World War II: A Tale of t he French Foreign Legion

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6/ 12/ 2006 WORLD WAR II

At rst the intelligence ofcers at the headquarters of the French Foreign Legion in Sidi Bel Abbs, Algeria, were puzzled. The Legion had always
had a large complement of Germans in its ranks, but now, in spite of the Nazis widespread campaign to discourage Germans from enlisting, even
larger numbers were pouring in.

In the late 1930s, as more and more young Germans were joining that famous ghting force, the German press was violently attacking it, and the
Nazi government demanded that recruiting be stopped. Books about the Legion were publicly burned in Germany, and the violence against Legion
recruiting reached comic heights when Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels department claimed that innocent young Germans were being
hypnotized into joining. In 1938, a professional hypnotist named Albert Zagula was actually arrested in Karlsruhe and charged with the offense.

Still the Germans kept joining until half the privates and 80 percent of the noncommissioned ofcers in the Legion were German. Eventually, it
became evident that this inux had been orchestrated by German intelligence, the Abwehr, to destroy the Legion from within. The new German
legionnaires came close to achieving the Abwehrs objective.

The French Foreign Legion had always attracted the dispossessed of every land, and in the 1930s there were plenty of refugees throughout Europe.
First there were Spaniards, the losers in that countrys civil war; then there were the Jews and others eeing Nazi persecution; later, Czechs and
Poles were added to the list as the German army began its march across Europe. These recruits did not mix well with the new Germans in the
Legion. The German noncommissioned ofcers terrorized the non-Germans under their charge. There were frequent ghts and courts-martial. The
ofcers could not trust their own noncommissioned ofcers. Morale in the Legion plummeted, and there was even some talk of disbanding the
entire corps.

When war was declared in 1939, the situation was critical. To ease the problem, large numbers of German legionnaires were shipped off to desert
outposts, and the ranks were lled with additional non-German refugees. But the French authorities still thought that there were too many Germans
in the ranks, many possibly loyal Nazis, to risk sending the Legion to ght in Europe. Instead, four more foreign regiments were raised in France and
trained by veteran Legion ofcers from North Africa. These legionnaires garrisoned the Maginot Line, the string of concrete fortresses that the
French had built as their main defense against Germany. There, they remained inactive during the so-called phony war, when neither the Allies nor
the Germans took any serious offensive action.

In spite of the general reluctance to send entire Legion units to France, the French authorities decided that something had to be done with those
loyal elements of the Legion that were still marking time in North Africa and itching for a ght. In early 1940, the old Legion was given an active role.
Volunteers were called for, and two battalions of 1,000 men each were assembledone in Fez, Morocco, and the other in Sidi Bel Abbs. Volunteers
for those units were carefully screened, and the only Germans left them were veteran Legionnaires of unquestioned loyalty. Those men were given
new non-German names and false identity papers to protect them in case they were captured by the Germans.

The two battalions were joined into the 13th Demi-Brigade (13e Demi-Brigade de la Legion Etrangere) and put under the command of Lt. Col.
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Magrin-Verneret, one of those military eccentrics who so often turned up in the Foreign Legion, a hard-bitten graduate of St. Cyr and a veteran of
World War I. As a result of wounds received in World War I, he had physical disabilities that should long since have disqualied him from service.
Severe head wounds had been crudely operated on and left him with a nasty temper, and surgery on a smashed limb had shortened one leg, causing
a noticeable limp. But he was a ghter, and that was all the Legion wanted.

When the 13th Demi-Brigade arrived in France, the always-blas legionnaires showed no surprise when they were issued a strange new type of
uniform and skis. Those veterans of the desert sands were being trained to ght in Arctic snows and outtted as mountain troops with heavy
parkas, boots and snow capes. They were bound for Finland, where the Allies were aiding the Finns in their ght against the invading Soviets, who
were at that time in league with the Germans. But before the Legion left France, the Finns bowed to the overwhelming power of the Soviets and
accepted the enemys terms. The war in Finland was over.

But there was another ght. Winston Churchill, then Britains rst lord of the Admiralty, had urged the mining of the waters around neutral Norway,
where the German navy was escorting convoys of iron ore shipped from neutral Sweden to supply the German war machine. At the same time, Adolf
Hitler had decided that the Germans must seize Norway, not only to protect the ore shipments but as a naval base for surface raiders and U-boats.
Soon erce sea battles raged between the Royal Navy and the Kreigsmarine, and at sea the British had the upper hand.

