This brutal act resulted in the officer being again court-martialed for wounding an unarmed civilian. Sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, said sentence was annulled by a higher court, who claimed that he acted in “supposed self defense.”
The demand for justice caused by the injustice of the decision was so loud and threatening that the Reichstag was compelled to investigate the matter. For the first time in the German Empire a vote of censure was passed on the Government, 293 to 54.
This vote, which challenged the supremacy of the military dynasty, together with the refusal of the Social Democrats in the Reichstag to stand up and cheer the Kaiser, was one of the determining factors that helped bring on the war.
In the spring of 1915 the Foreign Legion in Europe consisted of four regiments. In November, the small nucleus gathered about the 1st Regiment was all that remained of those splendid men.
The 2nd Regiment, after passing the winter of 1914-15 at Croanelle in front of Croane, went into the Champagne attack, September 25, 1915, with 3,200. October 28th but 825 survived. These were merged into the 1st Regiment.
The 3rd Regiment, officered by Parisian firemen, had a very brief and sanguinary existence, and later were merged into the 1st Regiment.
The 4th Regiment, the Garibaldeans, 4,000 strong, after a famous bayonet attack in Argonne, captured three lines of trenches, losing half their effectives, including the two Garibaldi brothers, Bruno and Peppino. The survivors went to Italy to aid their own country, upon her entry into the war.
Many English, Russians, Italians, Belgians went home during that summer. When Legionnaires marched inside the long range of heavy German guns, with attacks and counter-attacking machine gun emplacements, with wire entanglements in front, which, owing to shortage of artillery, could not be blown up or destroyed, but must be hand-cut, or crawled through, is it any wonder they were scattered? Killed, missing, the hillsides were dotted with their graves; their wounded were in every hospital.
During this last generation, the Foreign Legion made history in the sand-swept plains of the Sahara and in the spice-laden Isle of Madagascar. They marched to Peking during the Boxer troubles; fought against the pig-tails in Indo-China, and the women warriors of Dahomey. They have been in every general attack of the present great war.
Advancing steadily, fighting side by side with the magnificent French Regiments who regard the Legion with respect, almost with jealousy,—the Legionnaire feels himself a personage. His comrades have suffered and died by thousands to gain the position the Regiment holds. Each living member must now maintain that enviable record.