, 98–100.
18. See in this context Tony Ashworth, Trench Warfare, 1914–1918: The Live and Let Live System (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1980).
19. Cendrars, La main coupée, 182–4.
20. Cendrars, La main coupée, 312–14.
21. Seeger, Letters and Diary, 5–6.
22. For descriptions of the May 9 offensive, see Légion étrangère, January-February 1939,14–17; Historique du régiment de marche, 50–2; SHAT, 26N 861, Journal de marche du 2e régiment de marche du 1er étranger.
23. SHAT, 19 N 1567.
24. SHAT, 26 N 861, Journal de marche du 2e régiment de marche du 1er étranger, 10 May 1915.
25. SHAT, 6N 861, “Attaque du 9 mai 1915 par le 2e régiment de marche du 1er étranger”
26. SHAT, 6N 861, “Attaque.”
27. Most of these suggestions are gleaned from testimony provided by Rockwell, Americans, 80–91.
28. Reybaz, Le 1er mystérieux, 76.
29. Rockwell, Americans, 83.
30. Lebedev, Souvenirs, 80–5.
31. Historique, 49.
32. Rockwell, Americans, 84.
33. SHAT, 2e régiment de marche, 19 June 1915.
34. Alphonse Marolf, Gustave Marolf: Capitaine mitrailleur au 1er étranger, 1884–1916. Léttres, récits, souvenirs (Geneva: Imprimerie Centrale, 1943), 80–81.
35. Les armées françaises dans la grande guerre (Paris: Service Historique de I'Etat Major de I'Armée, Ministère de la Guerre, 1923), tome VIII, 1er volume, 29–30, 104–5.
36. SHAT, 26N 861, 2e régiment de marche, 21 June 1915.
37. SHAT, 26N 861, 2e régiment de marche, 1 July 1915.
38. Szajkowski, Jews, 31; Rockwell, Americans, 102; Leon Poliakov, Histoire de l'Antisemitisme. L'Europe suicidaire, 1870–1933. (Paris: Calmann-Lévy 1977), 294. Poliakov says that seven Jews were executed and that they died shouting, “Vive la France! Vive i'Armée! A bas [down with] la Légion!”
39. Sholem Szwartzbard, In krig mit zikh aleyn (Chicago: 1933), 87–93; Szajkowski, Jews, 31.
40. Szajkowski, Jews, 31–2.
41. Le Crapouillot, August 1934, 49: 216 in 1914, 315 in 1916 and 136 in 1918, for a total of 1,637 men.
42. Leonard V. Smith, “The Evolution of Military Justice, September 1914-April 1917: The Case of the Fifth Infantry Division.” Unpublished paper delivered at the 1988 meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies, 10 (forthcoming in the Journal of Military History).
43. Rockwell, Americans, 102.
44. Historique, 42.
45. Cendrars, La main coupée, 61.
46. Cendrars, La main coupée, 153–4.
47. Cendrars, La main coupée, 60.
48. Edward Morlae, A Soldier of the Legion (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), 46.
49. Seeger, Diary and Letters, 16.
50. Morlae, A Soldier, 91.
51. Morlae, A Soldier, 51–4.
52. Erulin, Les nationalités, 2/F.
53. Cendrars, La main coupée, 214–15.
CHAPTER 18
1. Seeger, Letters and Diary, 152, 154, 173.
2. Farnsworth, Letters, 176, 193–4, 200; Seeger, Letters, 213.
3. Reybaz, Le 1er mystérieux, 29.
4. Rockwell, Americans, 212.
5. Rockwell, Americans, 283.
6. Cendrars, La main coupée, 120.
7. Cendrars, La main coupée, 151.
8. Cendrars, La main coupée, 157–9.
9. Historique, 43.
10. Pedroncini, Les mutineries, 310–11.
11. Leonard V. Smith, Command Authority in the French Army: The Case of the 5e Division d'Infanterie (New York: Ph.D dissertation, Columbia University, 1989).
