NO "HELL HOLES”

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3441, 10 March 1932, Page 3

NO "HELL HOLES”

“WELL-TRAINED VOLUNTEERS.”

In a semi-official report, Captain R. Ernest Dupay, of the U.S. Army, recently told some interesting details of the French Foreign Legion, which exploded some of the highly-coloured ideas conveyed by fiction, alleged memoirs and screen versions of life in this famous force.

He said, according to the New York Times, that the Legion, 25,000 strong, was 60 per cent. German. The men were well-disciplined volunteers, among whom esprit de corps was strong and was fostered. There was plenty of relaxation, no cruelty and the Legion did not consist of a collection of crooks and convicts.

Captain Dupay visited Morocco last year and he has prepared an article on the Foreign Legion, for the United States Army Recruiting News.

This famous organisation is voluntarily enlisted and serves in the strange places of the earth—Algeria, Morocco. Indo-China, and Syria, he says.

The Foreign Legion offers to its recruits the following: A refuge, a chance to do much fighting, a lot of hard work, stra'nge places and sights, and three square meals a day. Five years of this and the soldier is eligible for re-enlistment. After 15 years, or three enlistments, he may retire, upon which he automatically becomes one of the favoured classes of French bureaucracy—with positions open in France’s colonies as policeman, postman, customs guard—any one of a dozen different civil service jobs.

Become Farmers.

Or he may settle down in Algeria or Morocco or Indo-China as one of the hard-working and respectable farmer colonists who are making in France’s North African possessions and protectorates a thriving frontier civilisation paralleling the opportunities of our own Western frontiers of 50 years ago. Captain Dupay adds: “The Legion’s recruiting sergeants are its own veterans. No better refutation of the libellous stories written about the Legon than the opinions and statements of it.s veterans

“Certainly if the Legion were the hell-hole which for many years Ger man and British propagandists have striven to make it in their writings, those who escaped its clutches must by this time —and the Legion has been in existence for a century—have had opportunity to spread the word up and down the byways of the world —beware the Foreign Legionl

Outposts Inspected. “It was my privilege three years ago to visit the First Regiment of the Legion—the mother regiment oi the Legion—at its headquarters at Sidi bel-Abbes, in Algeria, and one of its battalions in Syria. “And this last February it was my further privilege to visit the Second* Third and Fourth Regiments in Morocco —at Meknes, Fez and Marrakech, respectively. “Further, I was able to wander up and catch a glimpse of its far-flung outposts in the Middle and Grand Atlas, those rugged chains of mountains guarding the fertile plains of Morocco from the arid stretches of the Sahara to the south.

Still Active Fighting. “In the Middle Atlas there is still active fighting, not only in the series of mud forts springing up mushroomlike beyond Kasba Tadla, but in mobile columns striking far into the mountains to crush the dissident roving tribes whose occupation it is to prey on their agricultural brethren of the plains.

“There was opportunity to observe the Legion at work and at play; in its headquarters garrisons, where drills and fatigue take up part of the day only, leaving the soldier as free as our own for the rest of the time, with movie theatres, canteens, day rooms and plenty of literature to while away the time; in the outposts, where there is constant vigilance where the fatigue parties work making roads like their forbears of the legions of Caesar, with their rifles stacked beside them ready for instant use. The author, asking himself why the men were there, found the answer: “Because it was their own wish.”

Enlistment Reasons.

“Men enlist in the Foreign Legion for a thousand different reasons—these may be boiled down to three: To forget their previous existence, to seek adventure, or simply to live. In other words, just the same reasons which actuate recruits in other volunteer armies.” And that they liked it in the Legion is evidenced by the number of re-enlistments. “Hashmarks predominate in the arms of legionnaries.

“The discipline is hard, yes. Brutal, no. Else there would not be the camaraderie noticeable in the regiments. Espirit de corps is stronger; it is fostered. And the food is good. I have eaten at Legion messes at the

inmost unexpected times and places. The Legion lives well. Take one meal at random —in the Third Regiment. Potato soup. Beef a la mode. Cold meat and potato salad, Macaroni, Pastry. One-quarter litre (about one pint) red wine.

Where Legion Serves.

“There are five infantry regiments and one of cavalry. The First is stationed in Algeria, the Second, Third, and Fourth in Morocco, the Fifth in French Indo-China. A battalion of the First sits up at the junction of the Bagdad trail with the Euphrates River —Dar-ez-Zor on the SyriaMesopotamia frontier. “The cavalry regiments are divided —one-half in Tunisia, one-half along the southern boundary of Algeria and Morroco, one the edge of the expansive Sahara Desert.

“In Nationality Germans predominat —about 60 per cent, of its personnel is German; some 10 per cent, are White Russians —the remnants of Wrangle’s Army. The rest come from all over the world. “Frenchmen there are in it, but usually enlisted as of some other nationality. “There is much red tape to be unwound to enlist a Frenchman. He is supposed to do his compulsory service in a line regiment. “The officer personnel comes in part from the ranks, in part from the French Army officer corps. Officers are picked for their tact, outside of professional attainments. “Foreigners who are commissioned must serve in the Legion. Best Infantry Troops. The French Foreign Legion is a hard-boiled, well disciplined, volunteer outfit —the best infantry troops the writer has seen since our own First Divisio'n in France. “All it asks of its recruits is that they be men. It is a cofraternity of arms. It is not a collection of crooks and convicts. Its personnel should not be confounded with the penal battalions of Africa, where France puts her convicts of military age. And it is up to strength because it offers its men a chance to fight, a chance to advance in their profession, and three square meals a day.”