One of the most famous Foreign Legionnaires was the Dane known as Prince Aage or more formally Count Aage of Rosenborg. (He has a short bio on Wikipedia) Prince Aage entered the French Foreign Legion in 1922 at the age of 35 as a Captain. It was not unusual for officers from other countries to enter the Legion but they often had to enter at a lower rank with the promise of promotion later. Captain Aage fought bravely in Morocco against the Rif in 1926 and by all accounts was a born leader and revered by his men. One legionnaire in his unit was the Englishman Sergeant A. R. Cooper who went on to write about his time in the Legion in the book called “March or Bust. Adventures in the Foreign Legion”. In 1927, Aage wrote his own memoir called “My Life in the Foreign Legion” which later became “A Royal Adventurer in the Foreign Legion”. He eventually made Lieutenant Colonel and died of natural causes in 1940 in Taza, Morocco while still serving in the Legion. He was buried in Sidi Bel Abbes and was one of three Legionnaires who were brought back to France when the Legion left Algeria. I’ll write more of Prince Aage when I review his book. In the meantime I found this one page “Men of Daring” feature that appeared in an old Argosy magazine (before his death in 1940).