Strong British land forces were also shipped to Norway, but the Germans invaded the country. By April 1940, the Germans had occupied all of the
main Norwegian west coast ports from Narvik in the north to Kristiansand in the south and around the tip of the peninsula to Oslo, the capital.
British and Norwegian forces fought hard, but without success. The British were ordered to evacuate Norway.

The Allies had one more card to play. Although they had to abandon southern Norway, the Allies would attempt to wrest the northern port of Narvik
from the Germans to prevent ore shipment. An amphibious assault was planned under the overall command of British Lt. Gen. Claude Auchinleck,
with the protective guns of the Royal Navy and using mainly French and Polish troops. A key part of this force would be the 13th Demi-Brigade.

When his subordinates asked why the 13th Demi-Brigade was going to Norway, Magrin-Vernerets oft-quoted reply was typical of the legionnaires
ours-is-not-to-reason-why attitude. Why? My orders are to take Narvik. Why Narvik? For the iron ore, for the anchovies, for the Norwegians? I havent
the faintest idea.

The 13th Demi-Brigade was part of a task force called the 1st Light Division, which was commanded by French General Marie Emile Bthouart. The
force also included units of the French 27th Chasseurs Alpins and the Polish 1st Carpathian Demi-Brigade, a mountain corps made up of refugees
from conquered Poland. There were also many Norwegian units in the area still able to ght.

The plan was to sail up the series of fjords that led to the port of Narvik under the protection of the Royal Navy, which still controlled the Norwegian
Sea. The 13th Demi-Brigade was to strike directly at Narvik, with its anks guarded by the French and Polish mountain troops and the Norwegians.

Opposing the legionnaires was the German garrison under General Edouard Dietl, reinforced by the 137th Gebirgsjager regiment, a veteran mountain
unit hastily drilled as paratroopers and dropped into the snow-covered hills. These tough, well-trained mountain troops were as proud of their
edelweiss insignia as the Legion was of its seven-amed grenade. They would be hard to crack.

Before the 13th Demi-Brigade could attack Narvik itself, the nearby village of Bjerkvik had to be taken, for the high ground behind it dominated the
strategic port. On May 13, the 13th Demi-Brigade was landed on the Bjerkvik beaches. At midnight, the big guns of the British battleship Resolution,
the cruisers Efngham and Vindictive and ve destroyers opened up on the German defenders. Shortly thereafter, the advance troops hit the
beaches in infantry and tank landing craft. It was the rst time in the war that such combined operations took place in the face of enemy re.

The German reaction was severe. At rst light, the Luftwaffe came out, bombing and strang the ships and beaches. The Legion pushed on in the
face of artillery and small-arms re. Colonel Magrin-Verneret waded ashore, encouraging his legionnaires forward. For a while it was touch and go.
Captain Dmitri Amilakvari, a 16-year Legion veteran who was to take a key hill, was held up by furious German re. Then, shouting A moi la Legion!
(the Legions traditional version of follow me) to his men, he charged up the slope. The Germans fell back before the savagery of the attack, and the
hill was taken. Amilakvari pushed on to Elvenes where he met up with the Chasseurs Alpins on his ank. Bjerkvik, now a smoking ruin, and the
surrounding mountains fell to the French.

Then the Legion turned its attention to Narvik itself. In a repeat of the Bjerkvik attack, the port was bombarded from the sea while Allied troops
poured over the surrounding mountains. Once again the Luftwaffe appeared and bombed the attacking warships, but Royal Air Force Hawker
Hurricane ghters arrived on the scene in the nick of time and cleared the sky of German aircraft. On May 28, the 13th Demi-Brigade marched into
Narvik and found the town deserted. The Germans had ed.

For the next few days, the legionnaires pursued the retreating enemy through the snow-covered mountains toward the Swedish border in sub-zero
temperatures. Their aim was to capture Dietl and what was left of his troops or force them over the border into Swedish internment. They were just
10 miles from Sweden when they were ordered to return to France. A few weeks earlier the Germans had begun their invasion of the Low Countries,
and the phony war was over. All the troops and equipment in Norway were needed in the defense of France. The 13th Demi-Brigade embarked for
Brest happy with its victory, the rst Allied success of the war, but disgusted that it had not been permitted to nish the job.

Meanwhile, those hastily raised Foreign Legion regiments at the Maginot Line were getting a baptism of re. Much has been written of the defeat of
the French army in 1940, but little is heard of the heroism of many of its beleagured units. One of those heroic units was the 11th Foreign Legion
Infantry (REI). The regiment was a cadre of tough legionnaires from North Africa and recent foreign volunteers enlisted in Europe, reinforced by a
battalion of unwilling French draftees. The Frenchmen disliked being thrown in with the infamous Foreign Legion, and the result was not pleasant.

