In the article "Dogs of War" of the French Foreign Legion "we talked about the history of the emergence of this military unit, its combat path. We ended the story with an indication of the beginning of World War I. Now it's time to find out the continuation of this story.
Foreign Legion during the First World War
At the outbreak of World War I, the troops of the Foreign Legion were divided into two parts. Soldiers of German origin (and there were many of them) remained in Algeria. Among them could be the German writer and philosopher Ernst Jünger, who at the beginning of the 20th century ran away from home to enlist in the legion, but returned home in exchange for a promise to travel to Kilimanjaro and eventually fought as part of the German army.
All other legionnaires (soldiers of other nationalities) were transferred to Europe.
At the same time, well-known emigrants living in France called on their compatriots to join the French army ("Call of Canudo", named after the first Italian writer to take this initiative; Riccioto Canudo himself also went to the front, was wounded and awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor) …
Kanudo's appeal was heard: 42883 volunteers of 52 nationalities responded to the call, more than six thousand of whom died in the fighting. As you probably already guessed, they all ended up in the Foreign Legion. Only citizens of this country could apply for service in other formations of the French army.
Among the new volunteers of the legion was the American poet Alan Seeger, whose poem "Rendezvous with Death" was often quoted by John F. Kennedy:
With death I am on rendezvous
Here, on a wounded hill …
The spring day has already passed
In the night burning town -
And faithful to duty I go
For the last time at a rendezvous.
He died in one of the battles in France on July 4, 1916.
As part of the First Regiment of the Foreign Legion, the poet Blaise Sandrard (Frederic-Louis Sauze), who lost his right arm, and François Faber, the Luxembourgian cyclist, winner of the 1909 Tour de France race (rose to the rank of corporal, died 9 May 1915).
Guillaume Apollinaire, who was arrested in September 1911 on suspicion of complicity in the theft of the La Gioconda from the Louvre, also appeared in the First World War. He received French citizenship on March 10, 1916, and on March 17 was wounded by a shell fragment in the head, after which he was demobilized.
He served in the army and Henri Barbusse, but, as a citizen of France, in an ordinary regiment.
Among other celebrities who fought in the Foreign Legion during World War I, mention should be made of Louis Honore Charles Grimaldi, who began serving in Algeria in 1898, retired in 1908, but returned to service and rose to the rank of brigadier general. In 1922 he became Prince of Monaco, ascending the throne under the name of Louis II.
About the Moroccan division (its motto: "Without fear and pity!"), Which included the formations of the Foreign Legion (as well as zouaves, tyrallers and squadrons of spahi), Henri Barbusse wrote in the novel "Fire":
"In difficult days, the Moroccan division was always sent forward."
The Moroccan division entered the battle on August 28, 1914. The first battle of the Marne was the first big battle of the legionnaires in that war, some of his units were taken to the front line in Parisian taxis. At the positions at Mandemann (Mondement-Montgivroux) the losses of the legion amounted to half of the personnel.
In May 1915, the legionnaires took part in the Second Battle of Artois, in September they fought in Champagne. At the same time, legionary units fought in Gallipoli during the Allied Dardanelles operation.
In July 1916, the legionnaires suffered heavy losses in the Battle of the Somme, where, by the way, aviation was widely used (500 Allied aircraft against 300 German aircraft) and tanks first appeared on the battlefield.
In April 1917, the legionnaires of the Moroccan brigade took part in the so-called Nivelle offensive ("Nivelles meat grinder"), in which French tanks unsuccessfully "debuted": out of 128 vehicles that went into the attack on April 16, only 10 returned.
On August 20, 1917, during the battle of Verdun, the Moroccan division was again thrown into battle as the last reserve: after two days of fighting, it managed to push back the advancing German units. The losses of the "Moroccans" accounted for up to 60% of the personnel.
In June 1925, this memorial sign was installed in the town of Givenchy-en-Goel:
In 1917, Raoul Salan, the future holder of 36 military orders and medals, one of the most famous generals of the French army, ended up serving in the Foreign Legion. For attempting to organize a military coup, he will be sentenced in absentia by the de Gaulle government to death in 1961 and to life imprisonment in 1962, amnestied in 1968 and buried with military honors in June 1984. In the next articles of the cycle, we will constantly remember him.
