Here is an article that I’ve had laying around for some time but had assumed it was already posted. It is a chapter (page 27) from the book Deeds of Heroism and Bravery: The Book of Heroes and Personal Daring by Elwyn Alfred Barron which was published 1920. In this book there are dozens of amazing stories of WWI combat and daring adventures featuring soldiers, airmen, sailors, spies, nurses, and ambulance men. This article does a good job providing some first hand anecdotes of the early actions of the Foreign Legion as recounted by American legionnaire Edward Morlae. The last chapters under the heading “Dare-Devil Fighters from the Paris Slums” address the Battalions D’Afrique / Joyeux and their heroic actions in the trenches.
Here is another copy of this photograph from the August 1917 issue of Scribner’s magazine.
Nice. Do you have any indication of when the photo was taken? It’s very hard to make out the detail but at least one chap has what looks like a tin for an M2 mask so it’s probably 1916-17.
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The picture was from Scribner’s magazine from the latter half of 1917. There was a short article in the August 1917 issue by Sergeant Bouligny (another American Legionnaire) called The Foreign Legion in Pictures that has the same photograph. I’ve posted the slightly better picture from that. Here is the link to the article (you may have to cut and paste it). https://books.google.com/books?id=4pc6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA214&lpg=PA214&dq=Scribner%27s+Foreign+Legion&source=bl&ots=4F5sMcdhIH&sig=WmMIKlVrfSbh7XbR6fC3FFdV9P4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz6rLissfTAhWK64MKHQSEAIQQ6AEIJjAB#v=onepage&q=Scribner%27s%20Foreign%20Legion&f=false
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Excellent, many thanks for the info.
It’s interesting to see as well that many appear to have very baggy trousers and short puttees.
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