FOREIGN LEGION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 201, 26 August 1930, Page 7

FOREIGN LEGION.

MUTINY REPORTED.

Alleged Shooting of Every

Tenth Man.

AUSTRALIANS INCLUDED.

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

LONDON, August 23,

A sensational dispatch from Fez, Morocco, has boen published in Berlin. It gives details of an alleged mutiny in the Foreign Legion, resulting in 400 men being sentenced.

Death sentences were actually carried out in 40 cases, according to the dispatch, which alleges that those shot comprised 24 Germans, three Australians, two Bulgarians and 11 Russians.

An entire battalion is said to have mutinied when about to go into action. Every man was disarmed and sentenced. According to the French custom one man in every ten was told to fall out and was shot. The survivors were sentenced to penal servitude for life. LIFE IN THE LEGION. Aucklander Tells Yivid Story of

the Hardships.

CAUSES OP THE MUTINY.

"Mutiny in the Foreign Legicn and its cause, you ask? Oh, perhaps lack of water, or food, perhaps too much continued active service, or perhaps the "'caffard.' It is difficult to say, but life out there is hard, and 'caffard' is common." It is some sixteen years since the speaker was out in Morocco, serving in the Foreign Legion, and he says things have changed since pre-war days.

"It seems to me things have been exaggerated," said the former member of the Legion, who lives in Auckland. "It seems scarcely likely that an entire battalion could have risen." He added that since the war there had been a large influx of Russians to the Legion, and it was possible that Soviet propaganda had something to dc with the matter.

'"'Conditions have changed, and for the better," he said. '""When I was in the Legion we used to get one sou—a halfpenny —a day. Now, I believe, they receive about a franc. Many tales get about concerning the life in the Legion, and people get false ideas of the life out there. In the main the books written about it are true, but the writers overcolour their stories. For instance, I have read about men lying in the desert without a hat. That is absurd. A man would be mad in half a day." "Finest Walkers in World." As for the food, it was plain, but tßere was enough of it. ".There must have been for the Legion to hold the name of the finest body of walkers in the world. They walk, he said, five-kilo-metres, or about 3J miles, an hour all day, carrying all their gear. He believed they were the finest body of fighters in the" world. "What did death matter to them?" he asked. "They have all to gain and nothing, literally nothing, to lose." The Legion held many of the outcasts from, society, who probably joined in desperation, and continued to do everything from desperation.- Besides, fighting meant not only relief from the terrible monotony of barrack life, but the chance of loot to supplement their pay. If a village refused to pay its taxes the Legion would he sent along to bring the chiefs to their senses. In the Tillage, as well as well-aimed rifles, there would be skins, and wine and gold pieces. These could be sold for money, which, whatever its amount, was wealth to those whose pay was a sou a day. In comparison with those things death weighed but lightly indead in the balance. '•* when a recruit joins the legion asks no questions. If he has a sound heart, a healthy body and good teeth a man can give what age he likes, and he can say his name is whatever first comes into his head. The Legion leaves all to he said until he tries to escape." Impossible Risks Taken. Escape, he said, was mo>" difficult, although he managed it. Bat the monotony of life was such that the legionnaires took impossible chances. Some of them seized the opportunity offered by transhipment to another part of the world. When a fair distance from the land they would jump overboard and chance the sharks. One man he knew deserted and hid in a barrel on the wharves for several days. He eventually got away by stowing away on a British cargo vessel. It was very largely a question of luck, and exceptionally good luck.

He spoke of the risks run by those who fled into the desert. Some of them, afflicted with the "caffard," the madness brought on by the heat and the utter sameness of things, would go off and run the gauntlet of death by horrible torture by the Arabs on tha one hand, and of death by thirst on the other, It was a question which was the more merciful.

When the men went to sleep at night they used to tie their rifle straps to their wrists to prevent them being stolen by the marauding tribes. It was not unknown for an Arab to take the rifle and the wrist with it.

Still, back through sixteen years he remembered perhaps the more pleasant side of the life. "They were a magnificent body of soldiers. The life was gruelling, but it left one fit and as hard as nails."