12. SHAT, 26N 861, journal de marche, 2e Régiment de marche du 2e étranger.
13. SHAT, 26N 861, journal de marche du 2e Régiment de marche du 1er étranger.
14. Seeger, Letters, 214–15.
15. SHAT, 2N 862. Losses reported by the brigade were 741 casualties among the troops and twenty-two officers.
16. SHAT, 24N 2912; RMLE, 23 April 1917, 12.
17. SHAT, 24N 2912, letter of 2 May 1917.
18. “La bataille des Monts,” Légion étrangère, no. 7 (1938), 10–14.
19. Pedroncini, Les mutineries, does not list the Legion as one of the regiments touched by these mutinies, which affected about one-third of French units.
20. Jean-Pierre Dorian, Le colonel Maire: Un héros de la Légion (Paris: Albin Michel, 1939), 137–42.
21. Dorian, Le colonel Maire, 136–7.
22. Cooper, Twelve Years in the Foreign Legion, 236.
23. Doty, Legion of the Damned, 28.
24. Cooper, Twelve Years, 238.
25. Ehrhart, Mes treize années, Chapter VII.
26. For the disaster of Khenifra in December 1914, see Porch, The Conquest of Morocco, 284–8.
27. Rockwell, Americans, 238–42.
28. M.M., Memoirs, 153.
29. M.M., Memoirs, 150–1.
30. Ehrhart, Mes treize années, Chapter VII.
31. M.M., Memoirs, 155.
32. SHAT, 7N2119.
33. SHAT, 3H 93.
34. SHAT, 5N 213.
35. SHAT, 3H, 93.
36. ALE, Rollet papers, report of 26 July 1918.
37. Julian Green, Memoirs of Happy Days (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1942), 182–3.
38. See ALE, file on Cole Porter. The author also knew a man in his home town who joined the French artillery in 1918, presumably also passing through the Legion.
39. SHAT, 7N 1287.
40. ALE, Rollet report.
41. SHAT, 3H 93, 29 August 1918.
42. Rollet papers, ALE, no date but summer 1918.
43. Rollet papers, ALE, 28 July 1918 report.
44. Rockwell, Americans, 331, provides figures for nationalities.
45. Szajkowski, Jews, 53.
46. See papers in ALE. Also, “A nous la Légion! Ou quand nous allions au secours de l'Amérique,” Képi blanc (August 1967), 38–45.
47. ALE, Rollet papers, 26 July 1918 report.
48. Erulin, Les nationalités, 2/F.
49. RMLE, journal de marche, ALE R12.
50. RMLE, journal de marche, ALE R12.
51. “Observations sur les attaques du 18 au 20 juillet 1918” and “Liaison infanterie—artillerie,” Rollet papers, ALE.
52. SHAT, 26N 862, Journal de marche et operations. Régiment de marche de la Légion étrangère,” 14 September 1918. The Livre d”Or lists fifteen officers and 1,158 legionnaires wounded, 188.
53. Doty, La légion des damnés (Paris: Librairie Stock, nd), 46–7. Walter Kanitz writes that, “This is a good description of the part the Legion played in both the great wars: A sort of sacrificial corps, ever at the worst place!” The White Kepi. A Casual History of the French Foreign Legion (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1956), 94.
54. Charles Mercer, The Foreign Legion. The Vivid History of a Unique Military Tradition (London: Arthur Barker Limited, 1964), 228. See also Szajkowski, Jews, 27; Geraghty, March or Die, 150.
55. Arthur Banks, A Military Atlas of the First World War (London: Heinemann, nd), 144.
56. Percentage based on figures taken from the journal de marche, SHAT, 26N 862, which gives two different sets of figures, but ones that are close enough for a general observation.