At the beginning of 1918, the so-called "Russian Legion of Honor" was also included in the Moroccan division, in which the future Marshal of the Soviet Union R. Ya. Malinovsky served (this was described in the article "The most successful Russian" legionnaire ". Rodion Malinovsky") …
In August of the same year (1918), one of the companies of the French Foreign Legion ended up in Arkhangelsk as part of the Entente occupation forces. On its basis, a battalion was created (three infantry companies and one machine-gun company, 17 officers and 325 privates and sergeants), 75% of whose servicemen were Russians. On October 14, 1919, this battalion was evacuated from Arkhangelsk. Some of the Russian legionnaires moved to the White Guard detachments, others were transferred to the First Foreign Regiment, and then to the First Cavalry (armored cavalry) regiment.
At the same time, the French in Arkhangelsk created a Polish battalion of the Foreign Legion, numbering about 300 people.
Interbellum. Combat actions of units of the Foreign Legion in the interwar period
The period between the two world wars can be called peaceful only in quotation marks. From 1920 to 1935, France fought a war in Morocco, expanding its territory in that country.
Many learned about this war only from the film "Legionnaire", filmed in the United States in 1998. The protagonist of this picture, professional boxer Alain Lefebvre, without losing the "bought" battle, was forced to hide from the bosses of the Marseille mafia in the Foreign Legion - and ended up in Morocco, in the Reef War (which was briefly described in the article "Zouaves. New and Unusual military units of France ").
Another film about the Reef War, Legionnaires (Go Forward or Die), was filmed in Britain in 1977 by the American director Dick Richards, known in Russia mainly as the producer of the film Tootsie (second place in the top-5 comedies with dressing men into women).
In this film, Richards, in my opinion, still a little nostalgic about the "burden of a white man" and the lost opportunity "day and night, day and night" to walk in Africa. According to the plot, a veteran of hostilities in Morocco and World War I, Major William Foster (American), at the head of a detachment of legionnaires, was sent to the vicinity of the city of Erfoud, but not to fight, but practically with a humanitarian mission - to protect a group of French archaeologists from the "bloodthirsty Berbers". The goal of the expedition is to find a 3-thousand-year-old tomb of the "Angel of the Desert" - a local saint, and "evacuate to the Louvre" a golden sarcophagus and other valuables (practically "Tomb Raider" Lara Croft in a white cap). Foster also turns out to be an old acquaintance of the rebel leader Abd al-Krim (he was also described in the above-mentioned article "Zouaves. New and unusual military units of France"). Earlier, he promised Abd-al-Krim not to touch the tomb, but this time when meeting with him he says: they say, we will dig a little here, rob the grave and go back, do not pay attention. But Abd al-Krim al-Khattabi for some reason did not like this proposal.
In addition to Foster's detachment, there are only three decent people: "Russian Ivan" (a former guard of the royal family), a sophisticated French musician and somehow a young man from an English aristocratic family who got into the legion. The rest are almost entirely criminals and German prisoners of war. Service in the legion is shown in the film without a romantic flair: grueling training, clashes with the Berbers, the suicide of a musician who could not stand the strain, the kidnapping of an aristocrat whose body was found with traces of torture, the death of Ivan and Foster in battle.
Stills from the film "Legionnaires":
In one of the two versions of the film's finale, the last surviving hero (a former jewel thief) tells the legion's recruits:
“Some of you will want to quit. Others will try to escape. Not a single person with me has ever succeeded. If the desert doesn't hit you, the Arabs will. If the Arabs don't finish you, the Legion will. If the Legion doesn't finish you, I will. And I don't know which is worse."
But in the American film "Morocco" (1930), life in this French colony is shown much more "beautiful", and a cute legionnaire (played by Gary Cooper) easily takes off a pop singer (Marlene Dietrich) from some rich, but not romantic "civilian".
The Danish Prince Oge, Count of Rosenborg, took part in the Rif War, who, with the permission of the King of Denmark, entered the Foreign Legion with the rank of captain in 1922. He was then wounded in the leg, received the "Military Cross of Foreign Theaters of War", and then the Order of the Legion of Honor. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and died of pleurisy in the Moroccan city of Taza on September 19, 1940.
Fighting in Syria
From 1925 to 1927 The foreign legion also fought in Syria, where he had to participate in suppressing the uprisings of the Druze tribes.
Syria and Lebanon, which were previously part of the Ottoman Empire, were received by the French following the results of World War I. One can get an idea of their attitude towards the new colony according to the officials of the French Republic. Prime Minister Georges Leguy declared in 1920:
"We came to Syria forever."
And General Henri Joseph Gouraud (served in the colonial troops since 1894 - in Mali, Chad, Mauritania and Morocco, during World War I commanded the colonial corps and the French corps in the Dardanelles), visiting the Al-Ayubi ("Honor of Faith") mosque in Damascus, said:
"We are still back, Saladin"!
