Evening Star Newspaper, December 14, 1930, Page 102

' - - — pe—————— THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGT) undred Years for a Cent The Foreign Legion was first to welcome the American flag into the World War. Here it is, borne by a band of American cit- izens at Perignon Barracks, Toulouse, September 30, 1914. = 1% &~ By Capt. Paul A. Rockwell, Author of “American Fighters in the Fo reign Legion.™ VHE Foreign Legion, France's polyglot fighting corps wihose very name con- jures up pictures of exotic adventure, romantic danger and heart-breaking lardship wherever it is heard or read the worid over, is preparing to celzbrate its 100th birihday on March 8, 1931. Much has been written and told about the Foreign Legion, most of it exaggerated or false; deserters’ tales, wildly colored in attempt to account for quitting the corps dishonorably, or the vivid imaginings of fiction writers, for whom the legion has long served as a background for impossible happenings. The real story of the Foreign Legion is fascinating enough in its plain truth. France has had foreign soldiers in its service since it first began to be a nation. History records the Scotch, Irish and Polish Guards, the Lansquenets, the Swiss Guards who so nobly defendzd the kings of France, and who made their last stand attempting to save Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette from the revolutionary mobs, the varigus foreign regiments formed by Napoleon the Great, the Hohenlohe Regiment among others which have served France with a devotion and loyalty far above ordinary mer- cenary troops. Looking over some old records recently I read that up to 1830, 600,000 Irishmen alone had fallen wearing the uniform of France. As it exists today, however, the Foreign Legion was organized by a law of March 9, 1831, followed by a royal ordinance of King Louis- Philippe on March 10, Paual A. Rockwell, author of this article, :iorved in the French aviation against ‘bd-cl-Krim and saw the Legion in ni2y actions. Paris was swarming at the time with Polish refugees who had fled their native land after revolutionary activities there, and it was pri- marily to provide an outlet for their restless energies and keep them from stirring up trouble in France, just recovering from the upheaval that had placed Louis-Philippe on the throne, that the king formed the new corps. Algiers had just been occupied and the con- quest of Algeria was beginning, so it was de- creed that the Foreign Legion should be used only for service outside France. Companies of the legion took part in all the campaigns in Algeria, conquering, coloniz- Photo by Paul A. Rockwell. URING the struggies in Spain from 1835 to 1839 between Queen Isabella II and the Carlists the legion was loaned to the queen by a treaty of January 28, 1835, between France, England, Portugal and Spain, and rendered valiant service to her cause. The outbreak of the Crimean War ‘m 1854 again called the legion from its cradle, Algeria, and its reputation was sti}} further glorified. At Sebastopol and at Inkermann the legion gave such distinguished service that by way of a general recognition the Emperor Napoleon III issued a naturalization en masse to all its offie cers and men who served in the battles. In Italy in 1859 at the battles of Magenta and Solferino the legion won decorations and promotions galore. The next campaign of the Legion is of more interest to Americans than those first enumere ated, for it took place in Mexico during the ill-fated attempt of Maximilian to establish & ‘ P Leaving the past behind, recruits for the Foreign Legion embarking for active service in North Africa. Even his name may be forgotten if the soldier wishes, ing and building up the provinces as they were forced one by one under the banner of France. ‘This early page of the legion’s history is full of such accounts as that of the heroic defense of the Marabout of Sidi-Mohammed, where 27 legionnaires and their lieutenant struggled against 1,000 Arabs. The siege of Milianah was another exploit typical of the legion. Shut up in the town, 750 legionnaires opposed an entire army of Arabs and held them back for four months until relief arrived. When the siege was finally raised 208 men, all of them sick or wounded, greeted the rescuers. After the northern provinces of Algeria were subdued and peaceful the legion formed the advance guard for French penetration south- ward. Everywhere after the work of conquest was complete the legionnaires laid down their arms and turned pioneers. They worked even harder in the colonization than in the conquest, building roads and cities almost as if by magic. ‘They were by turns farmers, engineers, archi- tects, whatever the occasion demanded that they be. Their work in Algeria may justly be eompared with that of Caesar's Legions, French empire in the New World. If the United States had not been so torn and dis- rupted itself during the early sixties, such names as Cajacca, Santa Ysabel and Camerone might not ring so unfamiliarly in American ears, Camerone especially rves to be rescued from oblivion. For unflagging courage in a desperate struggle against overwhelming odds, this fight should stand in the front ranks in annals of American warfare, alongside such bat- tles as the Alamo and Custer’s Last Stand. Sixty-two Legionnaires with three officers en route to meet two convoys coming from Vera Cruz were surprised in open plain by a troop of Mexicans over 2,000 in number at dawn on April 30, 1863. Forming a square, the Legion- naires fought their way through the assailing hordes to an isolated adobe house near the village of Camerone and barricaded themselves in one of its two rooms, the other being occu- pied by the enemy. That the Mexicans might be delayed as long as possible from marching on the unsuspecting convoys, the Legionnaires took a deliberate oath to defend themselves unto death, and actually allowed themselves to be killed one by one, taking a large toll of Mexicans for each legion= The Famed Militar Organized a Cent Philippe, Has Be pointed Men of Al and the Real Hist More Stirring 1 Built Around It Imaginings of Fic Home post of the 1st Regiment of t neatly policed grou naire who fell. The enemy. loath to kill such brave men, several times called on them to surrender, but each time the proposal was refused. The outbuildings around the courtyard of the house were set afire late in the afternoon, and the flames and smoke drove the few surviving defenders out into the open. All of them {fell during a bitter bayonet charge; 19 were picked up badly wounded, and the following day a regiment of French soldiers arrived and buried the dead. The name of Camérone was carved in letters of gold on the walls of the Hotel de§ Invalides, in Paris, and inscribed on the flag of the Legion. To this_day, the anniversary of the struggle is observed Appropriately in the Legion. The Legion’s first service on the soil of France was during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, when it received into its ranks hundreds of foreign volunteers, among them an American, Pierre Chouteau of St. Louis, Mo., whose nephew, Charles Chouteau Johnson, also of St. Louis, was to enlist in the Legion in 1915, and become one of the early members of the Escagrille Lafayette. The Legion did brilliant work first with the Army of the Loire, then with the Army of the East, and finally was used to wrest Paris from-the Commune, in 1871. Sent back to France's foreign possessions, the Legion fought with its traditional courage and brilliancy in the Sudan, Tonkin, Dahomey, Madagascar and French Indo-China. APIER finishing its subduing and constructive work in Madagascar, the Legion had been sent back to Northern Africa in 1895, when in, 1896 the situation in Madagascar again became critical. The French government asked Gen. Gallieni, commander of the island, what as- sistance he needed to assure French dominion. He replied that the troops already with him seemed sufficient to him, but that he would like to have “600 men of the Foreign Legion, to show the others in the last extremity how to die decently.” When the conquest of Morocco began in 1907, the Foreign Legion was in the front ranks among the occupation troops. It led the van- guard in the ceaseless campaigns against the Moors and wild Berber tribes of what Marshal Lyautey has termed “France's Wild West.” How many thousands of Legionnaires died in the ceaseless warfare that finally won Morocco for France has not been told, but the Legion was stronger than ever in August, 1914, when the war clouds broke over Europe.~ Some 16,000 men were serving in its ranks, most of them in Morocco, but a goodly number of battalions scattered about Algeria and in Tonkin. Under the regulations which had been in foree since 1831, these Legionnaires were enlisted for five years, drawing a pay of 1 cent a day, and were divided into two regiments. War had not even been declared between