It would be hard to find a more conglomerate body of men than the legion. Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Poles, who will not fight for Russia, but want to fight against Prussia; Americans and British, shoulder to shoulder, sharing blankets and little luxuries that filter into camp from time to time. In my company were a Spaniard and a Chilian who had always been deadly enemies. The Spaniard had lost a fortune gambling, and then the Chilian won the girl the Spaniard was going to marry. They fought a duel, which the police interrupted. Both joined the legion and were assigned to the same squad. VI--THE LEGIONAIRES IN THE BATTLE OF MONTLUEL The discipline is very strict in a way, but the legionnaires have to be handled differently than any other troops. They still delight to tell about what was dubbed the "Battle of Montluel." Three pals from the legion were in the town on leave. One was an American civil engineer, one an Irishman of the school you read about--chivalrous, humorous, always ready to fight--and the third was an Englishman who had travelled so much that he belonged nowhere in particular. They drank all the good wine in Montluel and refused to pay for any of it. At last they wandered into a tavern they had missed and demanded something to drink. The innkeeper refused them, having heard of their escapades. The Irishman dashed at him. The proprietor floored him with a chair. The two others leaped upon the innkeeper. Peasants and townsmen rushed in with flails, sticks and anything handy and began beating the life out of the three legionaires, who yelled for the gendarmes. The gendarmes came, but they arrested the soldiers and returned them to their military commander. They were sentenced to twenty years of hard labor on the railroad in Algeria. But they begged so hard to be allowed to fight as long as the war lasted that the commander agreed, saying they deserved to be shot anyway. I don't believe they will ever serve their twenty years in prison, for if they are not killed they will have won their pardon. Already they have won "citations" and would have been decorated were they not technically prisoners. I would just like to say one word about training men for fighting in Europe. I don't want to presume to give advice, but I fully believe that the only place to train men for this kind of fighting is right behind the lines, where they will hear the shells bursting. Then they can be moved up to the reserve trenches and used for repair and construction work until they are ready to be put into the fighting. In this war every man must take care of himself. There has never been fighting like it. I don't care how well trained a soldier may be, he has got to see something of the war before he will be any good in a fight. SECRET STORIES OF THE GERMAN SPY IN FRANCE _How Sixty Thousand Spies Prepared for the War_