Customer Reviews

The History of the French Foreign Legion: From 1831 to Present Day

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The literature dealing with the French Foreign Legion is rich in works that reward the reader with insights into the legion's unique character and heroic past. Unfortunately, this is not one of those books. It is not even worthy of being deemed a "coffee table" book because of the numerous misattributions associated with the photos chosen by the author and those that don't illustrate legion units at all. A glaring example is on page 147. The caption states, "Above: Parading legionnaires..." when in fact what the photo illustrates is troops of France's naval infantry drawn up for parade. This is immediately eveident by the anchor on the kepi of the NCO in the rear rank and the rank brassards of the men themselves which also feature the anchor device in gold instead of the legion grenade in green. As if this were not a sufficient example of sloppy photo selection, how could one overlook or confuse the prominently displayed red sash worn by the naval infantry instead of the blue worn by the legion? This is fundamental stuff folks. Other color plates from period illustrators are so washed out as to be worthless as uniform guides. If you have any interest in the "uniformology" of the legion then you would be far better served by any of the Osprey publications on the same subject or Martin Windrow's Uniforms of the French Foreign Legion which is excellent . Similarly, legion history is best appreciated by time spent with Douglas Porch's study of the subject. Finally, for a contemporary look at the legion one would be well rewarded by reading John Robert Young's book as published by Thames and Hudson. It is a work rich in color photos that are both accurate and informative in contrast to those of Mr. Jordan's. Leave this book untouched on Amazon's electronic bookshelf.

If you are looking for a detailed history, this isn't it. Try "The Damned Die Hard".

How do you make a famous fighting unit look boring. Well, you write a book about it. Then you add some pictures that kind of depict the unit involved. I was disappointed with this book. As one of the previous reviewers has already stated, they have pictures of other units in this book and attribute them to the French Foreign Legion. One picture on page 147 clearly shows French Marines, with a caption of the Foreign Legion with their weapons. There were problems with editing on this book as well.

The first portion of the book details the history of this famous unit. It is a short summary history and doesn't add a lot of detail. Then it covers some of the units and their specialities. This also is not exciting reading. Then they cover the armaments and transportation for the Legion. As one might guess, this is the same for the French Army. The second part of the book plus the mistakes with the photos certainly drove the rating down on this writing. If one wants a good history of the Foreign Legion, try Porch's book.

The French Foreign Legion is one of the strangest military units ever created. One of its original rules was that it could never serve in France itself. This remained in effect until World War I when France needed all the troops it could get into the trenches. Originally it asked few questions about the background of people joining, and it is rumored that an awful lot of german was spoken by off duty legionnaires just after World War II.

This book covers the legion from its inception in 1831 through it's activities today. It covers their victories as well as their two big defeats at Camerone, Mexico and of course Dien Bien Phu.

About half the book is on the history of the legion, the other half is on the modern legion. The modern legion has changed somewhat from its history to become an elite unit of the French army. It has been used in various peacekeeping operations, counter terrorists activities, and in joint operations with other countries such as during Desert Storm. There is also a good bit of description of the equipment used by the legion, from it's standard rifle to the LeClerc main battle tank.

I did see a couple of mistakes, mostly in the labeling of pictures, but these were not serious enough to

The French Foreign Legion is so famous that its name reaches far beyond military students alone and the general public has a good sense for its notoriety - yet few know the depth and details of its history. That's why THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION FROM 1831 TO THE PRESENT DAY is so important: it provides a detailed survey of the Legion, which began in France in 1831 and fought battles through some of the harshest environments in the world. While today's Legion only holds about eight thousand men, it's aggressive recruiting and arduous training program keeps it one of the world's elite fighting forces.