A Modern Legionary

by John Patrick Le Poer

In the time of the great Napoleon there were many foreign brigades in the grand army. Everybody has read of the famous Polish lancers who time and again shattered the chivalry of Prussia, Austria, and Muscovy in those combats of giants, when kingdoms were the prizes and marshalships and duchies mere consolations for the less lucky ones. These Poles were magnificent fools. Poniatowski and his riders clung to Napoleon, led the way in his advances, covered the rear in his retreats, and all the while the cynical emperor had little, if any, thought of restoring the ancient glories of Poland, and thus repaying the country for the valour and devotion of her sons. Other foreign cavalry he had as well, but they became more or less mixed with the native Frenchmen, and thus do not stand out so boldly to our mental vision as the Poles. Chief amongst the great emperor's foreign infantry brigades was the Irish one. Indeed, to this one alone of them an eagle was entrusted, and it may do no harm to remark here that that eagle, much as it was coveted by certain enemies, was never lost, and was handed back to French custody when the Irish Brigade ceased to exist as an independent body after the final defeat at Waterloo. Most of the brigade, not caring for the monarchy after having so long and so faithfully served the empire, took advantage of the offer made to them of taking service under the British monarch, and were incorporated in various regiments of the British army. Indeed, in the late twenties and early thirties of the nineteenth century it was by no means uncommon to meet in Irish villages a war-worn veteran who had been in most of the great European battles—Jena, Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo—and had finished his soldiering under the burning suns of Hindostan.

In the Crimea, again, a foreign legion, somewhat like the legion formed by the British Government for the same campaign, was amongst the troops sent out by Napoleon the Third. I know very little about this corps, but I am quite sure that it got its full share, and more, of danger, hard work, and privations. Anyway the Crimean campaign, except for a few battles, was more a contest against nature than against the enemy.

In the Franco-Prussian war we next find mention of the Legionaries. At the battle of Orleans, when that city was captured by the Prussians, the Foreign Legion and the Pontifical Zouaves covered the French retreat. When we learn that out of 1500 of the former only 36 remained at the end of the day there will be little need to ask where were the Legionaries during the rest of the war. It must be remembered also, that the 1500 men who fought and fell outside Orleans were the remains of the Legionaries brought from Algeria, and that their comrades left behind were amongst the most distinguished of those who quelled the rebellion of the Kabyles in the year '71. It is only just to mention that the Pontifical Zouaves covered themselves with glory at this fight; they went into action along with the Legion on the 11th of October 1870, 370 strong, of whom only 17 survived the day.

The Foreign Legion, as I knew it, consisted, as I believe it still consists, of two regiments, each containing four battalions. As a battalion numbers 1000 men the total strength of the service soldiers may be put at 8000. In addition there are depot men, including band, drill instructors, and recruits; but I have said enough about the depot already, so I shall now confine myself altogether to the service soldiers.

Every battalion is divided into four companies, and thus a company contains, approximately, 250 officers, sub-officers, and soldiers. The officers are three—captain, lieutenant, and sub-lieutenant. Next comes the sergeant-major of the company, a sub-officer who keeps the accounts. There are two sergeants, one for each of the two sections into which the company is divided, and under them a number of corporals in command of squads, every squad being, be it understood, a distinct unit in the economy of the section to which it belongs. The men are divided into two classes, the first and the second, and from the first class are chosen the corporals as vacancies arise.

The uniform consists of kepi with a brass grenade in front, blue tunic with black belt, red trousers, or white, according to the season. With the red trousers go black gaiters, with the white ones white spats, somewhat like those worn by Highland soldiers in the British army. The knapsack, greatcoat, and other impedimenta are rather heavy, especially when 150 rounds of ball cartridge are included. I don't know the exact weight, but I remember that I used to feel an ugly drag on my shoulders at the end of a day's march. The pouch for ammunition at the side also pressed heavily against the body, and we often wished that those who had the arrangement of a man's equipment should wear it on the march, day in day out, if only for a month. There might be some common-sense displayed by them after that. But in all ages and nations a man's accoutrements—I use the word in the most general sense—have been decided on by tailors and good-for-nothing generals—oh, there are plenty of them in every army in the world—and, worst of all, by women, who twist and turn the said generals around their little fingers. Look at a private soldier of any army when standing at attention in full marching order; you are pleased with the sight; his head is erect, his straightened shoulders seem easily to support the heavy pack behind; the twin pouches look so beautifully symmetrical. Ask that soldier how he feels at the end of a thirty-mile march. If he isn't a liar, he will tell you that the rifle is rather heavy, but he doesn't mind that; that the pack galls a bit, but that's to be expected; and that the pouches weighted with ammunition have given him a dull, heavy pain in each side just above, he imagines, where the kidneys are, and if that pain could be avoided he would think little of all the rest. Many a time I have taken the packets of cartridges from the pouches before we had gone a quarter of a mile and stowed them away between the buttons of my tunic—there they had ribs and breast bone to rest against. Why don't the people whose business and interest it is to get the best out of the private soldier give the private soldier a chance? But they won't. Of all the humbugs on the face of God's earth the military officer of, say, twenty years' service is the worst.

