FOREIGN LEGION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 February 1939, Page 8

FOREIGN LEGION

ACTIVE PEACE-TIME DUTIES. There is no fighting for the Foreign Legion to do in Morocco, which can be said to be completely pacified, but that does not make of the Legion a useless body of soldiers. The Legion are great road builders, and wherever they go, just like the legionaries of Rome, well made roads take the place of tracks. Thanks principally to the Legion, Morocco has over 3,000 miles of fine roads, built by the Legion and by native help.. Marshal Lyautcy, the conqueror of Morocco, used to say “a workman more means a rifle less.” The roads the Foreign Legion have built are for the most part straight. They were built for motor traffic and consequently are the finest roads in existence for motorists. There are no sharp bends. Visibility is excellent and carefully maintained, with no trees or palms or shrubs allowed anywhere to obstruct the vision. Intersections are extremely rare, so that on these finely made roads the motorist can go all out with safety. There is one stretch of straight • road between Casablanca and Marrakesh where 80 miles an hour is considered a safe speed for motor cars. Direction indications on the Morocco roads are made for the motorist in a hurry, consisting of names of places and distance paintea in black letters a foot to eighteen inches high on white walls twelve feet high by twenty wide, so that he who speeds may read. The natives have acquired a road sense and keep much closer to the side of the road than in France. One gets a distinct impression that they are so grateful for these fine roads that they desire to give as little trouble as possible. One of the strange contrasts of Morocco is to see a roadside service station, with one or two high powered modern automobiles in front of it, and a caravan of natives and camels ambling by.