In training during the phony war period there was much drunkenness, ghting and courts-martial, but when the German panzers broke through in
May, the dissension among the 11th REIs elements disappeared. While other French regiments were caught up in the panic, turned tail and ran
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before the overwhelming terror of the German tanks and Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers, the 11th REI stood rm. During two weeks of hard
ghting, they held off their attackers while other French units retreated around them. Finally, almost totally surrounded, they were forced to fall back.
Colonel Jean-Baptiste Robert burned the regimental standard and buried its tassel, which was later dug up and returned to the Legion. There were
only 450 men of the original 3,000 left to return to North Africa with the 11th REI after the armistice.

The 97th Foreign Legion Divisional Reconnaissance Group (GERD 97) also attained glory during the 1940 debacle. It was probably the only
all-veteran North African outt of the Legion regiments in France. GERD 97 had been organized from the 1st Foreign Legion Cavalry Regiment, the
Legion horse cavalry outt that had been raised in Africa in the 1920s from the remnants of White Russian General Baron Pyotr Wrangels cavalry,
which had been all but destroyed in the civil war against the Bolsheviks. Mechanized and outtted with obsolete armored cars, GERD 97 carried out
reconnaissance missions, but its scouting days came to an end when it ran into the powerful German Mark III tanks. In typical Legion style, GERD
97 threw itself against those monsters without hesitation, ghting rear-guard actions to cover the retreating French. GERD 97 managed to survive
until June 9, when a nal, suicidal charge against the panzers left all the Legion vehicles burning. There were no known survivors.

The 13th Demi-Brigade returned to France from Norway, sailing into the harbor at Brest on June 13, almost at the same time the Germans were
marching into Paris. Colonel Magrin-Verneret was ordered to form a line as part of the proposed last-ditch Breton Redoubt, but it was no use. The
Germans had broken through.

While on a forward reconnaissance mission to determine what could be done to delay the enemy, Magrin-Verneret and some of his ofcers became
separated from the main body of the 13th Demi-Brigade, and when they returned to Brest they could not nd any trace of the unit. The
reconnaissance party assumed that the main body had been over-run, and the colonel determined that he and his companions should try to get to
England, where the British planned to ght on. Every boat seemed to have been taken over by eeing British and French troops, but the Legion
ofcers nally found a launch that took them to Southampton. Miraculously, most of the 13th Demi-Brigade had already found a way to get there.

On June 18 General Charles de Gaulle, now himself a refugee in England, announced: France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war!
Magrin-Verneret immediately offered the services of the 13th Demi-Brigade to the new Free French movement, and soon they were in training at
Trentham Park Camp near Stoke-on-Trent.

On June 25, the FrenchGermanItalian armistice was signed. The men of the 13th Demi-Brigade were given a choice: ght on with de Gaulle, or
return to North Africa, which was now under the control of Marshal Henri Philippe Petains newly formed Vichy government. The 1st Battalion,
strongly inuenced by Captain Amilakvari, elected to stay with de Gaulle. The 2nd Battalion went back to Morocco and was disbanded.

The French Foreign Legion, like the rest of the French empire, was now sharply divided. The 13th Demi-Brigade had given its allegiance to the Free
French, while the rest of the Legion, scattered throughout North Africa, Syria and Indochina, remained under the thumb of the Vichy government,
which meant being under the sharp watch of the German Armistice Commission.

The Germans demanded that the men they had planted in the Legion be returned to the Reich, and the Legion was not sorry to see them go. But the
commission had other, not so welcome demands. They had lists of refugee Jews, Germans, Poles, Czechs, Italians and others who they wanted
back, to send to concentration camps.

There were many men in the French army in North Africa, particularly in the Legion, who had no sympathy for the Vichy government and hated the
Germans. Besides, the Legion had a reputation for taking care of its own. Its intelligence system usually discovered the Armistice Commissions
visits well in advance and knew the names of the legionnaires on the lists. The wanted legionnaires were given with new names, new papers and
new identity discs. When the Germans came too close, the refugees would be transferred to far-off Saharan outposts where the commission
seldom took the trouble to visit.

Part of the armistice agreement required that French forces surrender all but the most basic weapons. The Legion deed this order and buried or
otherwise secreted in remote areas much of its more useful materiel. Many of the Legions ofcers and men in North Africa would have liked to join
de Gaulles forces, but outright desertion did not appeal to them and surrounding mountains and desert prevented them from reaching the Free
French in any great numbers. The Legion units in North Africa simply had to bide their time.

