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IN THE FOREIGN LEGION


BY

ERWIN ROSEN


LONDON
DUCKWORTH & CO.
HENRIETTA ST. COVENT GARDEN
1910

_All rights reserved_

Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED
Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London




PROLOGUE


Once upon a time there was a young student at a German University who
found life too fresh, too joyous, to care very much for professors and
college halls. Parental objections he disregarded. Things came to a
climax. And the very next "Schnelldampfer" had amongst its passengers a
boy in disgrace, bound for the country of unlimited possibilities in
search of a fortune....

The boy did not see very much of fortune, but met with a great deal of
hard work. His father did not consider New York a suitable place for
bad boys, and booked him a through passage to Galveston. There the
ex-student contracted hotel-bills, feeling very much out of place,
until a man who took a fancy to him gave him a job on a farm in Texas.
There the boy learnt a good deal about riding and shooting, but rather
less about cotton-raising. This was the beginning. In the course of
time he became translator of Associated Press Despatches for a big
German paper in St. Louis and started in newspaper life.

From vast New York to the Golden Gate his new profession carried him:
he was sent as a war correspondent to Cuba, he learned wisdom from the
kings of journalism, he paid flying visits to small Central American
republics whenever a new little revolution was in sight. Incidentally
he acquired a taste for adventure. Then the boy, a man now, was called
back to the Fatherland, to be a journalist, editor and novelist. He was
fairly successful. And a woman's love came into his life....

But he lost the jewel happiness. The continual fight for existence and
battling for daily bread of his American career, so full of ups and
downs, was hardly a good preparation for quiet respectability. Wise men
called him a fool, a fool unspeakable, who squandered his talents in
light-heartedness. And finally a time came when even his wife to be
could no more believe in him. The jewel happiness was lost....

The man at any rate recognised his loss; he recognised that life was no
longer worth living. A dull feeling of hopelessness came over him. And
in his hour of despair he remembered the blood of adventure in his
veins. A wild life he would have: he would forget.

He enlisted as a soldier in the French Foreign Legion.

                 *       *       *       *       *

That man was I. I had burned my boats behind me. Not a soul knew where
I was. Those who loved me should think that I was dead. I lived the
hard life of a legionnaire; I had no hopes, no aspirations, no thought
for the future; I worked and marched, slept, ate, and did what I was
ordered; suffered the most awful hardships and bore all kinds of
shameful treatment. And during sleepless nights I dreamed of love--love
lost for ever....

Some five hundred years I wore the uniform of the Legion. So at least
it seemed to me.

Then--the great change came. One day there was a letter for me.

Love had found me out across a continent. I read and read and read
again.

That was the turning-point of my life. I broke my fetters, and I fought
a hard fight for a new career....

Now the jewel happiness is mine.

ERWIN ROSEN

HAMBURG, 1909




CONTENTS


                                                       PAGE

CHAPTER I

LEGIONNAIRE!

In Belfort : Sunrays and fear : Madame and the waiter : The
French lieutenant : The enlistment office of the Foreign Legion
: Naked humanity : A surgeon with a lost sense of smell :
"Officier Allemand" : My new comrades : The lieutenant-colonel :
A night of tears                                                    1


CHAPTER II

L'AFRIQUE

Transport of recruits on the railway : What our ticket did for
us and France : The patriotic conductor : Marseilles : The gate
of the French Colonies : The Colonial hotel : A study in blue
and yellow : On the Mediterranean : The ship's cook : The story
of the Royal Prince of Prussia at Saida : Oran : Wine and
legionnaires : How the deserter reached Spain and why he
returned                                                           16


CHAPTER III

LEGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889

French and American bugle-calls : Southward to the city of the
Foreign Legion : Sidi-bel-Abbes : The sergeant is not pleased :
A final fight with pride : The jokes of the Legion : The wise
<DW64> : Bugler Smith : I help a legionnaire to desert : The
Eleventh Company : How clothes are sold in the Legion : Number
17889                                                              35


CHAPTER IV

THE FOREIGN LEGION'S BARRACKS

In the company's storeroom : Mr. Smith--American, legionnaire,
philosopher : The Legion's neatness : The favourite substantive
of the Foreign Legion : What the commander of the Old Guard said
at Waterloo : Old and young legionnaires : The canteen : Madame
la Cantiniere : The regimental feast : Strange men and strange
things : The skull : The prisoners' march : The wealth of
Monsieur Rassedin, legionnaire : "Rehabilitation" : The Koran
chapter of the Stallions                                           48


CHAPTER V

THE MILITARY VALUE OF THE FOREIGN REGIMENTS

A day's work as a recruit : Allez, hurry up! : The Legion's
etiquette : A morning's run : The "cercle d'enfer" and the lack
of soap : The main object of the Legion's training : Splendid
marchers : Independent soldiers : Forty kilometres a day :
Uniform, accoutrements, baggage, victualling : The training of
the legionnaire in detail : The legionnaire as a practical man :
Specialties of the Legion : Programme for a week in the Legion :
The legionnaire as a labourer                                      77


CHAPTER VI

"THE LEGION GETS NO PAY"

The money troubles of the Legion : Five centimes wages : The
cheapest soldiers of the world : Letters from the Legion : The
science of "decorating" : The industries of the legionnaires :
What the bugler did for a living : The man with the biscuits : A
thief in the night : Summary lynch law : Herr von Rader and la
Cantiniere : "The Legion works--the Legion gets no pay!"          105