57. Jean Brunon et al, Le livre d'or de la Légion étrangère, 1831–1981 (Paris: Charles-Lavauzelle, 1981), 389.
58. Historique, 163.
59. Historique, 164.
CHAPTER 19
1. ALE, “La pacification du ‘Maroc utile,’” Rollet papers, n/d.
2. General Mordacq, Le ministère Clémenceau. Journal d'un témoin (Paris: Plon, 1931), vol. III, 328.
3. SHAT, 3H 95, letters of 4 November 1919 and 4 November (year illegible).
4. General Cottez wrote in August 1920 that, “The work to be accomplished in Morocco reposes essentially upon the use of the native regiments and the Foreign Legion.” SHAT, 3H 95, 16 August 1920.
5. In 1923, for instance, the Legion counted 13,469 men, not excessive growth considering that it counted three new regiments. Indeed, Rollet complained in an undated memo written in the early 1920s that the Legion did not have enough men to fill their new units (SHAT, 9N 123, “Situation des effectifs présents à la Légion étrangère de 1919 à 1939”). In fact, the official organization of 10 January 1921, which established four infantry regiments each consisting of five battalions of 500 men and two mounted companies of 250 men each, plus an administrative and training center at Sidi-bel-Abbès through which all recruits and even all Legion officers would pass before assignment to a field unit, required an effective of 18,000 men for the infantry alone (Commandant Lambert, La Légion étrangère, [Paris: Charles-Lavauzelle, 1923]), 102–103.
6. ALE, Rollet papers, “La Légion,” nd.
7. ALE, “1er régiment étranger. Rapport sur l'état d'esprit,” 16 December 1920.
8. ALE, Rollet papers, reply of Major Riet, 4 March 1920.
9. SHAT, 3H 697, 27 December 1920.
10. SHAT, 34N 310, Historique du régiment de 1911 à 1934.
11. Jacques Lauzière, “La nouvelle Légion étrangère,” Le Mercure de France, no. 619 (35e année, 1 April 1924), 56–78.
12. SHAT, 3H 697, 24 January 1923, Major Poimeur of the 3e étranger. “Numbers would not suffer,” he wrote. “Those legionnaires worthy of the name would remain after their three years. The others would not be missed. Their departure would be that of the malcontents, the worthless, pillars of the prison or of the hospital, who weigh down our strength, undermine the moral health of the troops and their efficiency.” Unfortunately, it was precisely the “pillars of the prison and the hospital” who often chose to remain, because the Legion guaranteed them a quality of life unmatched on the outside.
13. Cooper, Twelve Years, 72, 91.
14. Even Major Pechkoff, the son of writer Maxim Gorky who had joined the Legion during World War I and who subsequently became one of its most distinguished officers, admitted that his countrymen made poor NCOs, “because the Russian hesitates and, even when he tries, does not have the authority over his men.... He hesitates when he commands. He is not firm and sure of himself at all.” Zinovi Pechkoff, La Légion étrangère au Maroc 1913–1915 (Paris: Marcelle Lesage, 1929), 25.
15. Weygand, Légionnaire, 218–19.
16. Erulin, Les nationalités, section 6, “Les russes.”
17. ALE, Rollet papers, undated memorandum, “La Légion.”
18. In 1924, Rollet admitted that this was still the case: “The French contingent has an average moral value inferior to that of the foreign contingent,” he wrote. “With few exceptions, the following serve à titre français: 1. A small number are foreigners naturalized Frenchmen. 2. NCOs assigned exceptionally to the Legion [by virtue of a March 1921 decree which allowed NCOs to transfer to the Legion for one year]. 3. Men who have not satisfied their military obligations and who are, either absentees, or the very young who have enlisted to escape their families or justice.” SHAT, 3H 697, 22 September 1924.
19. SHAT, 3H 697, 2 August 1924. The Pahl (or Pal) affair is a reference to the attempted desertion en masse of fifty German legionnaires in 1908 in the Sud Oranais.
20. Figures based upon numbers provided in SHAT 9N 123, “Repartition des légionnaires par grades et origines nationales pour années 1934 et 1939.”
