My last post of the year. Here are some of the items I came across this month related to the Foreign Legion.
1. Foreign Legion Uniform Plates at “Miniaturas Militares por Alfons Canovas”. This website is a gold mine for fans of military uniforms and I happened to notice there were some recent posts depicting uniforms of the French Foreign Legion. There are actually several entries about the Foreign Legion on the entire blog and using the search function on the blog allows you to pull them all up. The links below will take you to the five recent posts depicting the excellent work (like the picture above) of one Jose Mº (Maria) Bueno, a fairly prolific artist and writer of uniform books in Spanish during the 1980-90’s.
No 1. 1831-1845 Link
No 2. 1851-1860 Link
No 3. 1863-1870 Link
No 4. 1885-1890 Link
No 5. 1892-1920 Link
2. Websites of Note. I’m always finding new places on the web but I’m not very attentive to sharing these finds under my blog roll or links. These were some of the neat ones this month….
— Bir Hacheim This French website is devoted to all things about the French military. It has several posts about the Foreign Legion. I use it as mainly as a resource to find more information about books, magazines and films related to the Foreign Legion and other elite French forces.
—Dien Bien Phu (Redstar Miniatures). This blog mainly is devoted to an interesting line of 28mm miniatures for the Indochina War. There are also some related posts to uniforms and equipment of this conflict.
—Franska Främlingslegionen. This great site is devoted to the Swedish members of the Foreign Legion. There is a wealth of information here and the author has done some remarkable research into a very narrow subject. There is a page in English and the scope of the blog says “Welcome to my page. Here I have gathered information from my collection of books and the internet, which I hope will be a fairly comprehensive “dictionary” for those who want to dig deeper into the subject, “The French Foreign Legion. Swedes and in Swedish”. A nice blog to browse–you never know what you might find here. Check out the link to the “curiosities“.
3. Thomas Gunn Figures in Action. More action pictures from Micheal’s collection of Thomas Gunn Miniatures.
4. Legion Wargames. Thanks to the Bir Hacheim website mentioned above I discovered a link to Legion Wargames, manufactures of traditional map and cardboard counter war games. In particular they have made a game called Tonkin that looks very interesting and another (soon to be released) that depicts the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Also available is a game called Ici c’est la France! The Algerian War of Independence 1954 – 1952. Their website is a bit buggy but patience is rewarded.
5. Tabletop Wargame Action. The folks at the Association – Les Riflemen blog posted some interesting pictures of a miniatures war game they played involving a 1857 skirmish between the French and Algerian Kabilye tribesmen.
6. Mercenary Graphics. Eric at Mercenary Graphics has a very nice range of holiday Foreign Legion themed products. I somehow overlooked posting this before Christmas but you can stock up now for 2014. His other work can be seen at his page on Deviant Art.
Administrative Notes: This is where I usually make bold statements about future “next year is gonna be great” goals and specific milestones for this blog. Not this time. I will simply promise more Foreign Legion book and movie reviews (since I’ve already done the reading and the watching all that’s left is the writing). Pulps and the monthly “hodgepodge” will also continue. I will try and post more miniature work since I’m finally wrapping up some projects. It seems the topic of the classic French Foreign Legion is never close to being exhausted and I’m looking forward to posting another year’s worth of exciting and interesting information about La Légion étrangère française.
Mon Legionnaire 
Some of the illustrations shown on “Miniaturas Militares por Alfons Canovas” seem similar to the Legion uniforms used on set of the movie “The Mummy” during the opening scene. Up until this point I’d concluded that they simply tried to make something that looked “Legion-ish” with what they had on set (granted I give them extra credit for giving them the blue sash and the kepi blanc being a cover as opposed to a proper white hat). Have you seen the clip I’m referring to? If not, give this a gander.
It brought a smile to my face, for sure. What’s your opinion? The infantry uniforms look somewhat similar to the 1903 uniforms shown above, granted they’d be 20 years off. Not to mention, what’s your opinion on the officer and NCO uniforms? I haven’t been able to find any sources for anything that looked quite like Brendan Fraser’s uniform in the clip above, though again, I give them bonus points for at least giving him the Foreign Legion’s grenade emblem on his collar.
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Nice clip. I thought the uniforms were pretty good. Only the stiff sides of the kepi seemed off–the parade kepi blanc with the more conical shape would not be seen on a Legionnaire until well after WWII. It looks like they forced cloth covers over the later issue kepis. The officers uniforms looked spot on including the collar tabs. In between wars (which the movie was supposed to take place) the Foreign Legion were still wearing an issue khaki colored cover over their normal red & blue kepi. Because it was washed so much it bleached white and with some aid from the sun it soon became white. I was told by someone who lives and breaths movies that Hollywood usually gets the Foreign Legion uniforms mostly correct with the exceptions of some horrible low budget movies.
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I remember reading about the washing of the kepi’s covers that’d eventually turn them white – it wasn’t until 1940 that the white kepi actually became an official piece of the Legion’s proper uniform, as opposed to a cover meant to protect the red and blue beneath, if I’m correct. As for the officer uniforms, I’m actually really glad to hear that – the ones shown here are so fancifully dashing that I was hoping that they’d be historically accurate, haha.
Good on Hollywood for their attention to detail. I guess what with a lot of the Legion’s mythos having been born in cinema it’s only proper for Hollywood to get them right.
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