Thus, the French considered themselves quite seriously as the heirs of the Crusaders.
The Druze lived in the south and southeast of Syria - in a province that the French called Jebel Druz. Having failed to obtain concessions from the colonial authorities, on July 16, 1925, they killed 200 French soldiers at Al-Qarya. Then, on August 3, they defeated the already quite serious three thousandth corps, which included artillery units and several Reno FT tanks. In the fight against French tanks, the Druze used a bold and innovative method: they jumped on the armor and pulled the crew out - so they managed to capture 5 tanks.
Other Syrians, convinced that they could successfully fight the French, also did not stand aside: even the suburb of Damascus, Guta, rebelled. In Damascus, battles began, in which the French used artillery and aircraft. As a result, they still had to leave the almost destroyed city. In September, near Sueida, a large military detachment of General Gamelin (the future commander-in-chief of the French army in the short-term campaign of 1940) was surrounded, almost blocked; on October 4, an uprising began in Hama.
The French achieved their first successes only in 1926, when they brought the number of their army grouping to 100 thousand people. The basis of these troops were units of the Foreign Legion and tyrallers (including Senegalese).
The First Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Legion and the Circassian "Light Squadrons of the Levant" played an important role in suppressing this uprising - these formations were described in the article "Russian Volunteers of the French Foreign Legion".
The Cossack poet Nikolai Turoverov, who became a legionnaire, dedicated one of his poems to the events in Syria; it was quoted in the above article (“We don’t care in which country to sweep away the popular uprising”).
In Syria, the aforementioned Raoul Salan also fought, who returned to the legion after studying in Saint-Cyr.
Foreign Legion on the Western Front during World War II
The generation of Frenchmen who entered the war with Germany in 1940 were already too different from their fathers who defeated Germany in the Great War at the beginning of this century. The heroes died at the Marne, near Verdun and the Somme. The new French preferred to surrender and did not particularly suffer in the German "European Union" - not in the part of France occupied by the Germans, and even more so in the territory controlled by the government of the resort town of Vichy.
France surrendered so quickly that the five regiments of the Foreign Legion, which ended up on the Western Front, did not have time to really prove themselves.
Divided Legion
The first foreign armored cavalry regiment, which became part of Divisional Intelligence Detachment 97, was returned to Africa after the Compiegne Armistice, where its soldiers were sent to the reserve. This regiment was re-formed only in 1943 - already as a combat unit of the Free French.
Other parts of the legion were completely divided into two parts, one of which was subordinate to the Vichy government, the other, smaller - to de Gaulle's "Free France". In the already mentioned 13th semi-brigade (see the article "Russian Volunteers of the French Foreign Legion"), evacuated from Dunkirk to England, a meeting of officers took place, at which only 28 officers decided to obey de Gaulle. The rest (there were 31 of them) chose the side of Marshal Petain and, together with some of their subordinates, they were transported to the territory of France under his control.
Among those who chose "Free France" was the former Georgian prince, Captain Dmitry Amilakhvari (served in the legion since 1926), who received from de Gaulle the rank of lieutenant colonel and the position of battalion commander. Gaullist formations of this brigade first fought against the Italians in Gabon and Cameroon, then in Ethiopia.
In the summer of 1941, the Amilakhvari battalion in the Middle East entered the battle with the Vichy military formations, among which were the units of the Foreign Legion. So, during the siege of Palmyra, the 15th company of the legion, consisting mainly of Germans and … Russians, ended up in the enemy garrison.
A romantic story is told about this episode of World War II: faced with stubborn enemy resistance for 12 whole days, Amilakhvari supposedly suggested that only legionnaires could fight this way. He ordered the musicians to perform the march "Le Boudin" in front of the city walls. From the side of Palmyra, they picked up a motive, after which the 15th company ceased resistance: some of the soldiers went over to de Gaulle's side, others were sent to the territory controlled by the Vichy government.
Le Boudin
But what is "Le Boudin" and why did the song about it become a cult among the legionnaires?
Literally translated, "Le Boudin" means "blood sausage." However, in fact, this is a slang name for an awning, which, being pulled on racks (their legionnaires also carried with them), served as a shelter from the African sun. Also, legionnaires sometimes put part of their equipment into it. It was worn in backpacks (or under a belt). Therefore, the correct translation of this word in this case is “skatka”.
An excerpt from the song "Le Boudin":
Here it is, our faithful roll, our roll, our roll, For the Alsatians, for the Swiss, for the Lorraine!
No more for the Belgians, no more for the Belgians, They are quitters and idlers!
