French Foreign Legion 1831–71 by Martin Windrow

Author:Martin Windrow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472817723
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

The Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, 1870–71

France declared war on Prussia on 19 July 1870. By early October half the French Army, under Bazaine, was encircled at Metz and soon to surrender; the other half, under MacMahon, had been defeated at Sedan; Napoleon III was a prisoner; Paris was besieged; and a Government of National Defence was scrambling to cobble together new armies.

On 6 October the Legion was ordered to form two war battalions for France. German and Belgian personnel were transferred into the III/ and IV/RE, and just five days later the 1,457-strong I/ and II/RE were already disembarking at Toulon. They were soon joined by some 450 survivors of a V/RE formed from volunteers in France, which had been mauled during the loss of Orléans. Allocated to XV Corps of the Army of the Loire, the RE took part in France's only outright victory, at Coulmiers on 9 November, but the army's subsequent agonizing winter retreat had reduced it to only about 1,000 men by 10 December. Rebuilt (and greatly diluted) with Line drafts and 2,000 raw Breton conscripts, in January 1871 the new three-battalion marching regiment was sent by train to join Gen Bourbaki's Army of the East for the attempted relief of Belfort. Bourbaki was defeated in the snowbound hills around Héricourt, and much of his army sought internment in Switzerland – though not the Legion. The armistice of late January found the debris of the RE at Besançon on the Doubs river.

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