21. ALE, 7 March 1934, 6–7.
22. Brian Stuart, Adventure in Algeria (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1936), 31.
23. Ferri-Pisani, Avec ceux de la légion (Paris: Editions de France, 1932), 8–11.
24. ALE, “Rapport du Colonel Conte, Commandant le 4e Régiment Etranger d'Infanterie sur l'état d'esprit du Régiment,” 2 December 1933. A 1934 report noted that, since the war, the Legion had recruited between four and seven thousand men each year. “But, if one examines the conditions in which this recruitment was carried out, one realizes that we limited ourselves to opening the doors of the recruiting bureaus more or less widely depending on the circumstances, the needs or the possibilities,” it read. “It does not appear that we profited from this considerable influx of candidates to carry out a judicious selection of recruits.” ALE, 7 March 1934, 6–7.
25. Stuart, Adventures in Algeria, 63–4.
26. Stuart, Adventures in Algeria, 43–50.
27. G.-R. Manue, Têtes brÛlées. Cinq ans de Légion (Paris: La nouvelle sociéte d'édition, 1929), 61, 100, 206, 208, 242.
28. Stuart, Adventures in Algeria, 70–1.
29. Manue, Têtes brÛlées, 205.
30. Manue, Têtes brÛlées, 61.
31. SHAT, 3H 697, 22 September 1924.
32. SHAT, 3H 697, September 1924.
33. ALE, “Rapport sur l'état d'esprit,” 31 May 1924.
34. ALE, Rollet papers, undated memorandum, “La Légion.”
35. Rollers early complaints about Bel-Abbes were ironic, for when he became commander of the 1e
r étranger in 1925, he reported that he was unable to retain good officers at Sidi-bel-Abbès, which “must remain the cradle where one shapes up, acquires a taste for this element, for its particular lifestyle, for its command in wartime,” because of the potent attraction for officers of combat pay in Morocco. SHAT, 3H 697, “Rapport du Colonel Rollet... au sujet de la suppression de Vindemniti de fonctions pour les cadres de la Légion étrangère en service en Algérie,” 1926.
36. SHAT, 3H 697, Martin report, 23 March 1923.
37. SHAT, 3H 697.
38. SHAT, 3H 697, September 1924.
39. SHAT, 3H 697, 1 June 1924.
40. SHAT, 3H 697, “Rapport de Colonel Rollet ... au sujet du stage des officiers ...” 1926.
41. André Beaufre, 1940. The Fall of France (New York: Knopf, 1968), 19.
42. 3H 697, 24 January 1923.
43. SHAT, 3H 697, 23 March 1923.
44. Jauffret, L'idée d'une division, 64–81.
45. SHAT, 3H 697, July 1920 letter, and 15 July 1920.
46. ALE, Rollet papers, undated memorandum, “La Légion.”
47. 3H 697, 22 July 1920.
48. Jauffret, L'idée d'une division, 86.
49. Albert Bartels, Fighting the French in Morocco (London: Alston Rivers, 1932).
50. SHAT, 3H 95, 12 February 1921.
51. Weygand, Légionnaire, 235. Although ostensibly a novel, Weygand's book is closely autobiographical.
52. SHAT, 3H 259, 23 February 1920.
53. SHAT, 3H 697, “Questions relatives à la Légion étrangère.”
54. SHAT, 3H 95, 12 February 1921.
55. SHAT, 3H 95, 13 February 1921.
56. SHAT, 3H 95, 3 September 1923.
57. Manue, Têtes brÛlées, 163.
58. Maire, Nouveaux souvenirs sur la Légion étrangère, 55–6.
59. SHAT, 3H 95, 13 February 1921.
60. SHAT, 3H 95, 13 February 1921.
61. SHAT, 3H 95.
62. “If the légionnaire at present has the defects of his predecessors,” the 1er étranger reported in March 1921, “he differs from them by the passionate interest he brings to contemporary events. One must at all costs prevent him from being influenced by the political action of agitators sent from abroad.... Domestic politics do not interest the legionnaire. On the other hand, he follows closely foreign events. The advance of the Allies on the right bank of the Rhine impressed the Germans. Some among them believed that this would bring on a new war.” ALE, “Rapport sur l'état d'espirt,” 1er étranger, March 1921.