FIGHTING FOR SPAIN.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 December 1921, Page 4

FIGHTING FOR SPAIN.

THE FIRST BRITISH LEGION (By E. Britten Austin.) If liistoi v does not 111 ceisely repeat it.self it has a knack of ju-vidiug cm iuuslv close parallels. I Spain has been recruiting Drifts. \ etc rails of the Great Mar Iwi sd vice ill Morocco. Nearly a bundle, veai s ago she was .s.i'mflail f ) 1, erupting Britons for her service, am those most, eagerly sought niter w«n< the veterans of M'ellington's army

This was in IK.’to. At tfent time the Spanish Government of the. intent Queen Isabella was seriously embarrassed l>v tlie milita I y successes ol Isabel. In's "uncle, the technically legitimate Pretender Don I'nrlos. The Spanish mini "as hopelessly inadequate to deal with him. the Govi rnmeut. with the appr-val of tl. sympatic tie Governments of England and I'ramie, decided to inisc troops in both Ei mice and England jusl as il is to-<|ny. This Rjitijh Legion of 18.T> consist'd of two regiments of cavalry and ton battalions of infantry, 'uniformed in tinHritifli rod. except one <-!;•-tl in rifleman's jo-eon. There were about 000 men to each battalion and about 12 per cent, of them were veterans of the Napoleonic War. left to starve on fid a <lav (if they were lucky') by a grateful country, and only too "lnd of a chance to sell themselves non in as cannon-fod-der.

They enlisted for one ni- two years at their option (or so they thought) and received a bounty of C2 on sailing. Every class was represented old soldiers. I’eers’ sons, doctors. lawyers, clerks, labourers, criminals a diversity of types uniform only in one respect, that they were all “down and out." They were officered, with a few honourable exceptions, by men whose ineotnputonce was equalled only by their brutality to the unfortunates undet t’ eommond. General do Kiev Evans, who commanded the force, was one of 'Wellington’s officers who subsequently served with distinction in the Crimen. M hatover his capacities as a sub-ordinate, as an independent eommandor lie v. s scandalously inefficient.

\t Vittoria the Legion utterly ■ elected and starved, its pay so iniieli in niTenr that even some of the officers perished of want, was ravaged hv sickness.

“Men died by sections.” wrote one of Wellington’s ex-sergeants who wn< a captain in the Legion, “llie d"l"i oils, the dying, and the dead were all indiscriminately huddled together, and sometimes mixed tin with ib"ii groans might be heard tlie cries of some poor fellow undergoing a course, not of medicine, but of eat-o’-nine tails, which in many instances was resorted to by the medical gentlemen to bant out "be! they could not cure.” Novertheless in 183(1 the Legion fought gallantly, although in meet eases its successes were nullified In’ the imbecility of its commander. Hut by the middle of 18.1(1. the I o,;i„u. its pay six months in arrenr. “disgusted with the privations it had endured (writes one of tho officers) broke out into open mutiny.” Those whose year was up piled their arms and declined to re-engage.

The Spaniards refused to grant them a passage home, however, and these unfortunates for the bribe of one square meal at last consented to serve a second year. “Many of them,” svs their chronicler, “lind not even clothing to cover their nakedness. Old rags were divided among them and overt old parchment, records were converted into covers for decency.

During 1837 the Legion did some more fighting and then marched and e<>unter-mnrclied, until at last in 1810. the war over, the survivors returned to Fn gland.

Dreadfully ns it had suffered, in fairness to the Spaniards it should he said that the French Tx'gion commanded hy officers solicitous for their men seems to have boon comparatively very well treated.