THE FOREIGN LEGION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1069, 7 March 1911, Page 5

THE FOREIGN LEGION.

GERMAN LADS IN A FRENCH FORCE. Uy Tclecrapti-Prcss Association-Copyrlcbi. Berlin, March 5. German newspapers bitterly resent' the enrolment of German minors in the French I'oroign Legion. They declare that until 1910 those under eighteen years of ago who had been 1 enrolled were released upon a demand ' being made by Germany. Since then ' the concession had been withdrawn by the French authorities. THE SWEEPINGS OP EUROPE. The last refuge of the reckless and miserable, the Foreign Legion of France, is composed of men of nil nationalities. Many books have been written on this extraordinary body of men, but the account of his experiences given by Erwiu Rosen in his book "In the , Foreign Legion" is probably the most vividly written :— The Foreign Legion is a body that was formed by tho French 80 years ago for hard fighting in foreign countries. Tho legionaries aro not allowed in France. They aro sent to Algeria, Morocco, Tonkin, Madagascar—wherever the conditions of life are most intolerable, and the fighting most brutal and barbarous. Tho pay is wretchedly small; five centimes a day, or 25 centimes for the pay-roll period of five days. Twcnty-fivo centimes are almost exactly fivo cents in American, or 21d. in English money. Every fifth day, when the men are paid, is humorously called the regiment's holiday. Then the men assemble at tho canteen, and enjoy themselves in thoir own fashion, drinking, singing, yelling, dancing. They havo what they consider a good time. Several times a week tho men make practice marches, on which they are interfered with as little as possible, as long as they get through tho distance at the prescribed rate. The object of this endless, marching is to mako the legionaries the best marchers in tho world. The Foreign Legion is a body of cheap, splen-didly-trained mercenaries, with whom the most daring military operations can bo undertaken without consideration of the sacrifice of life involved. . No nation, no Parliament, asks for an account of the dead. The Legion inarches, acts independently, and dies without attracting attention. . Everything is sacrificed to marching. Tho man may be hungry, thirsty, completely exhausted, his feet may bo bleeding, or tho soles burning, but his marching pace must not slacken. It is a merciless system remarks tho author, but it'produces wonderful soldiers. If a legionary fails on the march ho may fall into the hands of the wild Arabs of the desert. The worst fate that can befall him is to bo taken by the Arab women, who mutilate him and inflict horrible tortures on the wounded. . Tho soldiers of tho Legion, mad with the sight, and thirsting for revenge, give no quarter to Arab women, but retalialo in kind. Rosen concludes that the Foreign Legion "is an antiquated, ridiculously out-of-date survival of the feudal system/' and that, according to modern ideas, it is monstrous that one of the most cultured nations of the world should have in its pay a corps composed of men of all nations, who enlist to save themselves from starvation. There has been a good deal of discussion lately in France ns to the future of the Legion, and doubts have been expressed ns to whether its longer continuance is desirable or not.