The French Foreign Legion by Douglas Porch

Author:Douglas Porch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing

Chapter 18

“THE GREATEST GLORY WILL BE HERE”

IN ONE RESPECT, the crisis, both in manpower and morale, that the Legion weathered in the summer of 1915 proved a great blessing. The Legion had never been comfortable in its role of assimilating large numbers of reluctant foreigners. Though its courage on the battlefield had been exemplary, it was apparent that many of its soldiers no longer shared the goals of their commanders and were ill at ease in the hard-bitten atmosphere of a mercenary unit. This caused many to flee the Legion, and had even led to mutiny in June 1915. However, this crisis, once surmounted, allowed the Legion to put its house in order. The cumbersome and nationally organized units of 1914–15 gave way to a leaner, more homogeneous organization much more in the old style of the Legion.

Even before this reorganization took place, however, it was apparent that a Legion mentality was beginning to emerge among those eager to legitimize themselves as “real” legionnaires. Those who elected to remain in the Legion on the whole did so voluntarily, which suggests that among these men an amalgamation was beginning to take place between veteran legionnaires and new recruits, and a glimmer of regimental pride had taken hold. Seeger, who had seriously considered transferring to a French regiment, in the end elected to remain with the Legion in part because “I am content and have good comrades,” but basically because the Legion's performance meant that it had acquired “a wonderful reputation, and that we are ranked now with the best.” He argued that, despite everything, “Our chance, now that we are with the Moroccan division, of seeing great things is better than ever ... perhaps the greatest glory will be here, and it is for glory alone that I engaged.”1 The successes in Artois had much to do with the decision of Henry Farnsworth to remain. Although he had not taken part in these attacks, they had reflected glory upon the entire regiment: “Think only that, when all the other troops said the thing was impossible, the Legion took not one line, as planned, but four, and was not stopped then, though more than half the officers and men were down at the taking of Souchez.” In an August 1915 letter to his parents, he contrasted the military bearing and professionalism of the Legion with a neighboring regiment of territorials, honest men all no doubt, but who were slovenly and bolted into their dugouts at the first explosion of a shell from “miserable 77's.” In September he castigated French regulars for surrendering terrain that even “our old 3e régiment de marche ... never considered as a very remarkable outfit,” would not have given up in an attack. And the legionnaires adopted expressions common to the Legion in North Africa.2

The feeling of being part of an elite unit made itself felt in other ways. Reybaz found the unit of Provençaux next to which he served very generous with their wine and good hunters,

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