The Foreign Legion is not the Wagner Group or the Azov Battalion
“Foreign Legion” by Stefano Marino read by Tullio Fazzolari
The reason for talking about the Foreign Legion was unintentionally provided a few days ago by Boris Pistorius, Germany's Defense Minister. According to him, to strengthen the German army, it would be necessary to enlist citizens of other nationalities. That is, mercenaries. Pistorius is a social democrat and his statements
they did not cause much controversy. However, one doubts that if a politician from another party had said something like that, half of Europe would have already gone for his jugular. The other question is whether he plans to arm the mercenaries with slingshots and blowguns given that, according to experts, Western arsenals have been emptied with the sending of supplies to Ukraine.
What is certain is that the German minister seems sure of his idea and to be more convincing he cites the example of other nations. And evidently he refers to France and its Foreign Legion. But, equally clearly, he doesn't know what he's talking about. The Legion is not and perhaps never has been a mercenary unit. It has almost two centuries of history and is now an institution whose loyalty to France is bombproof. Nothing could be further from the Wagner group or the Azov battalion. Many books tell it fully and only a few can be cited. Gianni Oliva wrote “Among the damned of the earth. History of the Foreign Legion. John Parker was responsible for “Inside the Foreign Legion” and Louis Garros “History of the Foreign Legion”. Domenico Vecchioni is the author of “Foreign Legion. History, rules and characters” and Stefano Di Marino of “Foreign Legion. Story of an adventure”. Not to mention the autobiographies of those who, like Tony Sloane or Danilo Pagliaro, lived the experience of being a legionnaire.
Many books but they all go in the same direction. If the mercenary fights for money, this is not the case with the legionnaire. The basic pay is around 1,300 euros per month. A foreign fighter in Ukraine earns at least 3 thousand. Those who join the Legion do not do so for money but to escape from something and often from opposite situations. It has happened for several years that anti-fascist exiles and former Nazis have found themselves as comrades in arms. Other times we enlist to fight for a just cause. This is the case, for example, of the great American composer Cole Porter or the pioneer of dentistry Henry Lentulo. Emile Zola's father and Nicolas Sarkozy's father served in the Legion and then became French citizens. But the most interesting story is perhaps that of the Jewish boy who escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna. It will remain in
Legion and will make a career until becoming general of the French army. There may be former criminals among the legionaries but calling them mercenaries like those of the Wagner group is an insult. And the last pages of "The Silent Valley", an old novel by Howard Simpson, are enough to do them justice: Dien Bien Phu has fallen, the French soldiers have already surrendered to the Vietnamese. The legionnaires still don't. And they sing the Marseillaise at the top of their lungs.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/legione-straniera-recensione/ on Sun, 18 Feb 2024 06:46:01 +0000.