Etchevarry, a French convict, escaped from French Guiana, made his way to the United States and returned to France, under an assumed name, to fight for his native land. He enlisted in the Foreign Legion. He made an enviable record. But he was recognized and ordered to return to the penal settlement. Measures were taken in his behalf by the Society of the Rights of Men, in response to whose appeal President Poincaré signed a reprieve. Etchevarry returned to the front a free man, in December, 1915.
Nick Korneis, a Greek push-cart peddler, who used to sell bananas at Twenty-third Street and Avenue B, New York City, was decorated for bravery at Verdun, with the following citation: “Korneis, Nick, Legionnaire, 11th Company, Foreign Legion—Elite grenadier, who on August 20, 1917, won the admiration of all his comrades by his courage and contempt for danger. He led his comrades to the conquest of a trench, which was defended with energy, and which was captured along a distance of 1,500 yards, after several hours of bloody combat;—took single handed, numerous prisoners;—already cited twice in Army Orders.”
Rene Betrand, New Jersey, was over two years on the front, a member of the Regiment Colonial of Morocco, which is part of the famous 19th Army Corps. He received the Croix de Guerre for bravery, and at Douaumont, Oct. 4, 1915, the Legion of Honor for personally finishing off a Boche machine gun section and bringing in the gun. That is the record, a well built, uninjured man on board ship gave me when I asked him how he had earned the Legion of Honor, and why he wore the fouragere of the Foreign Legion. In July, 1918, a man, same name, turned up in Paris decorated with nine medals, minus an arm and a leg, claiming his body bore more than 30 bullet and bayonet wounds. The gendarmes promptly arrested him as the world’s greatest fakir, declared he had lost the arm and leg in a railroad accident and that five imprisonments instead of five citations composed his record.
CHAPTER VI
ENGLISHMEN AND RUSSIANS LEAVE
About 350 Englishmen were with the Americans in the same Battalion of the 2nd Legion. They had enlisted when the Huns were advancing on Paris. Common peril drew the bravest of all countries to the front. Possibly, they were promised later transfer to the English Army; but, once in the Legion, they were as nuns in a convent, to do as told, dead to the outside world.
An American writer has said, “England’s greatest assets are patriotism and money.” He overlooked the foundation of both—MEN, the Englishman who dares to do and does it. He knows his rights, and insists on them.
After the Germans were driven back at the Marne and trench conditions established, these men demanded to be sent home to fight for their native land. They went to the Captain, who could not help. They went to the Colonel, who would not. They had the British Ambassador request their release from the French War Department, with no better results. Ere they were transferred, the subject was brought up in the Chamber of Deputies.
Just before they left, a number went to the company captain with their breakfasts, cups of black coffee, in their hands.
“What is this, mon capitaine?”
“Your little breakfasts, mes enfants.”