France. Armée. Légion étrangère; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
American members know that the present fight of France is ours. She,
also, contends for democracy. She aided us in our direst need. In the
darkest hour of the Revolution, it was the French fleet that defied the
English, landed French soldiers to help us, and enabled Washington to
dispatch 5,000 red-breeched Frenchmen, who marched from Newport News to
join 1,500 American infantry under Alexander Hamilton. They captured
Yorktown and compelled the surrender of Cornwallis and gained the
victory that resulted in the independence of America.
So, today, 142 years later, American soldiers in khaki cross leagues of
ocean, fight, suffer and die to save France from invasion even as France
saved us.
CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF THE LEGION
The Foreign Legion has a notable record, which extends back to the
Crusades. Then, French and Anglo-Saxon marched together, and fought to
save the world for Christianity. History, repeating itself, after
centuries, today, we see the same forces, side by side, fighting, dying,
not only for Christianity, but for civilization. On the result of this
clash with the barbarous Hun depends the preservation of the world.
At Pontevrault, twenty miles from Saumer, in the valley of the Loire,
rest the remains of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, whose Anglo-Saxon heart, worn
with hardship and suffering, ceased beating under the sunny skies of
France, pierced by the poisoned arrow of a mysterious assassin from the
far East.
Beneath the pavement, in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in
Jerusalem, lie the remains of Philip D’Aubigne, a French knight, who
fulfilled his vow to lay himself upon the threshold of that church which
marks the place where rests the body of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ.
As the Anglo-Saxon perished in France, and the Frenchman died in
Jerusalem, both for the cause of Right and Justice, today, millions
leave native land to meet that organized force, which seeks to conquer,
subdue, and enslave the people of all earth’s free countries.
Among ancient soldiers of the Foreign Legion were Broglie of Broglie,
Rantzan, Lowendall, the Duke of Berwick, John Hitton, the son of an
African king, and the Scottish Stuarts, with many other knights and men
of note.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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