We are lively guys
We are rascals
We are unusual people …
During our campaigns in distant lands
Face to face with fever and fire
Let's forget, along with our adversity
And death, which often does not forget about us, We, the Legion!
This song in a traditional arrangement can be heard in the movie "Legionnaire" already mentioned in this article.
But back to Dmitry Amilakhvari, who was soon appointed commander of the 13th semi-brigade, thus becoming the highest-ranking officer of the legion among immigrants from the Russian Empire (Zinovy Peshkov, for example, commanded only a battalion in the legion).
In late May and early June 1942, the 13th semi-brigade fought against Rommel's army at Bir Hakeim.
And on November 24, 1942 D. Amilakhvari died while inspecting enemy positions.
An exception
In 1941, in the 13th semi-brigade, which remained loyal to de Gaulle, the Englishwoman Susan Travers, who was destined to become the only female legionnaire in the history of the French Foreign Legion, turned out to be the driver of an ambulance.
At first, she was a friend of the aforementioned Dmitry Amilakhvari, then a personal driver (and also a "friend") of Colonel Koenig, the future Minister of Defense of France, who on June 6, 1984 also received the rank of Marshal posthumously.
But after receiving the rank of general, Koenig parted with her and returned to his wife (de Gaulle did not approve of the "immoral", as did the Soviet party organizers). Travers then, according to the recollections of colleagues, fell into depression, but did not leave the army. At the end of the war, she became a self-propelled gun driver - and was wounded after being blown up with her car on a mine. She was officially accepted into the Foreign Legion only in August 1945 - for the post of adjutant chief in the logistics department. She served in Vietnam for a while, but in 1947, at the age of 38, she married and retired from the Legion due to pregnancy. In 1995, after the death of her husband, she ended up in a Paris nursing home, where she died in December 2003.
Heir to Bonaparte
After the outbreak of hostilities in 1940, under the name of Louis Blanchard, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte joined the Foreign Legion, who until the end of his life (1997) called himself Emperor Napoleon VI. He was forced to take a different name because in France there was a law on the expulsion of members of the royal and imperial families (canceled in 1950). After the defeat of France, he participated in the Resistance movement and ended the war with the Alpine Division.
The fate of the legionnaires
The formations of the 13th semi-brigade that fought on the side of the "Free French" were still an exception to the rule - all other parts of the legion remained loyal to the government of Pétain. Those of them that were in North Africa, according to the order of Admiral Darlan (Pétain's deputy and commander of the Vichy army), together with other French formations surrendered to the Americans during Operation Torch (Torch) in November 1942. And in 1943, the First Foreign Armored Cavalry Regiment was re-formed in Tunisia - already as a combat unit of the Free French.
Raul Salan in the 1940 campaign took part in the rank of major - he commanded one of the battalions of the Foreign Legion. After the surrender of France, he ended up at the headquarters of the colonial troops of the Vichy government and even received from Pétain the rank of lieutenant colonel and the Order of the Gallic Franciscus established by him (this is an ax, considered the national weapon of the Gauls).
Perhaps you will be interested to know that among the persons awarded this "collaborationist" order were also the Lumière brothers, the aforementioned Prince of Monaco Louis II, the commander-in-chief of the French army since May 19, 1940, Maxime Weygand, future prime ministers of France Antoine Pinet and Maurice Couve de Murville, future president François Mitterrand.
Let's return to Salan, who went over to de Gaulle's side and already in September 1941 found himself in the position of chief of the 2nd bureau of the headquarters of troops in French West Africa, later, in 1943, became chief of staff of the French troops in North Africa.
On May 30, 1944, Raoul Salan was appointed commander of the 6th Senegalese Regiment, on December 25 - put at the head of the 9th Colonial Division.
Salan also participated in the landing of the Allied troops in Provence. He ended the war with the rank of brigadier general - and in October 1945 he went to Indochina. But this will be discussed later.
After the end of the war, all the legionnaires were reunited - because, as mentioned in the first article, their "fatherland" was the legion (one of the mottos is "The Legion is our Fatherland"). And trouble-free soldiers for "dirty work" are needed by politicians of any country.
Even former soldiers of the Wehrmacht, especially those who were natives of Alsace, were accepted into the ranks of the legionnaires. So, in the Third Parachute Battalion of the Foreign Legion, which ceased to exist in Dien Bien Phu (more on this later - in another article), 55% of the soldiers were Germans. An exception was made only for persons who served in SS units. However, until 1947, these warriors were also accepted: the French themselves cautiously admit that there could be from 70 to 80 people. Historian Eckard Michels in The Germans in the Foreign Legion. 1870-1965 wrote about this:
“Control did not mean at all that the candidate would receive a turn from the gate in principle precisely because of his affiliation with the SS. The control measures served rather to calm the French and international community, rather than be rigorously applied on a case-by-case basis.”