The two elements of the Legion even took on a different appearance. The main body in North Africa still wore the French army prewar uniform a
baggy tunic and breeches with ancient roll puttees while the Free French wore British-style battle dress or tropical shorts, plus occasional odds
and ends left over from the Norwegian campaign. Both Vichy and Free French Legionnaires wore the traditional white kepi of the Legion and
displayed its grenade insignia.

The Vichy Legion in North Africa was not only constantly harassed by the Armistice Commission but was short of weapons, gasoline and
sometimes even food and tobacco. Legion strength fell to less than 10,000 men, and the Germans continually urged the Vichy authorities to
disband it altogether. Morale was at rock bottom, and the rate of desertions and suicides was rising. The 13th Demi-Brigade, on the other hand, was
retted, and new members were added to its ranks.

The 13th Demi-Brigades rst adventure with de Gaulle was a failure. A battalion under Dmitri Amilakvari, now a lieutenant colonel, left Britain on
June 28 bound for Dakar, the principal port of French West Africa. It was part of a large convoy escorted by British and French warships, and the
battalion was on the same headquarters ship as de Gaulle himself.

The French generals plan was to talk this important colony into supporting the Free French cause and becoming the base for all future operations.
But de Gaulle had miscalculated. The governor general of the colony, Pierre Boisson, was loyal to the Vichy government, and a brief but violent naval
engagement ensued. Not wanting to risk his ground troops, of which the Legion battalion was a major part, de Gaulle decided not to try an
amphibious assault on the heavily fortied port. Bitterly disappointed, he ordered the convoy to sail down the African coast to Douala in the
Cameroons, which was already on the Free French side. 3
For months, the 13th Demi-Brigade marked time in the Cameroons while the Allied authorities decided where to send it next. Then in December, the
two battalions reunited under Colonel Magrin-Verneret, now called Colonel Monclar left on a long sea journey around the Cape of Good Hope, up
the east coast of Africa and into the Red Sea. On January 14, the Legionnaires disembarked at Port Sudan, then British territory. A rail trip took them
into the desert where they were to prepare to serve as an adjunct to the main British force in an attack on Italian Eritrea. Just south of the Sudan,
Eritrea was mostly stark desert. Lieutenant John F. Halsey, an American newly commissioned in the Legion, described the days of training that
followed. Sand and heat nagged and plagued us. The air was hot and dry and the sun was merciless. It burned and scorched necks and the
exposed skin between the bottoms of shorts and the tops of socks. It glared on desert sand, on the rocky shale bare of vegetation, on the hills.
There was no shade.

That was how it appeared to a new ofcer, but to many of the Legion veterans, it seemed like old times. Halsey noted that his men broke into cliques
and gathered in circles on the sand at various halts, stretching out, apparently unmindful of the sun and sand. They bore up under the training
easily. Had Halsey been with the Legion longer, perhaps he would not have been so surprised.

The Eritrean campaign turned out to be a triumph for the 13th Demi-Brigade, but not an easy one. The rst Italians they met in the mountains
around Keren were tough, determined Alpini who resisted the legionnaires with skill and courage. It took several days of hard ghting before the
Italians broke and surrendered in large numbers. The Legion seized nearly 1,000 prisoners.

After the battle at Keren, the Legion was off to Massawa, the chief Red Sea port of Eritrea and the last principal city in the country to hold out against
the Allies. The outskirts of Massawa were protected by a series of fortications, dominated by Fort Victor Emanuele. After British artillery heavily
bombarded the fort, the 13th Demi-Brigade was ordered to take it. First, the legionnaires had to clean out with bayonet and grenade Italian
machine-gun emplacements in the surrounding hills. Then they scaled the walls of the fort. When the legionnaires gained the fort the defenders,
who up to that point had resisted ercely, lost heart and surrendered. On the afternoon of April 10, 1941, Colonel Monclar and two truckloads of
legionnaires entered Massawa. Eritrea was now wholly in Allied hands.

After the French army was routed in the Battle of France, the Allies had been somewhat skeptical of the abilities of some French military units. After
Keren and Massawa, that attitude changed, and when the situation in Syria became serious, the British did not hesitate to seek the aid of French
troops. Syria and Lebanon, the lands known as the Levant, had been under French mandate since World War I. The British had tried to avoid any
armed conict with the Vichy forces that controlled the region. Those forces had variously been estimated at between 35,000 and 80,000 strong, all
under the command of General Henri Dentz. Among those forces was the 6th REI, the tough, desert-hardened Foreign Legion regiment that had
garrisoned Syria for many years.

