Regiment of the Lost.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 23 April 1910, Page 4

Regiment of the Lost.

■ » GIUM PICTURE OF LIFE IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION. (Ry Evelyn Byng.) Ilip existence of the French Foreign Legion is a .sin against the very first principles of litmuuiity. . , . 111 the santLs (ir Algeria, in the swamps of Madagascar, in the fever-pested plains of Tonqnin, in the valleys of Mexico, thero lie these men ol every nation, tlie.se men uno have died in tho Korean Legion, who have sold themselves lor their rations and five centimes a da v.

Such is the indictment which Mr Krwin Rosen, a journalist and exlegionaire, makes against Franco in his book, "The Foreign Legion." The writer tells — unpretentiously enough, .though at times he lapses iinto pinchbeck imitations of Kipling's terse virility—the tale of his persr.ual experiences as a. soldier in that section of the Legion which is quartered in Algeria. So interesting and so true is the story that I found it difficult to put the book down, still more difficult now it is read to banish some of its grim details from my mind. Mr Resell draws relentlessly the torment of thousands whom either adverse circumstances or the result of their own follies have drifted into this particular branch of service, or rather of servitude. Tt is, .is he '■hows us, the legionaires who guard the borders of French territory in those pestilent lands where few white men can live at all. It is Oiey wlio. in these countries, build barracks. Government offices, offi"ers' quarters, and—in Algeria at •ill events—have engineered 80 per •ent of the roads. IIEWKILS v,F WOOD. Tn whatever country tho legionaires find themselves they .are treated as the scavengers and beasts of burden to the members „uf the communities among whom they live. Hub not only are they artisans and .scavengers — these avoca<tions form but one portion of their lives—they are also soldiers, though, Heaven knows! not soldiers in the generally accepted term of a service which is highly esteemed and honourable.

Rather are they the slaves and bondmen of cruel taskmasters; and the routine of the soldier's life is aggravated, rendered intolerable by ceaseless drills on a glaring barrack square, by nianouevre marches whoso length and ruthless cruelty kill and maim, and by a daily exist-, enco Avho.se scheme of brutalising work soon drives a man to the drink which is his only solace, and to the terrible "cal'ard" or madness, which, seizing even the most sanest mind, often ends in permanent insauitv or death.

Over and above .these miseries the legionaires are subjected to tho gadfly stings in which narrow-minded non-commissioned officers are experts: to the callous indifference of •oinmissioned officers, who regard their men as'lower than the brutes; uul. worst of all, when ill ifhey are left to the tender mercies of doctors, who join to gross brutalities the -rass incompetence, which, alas! stamp", them very often not only iu that particular portion of the French army, but in other armies nearer home. XO I<TTCI<I<:; NO HOPES. Labouring under these brutalising inllueiieces, what chance has a man to work out his own salvation ? What has he got to look forward to iu the dreary round of his days, in the endlessness of the years for which lie lias bound himself to serve? Day after day passes in the barracks, whited sepulchres of a scrupulous surface cleanliness, which mask the unspeakable foulness of the prisons where for weeks or even months at a time he is subjected to solitary confinement. In bygone days the terribly "silo" existed, a "funnel-shaped hole in the ground, broad at the top, and pointed towards the bottom .... in this hole, used as a cell for solitary confinement, the misdoers would be thrown, clad only in a. thin suit of fatigue clothes, without a blanket or any protection against- rain or sun." For days and nights there they would lie in the hole one or two feet square. Then there was the "orapaudine," when the prisoner "was simply tied 11 pin a bundle and thrown into a corner, his hands and feet being tied together 011 his back till they formed a semi-circle .... for a quarter of nil hour a day he would be set free to eat and drink. ... A day and a night in the "erapaudino" was enough to deprive a man of tho use of his limbs—several days gave liini his quietus." These horrors were only abolished by General Nogier, so until comparatively recent years such tortures still existed in the army of a liighlv civilised country! ' HOST ILK RACES. With all his endless miseries, the luckless legionnaire has not even the comfort of "esprit de corps" to sustain liini, for how can such a plant flourish among men drawn from classes incapable of amalgamating from nationalities between whom stand the inalterable hatred of race? Nothing binds the legionnaire to his fellows but the enforced companionship of a barrack-room; and who can wonder if, with tlio dread of punishment beforo his eyes, the most honest man thieves from his neighbour's equipment, who can blame him because his only hope lies in the intoxicating power of a litre of Algeritii wine?

Active service, if it brings relief from the intolerable monotony of existence, teaches tile legionnaire to the full the meaning of the words "march or die" which have soon become familiar to him in his daily work. March 110 must, then, because to the man who falls aside, "from the ranks hard prest, and tho road unknown," comes the horrible death by inhuman tortures at the slim, brown hands of the Arab women, hanging, vulture-like, 011 the flanks of the column, or the agony of dying by inches from thirst as he crawls over the limitless sand of the African desert.

it is t-iio memory of tliu.se atrocities by the Arabs which breed fierce hatred and vengefulness in the whito man's soul. lint it is the end of the luckless legionnaire's career which forms the grimmest reading, when, time-expir-ed, he, returns to civilisation and, seeking work, finds the doons of the self-righteous closed to him. Every man's hand is aginst this poor piece of human flotsam, this moral leper whom the years of his service have damned in'their sight. Homeless, destitute, hopeless he wanders over the face of a world which mo longer has room for him; and whate\ei may have been the heinousness of his sins against God or man, most bitterly, most fully does he expiate them.