MEN WHO DIED WITH KINGS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 191, 14 July 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

MEN WHO DIED WITH KINGS.

SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE IN THE FOREIGN LEGION. LITTLE "WORLD OF MEN." The "Daily Express" Paris correspondent gives an interesting pan-pic-ture of how "all sorts and conditions ' of men" were recruited—or rather recruited themselves—for service with the famous French Foreign Legion. With the exception of the "Bat d'Af"—the "Regiment of the Naughty Boys," so called because it consists of young men who have served shout sentences for misdemeanous—there is no section of the French army which has * a more picturesque history than the Ist Marching Regiment or the Foreign

Legion. It. is a great sight to see a regiment of the Legion on the march; negroes and blond Swedes go cheik by jowl with swarthy Italians. Men who have, dined with Kings ans dwe|tf in? marble halls sink their identity W&6t a borrowed name, and march with" a Polish tailor or a cowboy from; I thjv'W3ld West. All sorts of femoufimin have fallen on the field of hon*fr while fighting with the Legioifi; Bmetr/Valnier, from the Argentine, writer; Sosthene Kurtk,'\*h«r : Bon of Maxim Gorky, Camil'l6* Kaiwrez, from Venezuela; a Columbian poet,' Fernandez de Bengoscha; frimi Ecuador, Rodolfo Semiitrio; ffie novelist Sanchez Carrero-i-all fell for France on the battlefields of Artois and Champagne. , MOTLEY THRONG OF "LEGIONAIRES." The poet Ismail Urdometa was killed in the Dardanelles while rushing a Turkish trench'ht the point of the bayonet, and tho son of.the Russian Ambassador at Paris, M. Isvolsky, was severely wounded .while fighting beside Lieutenant Alexis tXmnene, the greatgrandson of of Trebizond. Bob Bcanlon, the nj||ro boxer, is with the Legion; and Francois Faber, from Luxemburg, the" pttplic idol who carried off manVprizes as a professional cvclist, fell in actioft. So did Alex. Carter, the famous Steeplechase jockey. "Winnie" O'Ootimw; one of the best jockeys that ever cro|sed the Atlantic, joined up after writing a letter to Walter de Mumm, returning all the money he had earned whrte" riding under his colours. OTonnbr-VtOte: "I hate Bosche money; your'&old burns my fingers. I want to of it." Fifteen young stnflents from the Beaux Arts in Paris joined the Legion in a body. Not only all classes, but nil races, arc blended together in the wonderful Ist Marching Regiment. When Italy went to war the Italians were transferred to their own army, but previously they fought brilliantly and two grandsons, of Garibaldi lost their lives, in Franc*. This nucleus of the 2nd Regiment was formed on the evening of July 31, 1914, in a Parisian cafe. Some young Italians issued an appeal, and as a result about 3000 English, Belgians, Italians, and Slavs attended the meeting to consider how they could best a'd the country of their adoption. BRITISH EFFORTS. In the early hours of the first day of August I was passing along the Boulevarde Haussmann, and saw thousands of foreigners waiting in a line that extended for the greater part of a nile. They were there for hours, and I found that this 7 was the location of the recruiting office of the new regiment of the Legion. Before the evening the crowd had become so dense that new offices had to be opened all over Pari6. The Biitist residents in Paris tuel to form a regiment of their own, and as a result of the first meeting, h'Jd at the Imperial Cub, about five thousand men offered themselves for em >l- - The authorities, however, wire unable to accept the offer of a separate regiment, and the 6ame reply nas given to tho corps of American volunteers so it was decided that the British volunteers should be drafted into the Foreign Legion. About four hundred of them began drill at once in the exhibition i;r:>onds of the Magic City. Every nt>v recruit of tho Legion had to pass an extremely severe medical examination, which was held beneath the shadow of Napoleon 8 Tomb, and about 20 per cent, wove lejected. I believe the actual uuii.lu accepted was 35,-100, made up -is follows : 500 Britons. 500 Luxemburgere. 600 Americans. 1,000 Spaniards. 1,500 Greeks. 1,500 Belgians. 1,600 Czechs and Galicms. 1 TOO Poles and Danes. Swiss. 3,500 Russians. 5.000 Italian?. 10,000 Alsatians. 6,000 of various nationalities. NOT MERCENARIES. After the first few months all the British members were transferred to English regiments, but not before tlie.\ had- been in several engagements rrd suffered losses. A motley crowd w-»ro the British members of the Legion. Quite a number of them were skating rink instructors, left over from tho skating "boom" of a few years ago; others'were stable-lads lrom Cbantilly and Maisons-Laffitte, clerks, barmen, and a host of tailors' and hosiers' assistants. Most of the American members peti. tioned to ioin the Flying Corps, and Franc 1 lias so many American flying men now that a sqnadrirla of Americans is being formed. Dutch, Swedes, Danes and Americans, who could legitimately have remained onlookers, have cheerfn'Hv laid down their lives on the battlefields of France so that future „rncrations of their nations may ■•« freed from the menace of Teuton claw?. The pav of the men of the Legion is the same ns that of the oilier of France— twopence halfpenny per dav and an allowance of tobacco an wine ~ B o t'uM-e is no question of ,K. timvMinrr spirit bavins incited men , v l, o have thrown up Rood position" ,o fight for Franc-.