There Foreign Legion (Foreign Legion in French) was established on March 10, 1831 from the French King Louis-Philippe IDuke of Orleans, to absorb the recruits of foreign origin previously included in other French military bodies recently abolished. It had its headquarters in Algeria in the centre of Sidi-bel-Abbès and had as its initial task the occupation of the colonies of North Africa and the maintenance of public order in French colonial territories.
From an operational point of view, today the Foreign Legion is composed of approximately 9,000 officers and soldiers assigned to 9 maneuver regiments, 1 half-brigade and a recruitment and training center (these last two in fact represent as many regiments), but at the time of the Second World War it came to mobilize, depending on the sources consulted, between 84,000 and 120,000 men framed in numerous regiments. The training and recruitment centre, the half-brigade and 7 of the manoeuvre regiments are based between the France and the Corsica while the last 2 regiments are quartered overseas, respectively in French Guiana and to the Mayotte.
Recruitment in the Foreign Legion
The main feature of the Foreign Legion since its foundation is its multinational composition. Originally, recruitment was open to all men deemed fit for combat, aged between between 18 and 40 years oldtook place both in the metropolitan territory (in particular in Marseille, where it still takes place today) and in the territories where the Legion had to operate.
The political, judicial, social and personal past of the recruits was not a limit for recruitment, just as nationality was not: those who applied were not asked for any document, so much so that, during its 193 years of history, the Foreign Legion served men of all kinds and backgroundsfrom fallen nobles to real convicts.
There inflexible discipline and the very harsh living conditions imposed by the Foreign Legion have from time to time transformed these volunteers into unyielding fighters, capable of fighting and surviving in almost desperate environmental conditions. Examples of such determination, sometimes described as “inhuman”, can be found by rereading the narrative of all the battles in which the Foreign Legion had the opportunity to play a decisive role such as: Camerone, Tuyên Quang, Bir Hakeim and Điện Biên Phủ, just to mention the most famous examples.
Terms of Service in the Foreign Legion
According to the official terms of service, all new legionnaires receive a net salary of €1280 per month (including the basic training period lasting 2-4 months), plus free board and lodgingwhich subsequently increases based on career progression and participation in overseas missions. The duration of the enlistment contract is 5 yearsofficially renewable once (but there are documented cases of legionnaires who were able to re-enlist up to five times), but already after the expiry of the first contract the legionnaire can receive the French citizenship. However, if a legionnaire is wounded in combat even before the expiration of his enlistment contract, he can still receive citizenship as he is “French by the blood shed”.
Where did the Foreign Legion mainly operate?
Throughout its history, the Foreign Legion has been engaged in every corner of the world. The legionary regiments have first of all linked their memory to the North Africa and to the terrible Sahara where in over a hundred years of military operations they fought against the local Arab, Tuareg and Berber populations, and conquered in the name of France a “Saharan Empire” of over 6 million km2 of territory.
However, it would be wrong to think that the legionaries stopped there, since they were also employed in Madagascarin Syriain Indochinaduring the Second Italian War of Independence and in Mexico where, between 1864 and 1867, they formed the vanguard of the French forces committed to supporting the ephemeral empire of Maximilian of Habsburg. Between 1835 and 1839 the corps was even “rented” by France to the Spanish government to fight the Carlist rebels.
The Foreign Legion from the end of the colonial era to today
Employed with heavy losses during the First and Second World Wars, the Foreign Legion units were later massively deployed first on the front of the First Indochina War (1945-1954) against the Vietminh independentists led by Ho Chi Minh, and then on that of the Algerian War (1954-1962) against FLN fighters, in a vain attempt to stop the crumbling of the French colonial empire that they had previously helped create.
After the conclusion of the Algerian War, the Foreign Legion was resized in its staff (8-9,000 men) and transferred to the French metropolitan territoryin Aubagne, and in Corsica. From then on it constituted thevanguard of the elite in all projection operations abroad (Gulf War, Balkans, Afghanistan, etc.) in which the French Armed Forces have been involved without ever renouncing, at the same time, its multi-ethnic and multinational vocation, a fact confirmed by the fact that, nowadays, its ranks include men from over 140 countries.
Historically, Italians have always been well represented in the ranks of the Foreign Legion, so much so that, from its foundation until around 2014 60,000 of our fellow countrymen have served you. Nowadays however, the Italian component is numerically laughable (a few dozen men) when compared to the contingents of recruits coming from Eastern Europe, Asia or Latin America.