CHAPTER VII

THE CITY OF THE FOREIGN LEGION

The daily exodus to town : Ben Mansur's coffee : The Ghetto :
The citizens of Sidi-bel-Abbes and the legionnaires : How the
Legion squared accounts with the civilians : A forbidden part of
the town : Primitive vice : A dance of a night : The gardens :
The last resting-place of the Legion's dead                       117


CHAPTER VIII

A HUNDRED THOUSAND HEROES--A HUNDRED THOUSAND VICTIMS

The hall of honour : A collection of ruined talents : The battle
of Camaron : A skeleton outline of the Legion's history : A
hundred thousand victims : A psychological puzzle : True heroes
: How they are rewarded : The chances of promotion : The pension
system of the Foreign Legion                                      135


CHAPTER IX

"MARCH OR DIE!"

The Legion's war-cry : A night alarm : On the march : The
counting of the milestones : Under canvas : The brutality of the
marches : The legionnaire and the staff doctor : My fight for an
opiate : The "marching pig" : The psychology of the marches :
Excited nerves : The song of imprecations                         155


CHAPTER X

THE MADNESS OF THE FOREIGN LEGION

An unpleasant occurrence : The last three coppers : The Roumanian
Jew from Berlin : Monsieur Viaisse : The Legion's atmosphere : The
Cafard demoniacs : Bismarck's double : Kruegerle's whim : The
madness of Legionnaire Bauer : Brutal humour : A tragedy          176


CHAPTER XI

THE DESERTERS

The Odyssey of going on pump : Death in the desert : The
Legion's deserters : A disastrous flight in a motor-car : The
tragic fate of an Austrian engineer : In the Ghetto of
Sidi-bel-Abbes : The business part of desertion : Oran and
Algiers : The Consulate as a trap : The financial side of
desertion : One hundred kilometres of suffering : Hamburg
steamers : Self-mutilation : Shamming : In the Suez Canal :
Morocco, the wonder-land                                          197


CHAPTER XII

A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS

The return of the poumpistes : The scale of punishments in the
Legion : Of spiteful non-commissioned officers : The Legion's
axiom : Sad history of Little Jean : The punishment machine :
Lost years : A legionnaire's earnings in five years--francs,
127.75 : The prisons in the Foreign Legion : Pestilential
atmosphere : Human sardines : The general cells : Life in the
prison : On sentry duty among the prisoners                       226


CHAPTER XIII

SOME TYPES OF VICE

A variety of human vices : The red wine of Algeria : Shum-Shum :
If there were no wine                                             248


CHAPTER XIV

MY ESCAPE

In the Arab prison : The letter : Days of suffering : Flight! :
The greedy "Credit Lyonnais" : Haggling in the Ghetto : The palm
grove as a dressing-room : On the railway track : Arab policemen
: Horrible minutes : Travelling to Oran : Small preparations :
On the steamer _St. Augustine_ : Marseilles : Ventimiglia : Free
                                                                  255


CHAPTER XV

J'ACCUSE

Two years after : Shadows of the past : My vision : Public
opinion and the Foreign Legion : The political aspect of the
Foreign Legion : The moralist's point of view : The "Legion
question" in a nutshell : A question the civilised world should
have answered long ago : Quousque tandem...?                      274




CHAPTER I

LEGIONNAIRE!

In Belfort : Sunrays and fear : Madame and the waiter : The French
lieutenant : The enlistment office of the Foreign Legion : Naked
humanity : A surgeon with a lost sense of smell : "Officier Allemand" :
My new comrades : The lieutenant-colonel : A night of tears


Another man, feeling as I felt, would have preferred a pistol-bullet as
a last resource. I went into the Foreign Legion....

It was evening when I arrived in the old fortress of Belfort, with the
intention of enlisting for the Legion. Something very like
self-derision made me spend the night in the best hotel.

Awakening was not pleasant. The sunrays played hide-and-seek upon the
lace of the cover, clambered to the ceiling, threw fantastic colours on
the white little faces of the stucco angels, climbed down again,
crowded together in a shining little heap, and gave the icy elegance of
the room a warm tone. Sleepily I stared at their play; sleepily I
blinked at the enormous bed with its splendid covering of lace, the
curious furniture, the wonderful Persian rug. Then I woke up with a
start and tried to think. A thousand thoughts, a thousand memories
crowded in upon me. Voices spoke to me; a woman's tears, the whispering
of love, a mothers sorrow. And some devil was perpetually drumming in
even measure: lost, lost, lost for ever....

For the second time in my life I felt the Great Fear. An indescribable
feeling, as if one had a great lump in one's throat, barring the air
from the lungs; as if one never could draw breath again. I had once
experienced this fear in the valley of Santiago de Cuba, when one of
the first Spanish shells from the blockhouse on San Juan Hill burst a
few feet from me. This time it was much worse.

Ah well, one must try to forget!

I dressed with ridiculous care, paid my bill in the "bureau," and
earned a lovely smile from madame for my gold piece. Ah, madame, you
would hardly flash your pretty eyes if you knew! The head waiter stood
expectant at the door, bending himself almost double in French fashion.
He