WARRIOR • 157

FRENCH FOREIGN LÉGIONNAIRE 1890–1914

MARTIN WINDROW

ILLUSTRATED BY PETER DENNIS

Series editor Marcus Cowper

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHRONOLOGY

RECRUITMENT

Class, nationality and age Motives for enlistment Enlistment and processing

TRAINING

Marching, shooting and manoeuvring

APPEARANCE

Dress, equipment and weapons

LIFE IN PEACETIME

Pay, and off-duty hours Manoeuvres and hard labour Discipline

BELIEF AND BELONGING

The officers

LIFE ON CAMPAIGN

Dahomey and Madagascar, 1890s Tonkin, 1890s The Sud-Oranais, 1900–07 The mounted companies Morocco, 1908

THE EXPERIENCE OF BATTLE

Tonkin – Thuong Lam and Hu Thué, 1889 and 1890 The Sud-Oranais – El Moungar, 1903 Morocco – Sidi el Mekki, 1908

THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE

Medical treatment Discharge

MUSEUMS

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

FRENCH FOREIGN LÉGIONNAIRE 1890–1914

INTRODUCTION

Under the Third Republic born of France’s defeat by Germany in 1870, the French infantry was divided between three separate organizations. The 144 Line regiments of l’Armée Métropolitaine (Metropolitan Army) – young men conscripted for (by 1890) three years’ service with the colours – were based in France, training for the day when they would recapture the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. The Troupes de Marine (Naval Troops) – raised entirely from volunteers after 1893 – garrisoned naval bases at home and overseas, and provided field forces for the colonies in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. By 1896 there were 12 white naval infantry regiments, plus six regiments of native tirailleurs (‘skirmishers’, light infantry) in West Africa, Madagascar and Indochina, raised and officered by the Troupes de Marine. Line and naval infantry regiments each had three battalions. Finally, French North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) was garrisoned by l’Armée d’Afrique (Africa Army) – designated as XIX Army Corps. From the 1880s this, like the other two organizations, also provided task-organized ‘marching units’ for colonial expeditions. These régiments and bataillons de marche were formed with men selected from a number of the permanent ‘organic’ regiments.

The infantry of the Armée d’Afrique included four Algerian tirailleur regiments of Arab volunteers led by white officers, and four white zouave regiments, largely raised by short-service conscription from the settler population; unlike the Metropolitan and Naval infantry, both these types of regiment had four battalions. There were also four single penal battalions of Infanterie Légère d’Afrique (Africa Light Infantry, the ‘Bats d’Af’, composed of French civilian or military criminals); and the all-volunteer Légion Étrangère (Foreign Legion). By 1890 the Legion consisted of two regiments each with a large depot element and four 1,000-man battalions. After 1891, regimental establishment increased to five battalions each, with a second depot company, and again to six battalions from 1900; both the 1er and 2e Régiments Étrangers (1st and 2nd Foreign Regiments, RE) were headquartered in Oran province in western Algeria.

The Legion thus provided by far the largest of the French Army’s white infantry regiments and the only ones raised entirely from long-service volunteers, and, as foreign mercenaries, their casualties in battle or from disease were politically acceptable. Most colonial expeditions outside North Africa were the prerogative of the Troupes de Marine, but by 1890 the Legion had proved their superior hardihood and endurance during seven years’ costly campaigning in Indochina (Vietnam). Since the Army and Navy were competitive, as the French Empire expanded Legion units would increasingly be deployed as the Army’s spearhead in far-off, fever-ridden hellholes.

Each Foreign Regiment, commanded by a lieutenant-colonel, comprised four to six rifle battalions, a headquarters staff and a large reception, training and depot element. Each battalion was commanded by a chef de bataillon (major), seconded by a capitaine adjudant-major and a lieutenant officier d’approvisionnement in charge of logistics and communications. The battalion had four rifle companies each with a captain, two lieutenants and 200–250 rankers. Companies were divided into pelotons (half-companies) of at least 100, sections (platoons) of 50–60, and groupes (squads) of 25–30 rankers.

In 1890, four of the Legion’s eight battalions were stationed in Algeria, which had been almost entirely peaceful for the past eight years, except in the far south of Oran Department – the ‘Sud-Oranais’. The other four were in North Vietnam, where widely dispersed security garrisons were still having to provide men for continuing campaigns of pacification.

CHRONOLOGY

Algerian/Moroccan border:

Morocco:

Deployments to Dahomey (West Africa), Madagascar and Tonkin:

RECRUITMENT

Class, nationality and age

The men who enlisted in the Legion during these years came from a wide variety of backgrounds. An averaged analysis of 1885 and 1898 gives roughly 21 per cent manual labourers and 10 per cent shopworkers. Among skilled tradesmen, there were (oddly) no less than 7 per cent locksmiths and clocksmiths; 5.8 per cent had been shoemakers, 5 per cent bakers, 3.6 per cent masons, 3 per cent blacksmiths, 2.8 per cent carpenters and the same number tailors, 2.5 per cent butchers, and 2.4 per cent painters and decorators. The Legion’s traditional ability to find within its ranks virtually any skill it required – particularly for building – is thus easily explicable. Interestingly, roughly 11 per cent came from middle-class backgrounds; then, as always, some young men from respectable families gave way to temptations that cost them their good name and prospects.

An analysis of the claimed nationalities in the ranks in 1896–97 (the qualification is important – men sometimes lied) gives roughly 26 per cent from Alsace-Lorraine, 25 per cent Germans, 18 per cent Frenchmen, 17 per cent Belgians, 10 per cent Swiss and 3.5 per cent Austrians. Less than 1 per cent each claimed to be Spanish (for some reason this included many Italians), Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Greek, Turkish, British or assorted oddities; there were also a tiny minority of non-European recruits. The high proportion of Alsatians and Lorrainers is significant. From the loss of those provinces to Germany in 1871, until 1880, Legion recruitment had been officially (but not strictly) reserved for them. Legally now German subjects, so liable for German Army conscription, they – like any other foreigners – could gain French nationality by serving a five-year hitch in the Legion. In c.1885 they had made up about 45 per cent of the rank and file; in 1889 a new law allowed them to become naturalized before enlistment, but while this diverted many to French Line regiments, a substantial minority clearly still preferred the Legion. However, from about 1903 onwards the national composition changed markedly. Enlistment from Alsace-Lorraine dropped to about 6 per cent, and (under German government pressure) the percentage of Germans fell from 34 per cent in 1904 to less than half that by 1914. To make up for this the proportion of Frenchmen accepted rose to about 45 per cent, but their quality dropped markedly (see below, ‘Discipline’).