The reinstatement by the King of Lieutenant-Colonel John Ford Elkington in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, after he had served for twenty-two months with conspicuous bravery in the French Foreign Legion, has once more drawn attention to this unique military organization. As the writers of this story show, "La Légion Etrangère" of our Allies the French is literally steeped in romance, and it is therefore the romantic side of the heroic yet often maligned legionaries which they have set forth most prominently. Practically every man in the corps has a history, if he could only be induced to tell it, and in the present war the Legion has covered itself with glory, as shown in this story in the Wide World Magazine.
I—STORY OF "THE GLORIOUS BLACKGUARDS"
Budding novelists in search of ideas for tales of adventure, short story writers who have come to the end of their stock of episodes, and all who wield the pen either for amusement or instruction, may be recommended to turn over the pages that tell the story of the Foreign Legion. There is a whole literature at their disposal, covering a period of more than eighty years and written in almost as many languages as there are nationalities in this remarkable military body, and it teems from beginning to end with incidents which respond to the entire gamut of human emotions.
The Foreign Legion, which in time of peace is composed of between eight and ten thousand men, but which now probably exceeds the strength of an army corps, since no fewer than thirty-two thousand odd foreigners enrolled themselves from August 21st, 1914, to April 1st, 1915, is, as it were, a microcosm of the world. According to official French returns, there were in its ranks at the beginning of the war nine thousand five hundred Alsatians and Lorrainers, fourteen hundred and sixty-two Belgians, three hundred and seventy-nine English, three thousand three hundred and ninety-three Russians, four thousand nine hundred and thirteen Italians, thirteen hundred and eighty Greeks, five hundred and ninety-one Luxembourgers, nine hundred and sixty-nine Spaniards, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven Swiss, thirteen hundred and sixty-nine Austro-Hungarians, one thousand and twenty-seven Germans, five hundred and ninety-two Turks, six hundred Americans, and four thousand two hundred and fifty-four of various other nationalties, including, in all probability, as at the time of the Empire, Poles, Albanians, Croatians, Illyrians, and negroes.
In this world-in-little all classes of society are represented—the prince and the pauper, the scholar and the illiterate, the one-time brilliant officer, prominent financier, and ecclesiastic. All of them are brought to a common level with the lowest of the low through inherent human weakness, some foolish act committed in haste and repented of at leisure, or else through some misfortune or other over which the man who is "down on his luck" has no control whatever.
The social outcast, the deserter, the gambler, the fugitive from justice, the man who has been crossed in love, the desperate man who, on second thoughts, prefers the ranks of the Legion to suicide, the man who has a pure love of soldiering or an inordinate taste for adventure, the out-and-out failure who has been told by his family to "make good" and clean off his debt to society—all of them are found here, living under the shadow of mystery, undergoing the most arduous life imaginable, and, for the most part, suffering in silence. So heterogenous are they that the legionaries, quite unjustly, have been called many ill names. Through the faults of a few, who necessarily find their way into such an organization, they have all been indiscriminately labelled with such epithets as "band of criminals," "degenerates," "troop of dishonoured foreigners," "heartless mercenaries," and so on. But many sins can be forgiven the soldiers of the Legion when we read their history aright, and come to understand their Spartan characters in the hour of trial and danger. And it is for that reason that, despite their antecedents and shortcomings, they are now generally known in French military circles as "The Heroic Rascals," or as "The Glorious Blackguards."
The Foreign Legion can trace its origin to the days of the Scottish archers, employed by Charles VII. of France, and to those of the Swiss, Albanian, Flemish, Walloon, German, Italian, and other mercenaries in the service of his successors. At the time of the Convention, in 1793, an appeal was made to the nations of Europe for soldiers, with the result that several foreign regiments fought with the revolutionary armies. All these, however, were disbanded at the fall of Napoleon. When Louis XVIII. came to the throne he created the Royal Foreign Legion in their place, but they gradually merged into the regular army. However, after the 1830 Revolution the Foreign Legion was revived, and ever since they have taken part in nearly every foreign campaign in which France has been engaged—in the conquest of Algeria, in the Crimean War, in Mexico, Tongking, Formosa, Madagascar, and Morocco.
II—ASYLUM OF BRAVE UNFORTUNATES
Admission to the Legion is not the result of the efforts of the recruiting sergeant. All the men are volunteers, and although all classes and all nationalties are welcome to join they are not unduly encouraged to do so. There have been cases in which men who have come to enlist at the military headquarters in Paris have been told of the disadvantages they would have to encounter, and advised "to think the matter over seriously" before signing away their liberty for a period of five years. Yet, almost to a man, they have come back to undergo the extremely rigorous medical examination—the only examination, by the way, with which they are troubled. For, as regards their real name and nationality, no proofs are required. The authorities show no curiosity whatsoever about a man's past. They take it for granted that he has a very good reason for wishing to disappear for a while from the society of his relatives and friends and become merged with others of like mind in a semi-anonymous body, training, marching, and fighting without respite.