History of The French Foreign Legion - Formation of The Legion

Formation of The Legion

The French Foreign Legion was created by a royal ordinance issued by King Louis Philippe, at the suggestion of Minister of War Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult, on March 9, 1831. Nine days later on March 18, 1831, an additional directive was issued restricting membership in the newly formed Legion to foreigners. The latter directive reflected the initial purpose of the Foreign Legion as a mechanism to lessen the potential disruption to the provisional French government and the newly enthroned House of Orléans posed by the large influx of foreigners following the collapse of the Bourbon Restoration in the previous year's July Revolution. Some of these foreigners in France were the remnants of regiments formed during the campaigns of Napoleon I of Germans, Swedes, Poles, Hungarians, and others. These foreign veterans had been left with little means and professional military training which proved to be of concern the French Government. Many of these foreigners of concern to the French government had flocked to France following the July Revolution or came to France following failures of the revolutionary or independence movements throughout Europe; in addition to an influx of idealistic revolutionaries and nationalist, France also became home to large numbers of immigrants who had removed from their countries of origin for economic or personal reasons. This influx of foreigners had become a significant burden for the newly established French government's administrative capabilities; for example during March 1831 a depot established in Langres, France to accommodate these recent immigrants had been inundated to point of overstretch. Furthermore French military operations in Algeria, which had commenced under Charles X, had proven unpopular with portions of the French populace as the campaign, despite its initial success, had become bogged down in the occupation of that country. The formation of the Foreign Legion would help address the domestic threat of dissidents fomenting political instability while contributing to government's colonial endeavors in Algeria.

As part of the Provisional Government's policy of removing potential dissidents from France, upon enlistment recruits guaranteed anonymity as a condition of their service and information provided to the legion was accepted on face value. This was the beginning of what would become the tradition of enlisting volunteers under the anonymat . Officially enlistment of French nationals in the Legion was forbidden, many French criminals enlisted during this time claiming that they were French-speaking Swiss or Waloons. Such enlistments were not within the proposed scope of the Foreign Legion, however the Provisional Government proved not terribly distressed by the voluntary removal of members of a troublesome social element a time when its control of the nation was less than concrete.

The formation of the Foreign Legion was fraught with difficulties from the outset.

The officer corps of the Foreign Legion comprised an assortment of Napoleonic-era officers, expatriate officers, and younger, more recently commissioned French officers. The Napoleonic-era officers were able to return to the French Army from semi-retired status following the July Revolution. Many Napoleonic-era veterans were forced into semi-retirement on half-pay by the Bourbon Dynasty which viewed their loyalty suspect and perceived these veterans as a threat. However during the interim many of these officers martial skills had deteriorated in sixteen idle years. Officers of foreign extract were mostly of Swiss, German, and Polish origin. Some of these officers came from units such as the Hohenlohe Regiment, an expatriot formation similar to the Foreign Legion. Foreign officers would Many newly commissioned French officers in the Foreign Legion proved less than competent; since it was widely understood that the Foreign Legion was raised for service outside Metropolitan France, the postings entailed were viewed with little enthusiasm by many officers and the prospect of leading an émigré unit into combat had little allure to many capable officers. In additions to the problems within the Foreign Legion's officer cadre, the Foreign Legion lacked experienced non-commmissoned officers and efforts to recruit veteran NCOs from retirement were largely unsuccessful. Non-commissioned officers by necessity were selected from the enlisted ranks; these men often proved ill-suited to the responsibilities of NCOs. At its inception the Foreign Legion was organized into a single regiment of seven battalions. Each battalion followed the form of a battalion of a regular French line infantry battalion; each battalion had eight companies of 112 men each. Each battalion was formed of men of specific nationalities or linguistic groups; the 1st Battalion was composed of veterans of the Swiss Guards and the Hohenlohe Regiment, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions were composed of Swiss and German volunteers, the 5th Battalion consisted of those of Spanish extract, the 6th Battalion consisted mostly of a mixture of Sardinians and Italians, the 6th Battalion was formed of Belgians and Dutch, and the 7th Battalion consisted of volunteers of Polish origin.

As Algeria proved an unpopular posting with regular French Army regiments, the arrival of the Foreign Legion was welcomed.