The soldier of the second class wore no decoration on his sleeve, the soldier of the first class had a red chevron, the corporal wore two red chevrons, the sergeant a single gold one, and the sergeant-major two gold ones. It was a good thing to be a soldier of the first class, not because you wore a chevron or got extra pay, but because, when a charge was made against you by sergeant or corporal, the officers would listen carefully to your defence, and you generally got what the second-class man rarely got—a fair chance as well as a patient hearing.

Squad etiquette was rather peculiar. You were assigned to a squad, and on entering were made free, as I may say, of the mess, and how you got on afterwards with your enforced comrades depended largely on yourself. You might be very well liked, or thoroughly disliked, but violent likes and dislikes were rather uncommon. As a rule, you had just a little trouble in asserting your right to a fair share, and that always, of what was going. If you had a dispute with another your comrades looked on and listened; if you came to blows they prevented the affair from going too far; and unless the corporal was a brute he allowed his squad to arrange their own affairs out of working hours in their own way. But you dared not form friendships with men outside the squad; if you did you were set upon and punished in every way by your comrades, and your friend was served in the same way by his. Let me give an instance. A rather nice, quiet fellow, an Alsatian, was in my squad at a place called Zenina when we received a new draft of recruits from the depot. Amongst these was another Alsatian, who came from the same place as my comrade, and, as was natural, the two became fast friends. Under the circumstances nothing was said at first, and had either asked for a transfer to his friend's squad all would have been well. After some time, however, the comrades of both began to object. Why, we asked one another, should Schmidt openly abandon us and our genial company for a man who should by right be good comrade with others? Well, Schmidt was abused, and bore the abuse calmly; he got only half a share at meals, and still did not go further than a meek protest; he came back after seeing his chum, and found all his kit flung outside the door of the hut, his rifle fouled, his bayonet covered with salt water, his straps dirty, and his buckles dull; still he bore with all. Next evening he went to visit his friend, and, while he was absent, we formed a soldiers' court-martial and tried him. One man represented the accuser, another took the part of Schmidt, but the result was quite evident from the first. He was found guilty of neglecting his duties as a comrade, and as he had openly abandoned his squad and thereby shown his contempt for it, at the same time exposing us to the derision of all the battalion, it was high time that the squad should adequately punish him and thus vindicate its character.

The chief difficulty was about the punishment. It was first proposed that we should put him en crapaudine for a night, seizing and binding him while all in the cantonments were asleep, and releasing him in the morning before the reveille. However, it was pointed out that the corporal would not be likely to permit that, and, if he did permit it, Schmidt might report the matter and get the corporal into trouble. Now the corporal was a good fellow. He swore at us and abused us and would allow not even a sullen muttering in reply, but he would not, if he could help it, of course, get a man into trouble with the sergeant or the captain or the commandant. Occasionally he would find a bottle of wine, half-a-bottle of brandy, or a score or two of cigarettes in his corner. He said nothing, and as soon as the bottle was empty he did not have anything more to do with it: it was removed without a word by some one of us and quietly, I may say unostentatiously, deposited where its presence need not be accounted for by any of our squad.

After a good deal of talking we finally settled on a plan. What it was will appear in a short time. That night we could not do as we had resolved, for the corporal came in at an early hour in the evening as drunk and as abusive as a man could be. He rolled against me, and cursed me for a dirty, drunken pig, who could not carry his liquor like a soldier. He stood tottering in his corner of the room, and gave out more bad language than he had ever done before. And we were not quiet. He got quite as much as he gave; we described for his benefit our conceptions of his father and his mother—his father was a dog and his mother the female of the same species—we attributed to himself all the bad qualities that we could think of; we even called him coward, and dared him to report us at once to the sergeant or the captain. He knew, and we knew, that if he did so his arrest would at once follow and that the chevrons on his arm would not be worth one of the brass buttons on his tunic. We overpowered him with abuse at length, and he fell asleep muttering curses and threats, which were altogether forgotten in the morning.