The Levant was of extreme strategic importance. German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was threatening Egypt from the west, and if German forces
penetrated the Levant, the Suez Canal and the Middle East, with its vital oil, would be menaced. The Germans were demanding the use of ports and
airelds in Syria and Lebanon, and the Vichy French were complying. The Allies could not tolerate this. On Sunday, June 8, 1941, a hastily
assembled Allied force of about four divisions crossed the Palestine and Jordan borders into Syria. The polyglot army, including British, Australian
and Indian troops and a Jewish contingent from Palestine, was later joined by the Free French.

The French complement was itself a colorful mixture. Centered around the 13th Demi-Brigade, it was composed of French Marine infantry,
Senegalese Tirailleurs, North African spahis and a cavalry unit of Cherkesses. The latter were refugee Circassian Muslims who in past years had
ed from czarist persecution and settled in Syria. Led by Frenchmen, they had deserted the Vichy authorities en masse, crossed into Jordan and
joined the Free French forces. Dressed in colorful Cossacklike uniforms, they were expert horsemen and erce ghters.

As he had at Dakar, de Gaulle hoped that the Vichy regime in Syria would turn its coat and join the Free French, but it was not to be. Dentz obeyed
his orders from Vichy France and resisted the invasion. The battle for Syria was sad for all the French forces, but particularly so for the soldiers of
the Foreign Legion. Not only was it Frenchman against Frenchman, but in the case of the 13th Demi-Brigade, it was the Free French Legion against
the Vichy Legion. For a military unit whose motto was Legio Nostra Patria, the Legion is our country, it was a family ght.

The Free French Legionnaires crossed into Syria from Palestine in the only transport that could be scraped together, a bunch of rickety civilian
trucks, cars and buses that kept breaking down at various inopportune moments. The 13th Demi-Brigade, along with elements of the 7th Australian
Division, was given the objective of taking Damascus. The march was similar in many ways to the Eritrean experience. Suffocating heat, blowing
sand, burning sun, shortages of water all made the march sheer hellthe Legion was in its element.

After several days in the desert, the 13th Demi-Brigade reached the hilly country near Damascus, where the ghting began in earnest. The Legion
had no air support and no anti-aircraft artillery, and Vichy French planes took a heavy toll. The Legion was bereft of any effective anti-tank weapons,
and it appeared they would be overrun by the Vichy tanks, but at the last moment Free French World War I-vintage 75mm artillery came to the
rescue, ring point-blank and destroying the tanks.

Furious infantry ghting erupted all along the line as the Legion slowly advanced toward Damascus. On the outskirts of the city, the 13th
Demi-Brigade met its brother legionnaires of the Vichy 6th REI face to face. The 13th Demi-Brigade hesitatedwere the other legionnaires friends or
enemies? They stared at each other for what seemed to be a very long time. Finally, the 13th sent out a patrol. As it approached the Vichy outpost,
the Vichys turned out a guard who smartly presented arms then took the patrol prisoner!

It was a typically Legionlike gesture, a demonstration of respect from one legionnaire to another. It was also the signal to begin the ght, and attack
was followed by counterattack, bayonet charge by grenade assault. In the end, the Vichyites were overpowered, and the 6th REI fell back. On July
21, the 13th Demi-Brigade, battered, bloody and exhausted, marched into Damascus in triumph.

There was more heavy ghting before all the Vichy forces in the Levant capitulated. An armistice, signed on July 14, gave the Vichy troops the
opportunity to join the Free French. About 1,000 survivors of the 6th Regiment came over to the 13th Demi-Brigade, enough to form a third 4
battalion. The dead of both sides were buried together. That battle was the end of the division in the Legion that had begun with the Nazi inltration
just before the war. The Syrian affair was the last time the Legion was at war with itself.

Legion units made a token resistance to the American invasion of North Africa in November 1942, but they soon turned about and marched against
the Germans in Tunisia. By that time, the 13th Demi-Brigade had joined the British Eighth Army to defeat the Axis forces and chase Rommel out of
Egypt and across North Africa.

Rearmed and equipped by the U.S. Army, Legion units fought the Germans in Tunisia, Italy and France. By wars end, the triumphant notes of the
Boudin, the Legions marching song, could be heard from the banks of the Danube to the French Alps.