FOREIGN LEGION

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 October 1933, Page 12

FOREIGN LEGION

SOME HUMAN DRAMAS

“Write the truth about the Legion. That’s all we ask,” is what its officers met most of its men with whom I have alked have said to me, writes F. J. Ward Price in the “Daily Mail. Well, will. Here are a few real stories of Legion life: — A sweltering day early in July. A company of the Legion acting as advance guard to a French column, advancing into the Berber country sniped by grey-white robed figures from every crest. They halt for the night, posting their machine guns, throwing out an entranglement of “concertina . wire, and building a rough parapet of stones. Men are told off to act as sentries among the rocks around the camp. One of these, a German, is under sentence to be sent to the disciplinary battalion. In the darkness of the sultry night he makes a sudden decision to desert. He has heard that the Berbers will 'spare the life of a deserter if he brings them a rifle and plenty of cartridges. His bandolier is full. When his relief comes out from the camp he has disappeared. Reported “Missing.” A fortnight later the same company is similarly encamped at night. A sentry hears someone in the darkness moving by the parapet. “Halte-la! Qui vive?” he challenges. “France,” comes the regulation reply. “Wer ists?” asks the sentry. “Fritz ,” is the unexpected answer. “Where is the lieutenant? A moment later a startled lieutenant sees in the light of his electric torch a figure, dressed in Berber robes, haggard, dirty, but unmistakably the deserter of a fortnight before. “Mon lieutenant, there is not a minute to lose. A hundred Berbers are close by, waiting to rush the post. I cut the wire and came ahead to warn you.”

The men are called to arms. The Verey lights soar • upwards, illuminating the mountain side. Sure enough, crawling from rock to rock towards the camp are the Berbers with their curved knives that at close quarters can be more formidable than the bayonet. The machine-guns stammer. The Mills bombs burst among them. In a few moments not a living Berber is in sight.

The sequel: Desertion in face of the enemy, a crime punishable with death, pardoned—but Fritz has gone to the disciplinary battalion. A smart German sergeant in the Legion, known as Sergeant Weiss, but believed with good reason to be a former German officer-and the son of a German general very well known in the European War. Sergeant Weiss is given leave to go to France, but until a legionary has served ten years he is not allowed to return to his own country. Strasbourg was the nearest point to his home to which Sergeant Weiss might go. His captain reported to the colonel of the regiment that some of Weiss’s comrades in the Legion had received postcai’ds from him witli tTi© Stuittacirt postmark.

HIS ADMISSION.

When he returned from leave the sergeant was brought before the colonel. “I ask you to tell me, on your honour as a soldier, did you go to Germany during your leave?” He hesitated a moment, then said: “I did, mon colonel.” ‘‘To-morrow, then, your captain will bring me a full report signed by you, relating all that you did and everyone whom you saw in Germany.” “In the morning,” the colonel told me, “I was given the report. In it he denied ever having been to Germany during his leave. I wrote on it: ‘Stated to his colonel on his honour as a soldier that he had been to Germany. Now denies it over* his signature. Has consequently lied on one occasion or the other. Fifteen days’ strict arrest.” “The next day,” said the coloned, “Sergeant Weiss shot himself.” “For years,” a captain of the Cavalry Regiment of the Foreign Legion told me, "we had a regimental sergeantmajor who had been a captain in a crack Austrian cavalry regiment during the Great War and served on the General Staff. He was a fine soldier, lived very simply, and by dint of saving bis pay, accumulated 10,000 francs. Then he went to see his commanding :fficer, and applied for his discharge, to which he was entitled. “We shall be sorry to lose you. What are you going to do?” asked the Major. “Well, sir, I have spent all my spare ime studying roulette systems. I have found one that is absolutely infallible, iot for breaking the bank —I am not ' co ambitious —but for winning a teady profit of 30,000 a year. That will be enough for me to live on.’ Off to Monte Carlo the sergeant-major-staff-officer duly went. Two months later a letter from him arrived ■' t the regimental headquarters addressed to the commanding officer. The system failed,” it said. “Will on have me back, even as a trooper?”

A MOTHER’S DEVOTION

And here is an older story of the

igion, but the saddest I have ever iard: —

Twenty-five years ago there was an .* istrian count of Polish race whose illiant qualities made him at 20 the ,-jungest first-lieutenant in the Ausian Army. He had a love affair with ’•'s captain’s wife, was challenged to duel by her husband, and killed his : dversary. To avoid court-martial, be it Austria, and going to Monte Carlo gambled away his entire fortune. Hearing of his flight, his mother, a • iman of a distinguished Austrian i. mily, came to Monte Carlo just in

I me to' save the young count from •.ooting himself. She sold everything :e had in the world to pay his debts, id then, both of them being pennies, the son joined the Foreign Legion. She followed him and lived in the irrison towns where her son was .ationed. He shared his daily ration i food with her, and to earn the rest f the meagre money that she needed j keep alive, this Austrian noble/oman used to work at washing up lishes in small cafes.

Gradually the son’s natural abilities aised him in rank. Eventually he was given a lieutenant’s commission, and was able at last to support his mother in modest comfort. His devotion to her, who had sacrificed everyhing for him, was exemplary. Happiness seemed at last to be returning :o them. . Then the war broke out. The son, I eager to fight for Polish liberation, t once applied for transfer to the french front. He was killed almost mmediately he arrived there, and '■hat became of his devoted but trag- . Jy-haunted mother no one knows.