The same author claims that back in August 1944, some of the surrendered Ukrainians who served in the Waffen-SS formations were admitted to the 13th legion semi-brigade, and in 1945 French volunteers from the SS Charlemagne division got into some parts of the legion.
Former Czech legionnaires M. Faber and K. Piks, in their book of memoirs "The Black Battalion" (which was also published in the USSR, in 1960), tell the shocking story of a meeting in Vietnam in one division of the legion of their compatriot Vaclav Maliy and the German officer Wolf, who took part in the murder of the family of his new colleague. In one of the battles Maly saved the life of his commander, Lieutenant Wolf, and even became his orderly. From the open-minded Wolf Maly learned about the death of his relatives. Together they went to the jungle, where the German killed this Czech in a kind of duel. It is difficult to say whether this was in reality or before us is an example of legionnaire folklore. But, as they say, you can't throw out a word from someone else's book.
Fighting of the Foreign Legion during World War II in Indochina
The Fifth Regiment of the Foreign Legion was stationed in Indochina during World War II. This region was not yet a "hot spot" and service in this regiment was considered almost a resort. The former colonel of the Russian imperial army F. Eliseev, the company commander of the Fifth Regiment, mentioned in the article "Russian Volunteers of the French Foreign Legion", later described his colleagues as follows:
“Here, a 30-year-old legionnaire with five years of service was considered a“boy”. The average age of the legionnaire was over 40 years. Many were 50 and older. Of course, people of this age, physically worn out by long service in tropical countries and an abnormal life (constant drinking and the easy availability of native women) - these legionnaires, for the most part, have already lost their physical strength and endurance and did not differ much moral stability."
At the same time, he writes:
"In the Foreign Legion, the discipline was particularly strict and prohibited any kind of wrangling with the officers of the Legion."
So the "moral instability", apparently, manifested itself only in relation to the local population.
The calm and measured life of the legionnaires of this regiment was overshadowed by only one incident, which occurred on March 9, 1931.in the North Vietnamese city of Yenbai, when the subordinates of Major Lambett, during a review dedicated to the centenary of the legion, clashed with local residents who shouted insulting slogans: 6 people were shot, after which the city revolted. This poorly organized intro was suppressed - brutally and quickly.
After the outbreak of World War II, the fifth regiment had to fight a little with the troops of Thailand, which for some time was an ally of Japan. But on September 22, 1940, an agreement was concluded between France and Japan on the deployment of Japanese troops in the north of Vietnam. At the same time, one of the battalions of the fifth regiment surrendered to the Japanese and was disarmed - the first case of the surrender of such a large division of the legion in its history. This shame will be atoned for in March 1945. Then the Japanese demanded the disarmament of all French troops (the so-called Japanese coup on March 9, 1945). French troops (about 15 thousand people) surrendered to the Japanese. But the fifth regiment of the legion refused to disarm. After Major General Alessandri, the commander of the 2nd Tonkin Brigade (numbering 5,700 people), ordered his subordinates to surrender their weapons, the Vietnamese tyrallers left the location of their units - and many of them later joined the Viet Minh detachments. But three battalions of legionnaires moved towards the Chinese border.
300 people died on the way, 300 were captured, but 700 people were able to break through to China. F. Eliseev, cited above, served in the second battalion of this regiment - on April 2, 1945, he was wounded and taken prisoner. Another Russian officer of the legion, the commander of the 6th company of the 5th regiment, Captain V. Komarov, died during this campaign (April 1, 1945).
Eliseev was lucky: the Japanese then simply finished off many of the wounded legionnaires, so as not to bother with their treatment. Eliseev wrote about his stay in captivity later:
“In general, I feel the contempt and hatred with which the Japanese generally treat us. For them, we are not only people of a different race, but also of the "lower" race, which illegally claims to be the highest and which should be completely destroyed."
But about the Chinese, he writes in a different way:
“I met by chance two colonels of the Chinese army, Chiang Kai-shek. One is the General Staff, the other is the chief of the entire artillery of the army. When they learned that I was a "Russian and a white army", they reacted extremely sympathetically, as to the closest neighbor in the state and the idea."
Less fortunate were those legionnaires who ended up in the fortified area of Lang Son, whose garrison numbered 4 thousand people - part of the Foreign Legion and Tonkin tyralers. Here 544 soldiers of the legion were killed (387 of them were shot after they surrendered) and 1,832 Vietnamese (103 people were shot), the rest were captured.
