Legion Pulp: By Special Request

This month’s pulp fiction story featuring the French Foreign Legion is from the January, 1932 issue of Adventure.  Georges Surdez, the specialist in this unique sub-genre of adventure fiction, is the author.  It is another one of his tales of Legion loyalty forged in combat played out by well crafted and complex characters.  The setting is a dingy mountain top blockhouse whose previous occupants were wiped out and reoccupied by a section of Legionnaires.  The Riffian tribesmen quickly close in and besiege the outpost.

This story is closely based on the actual combat, in April 1925, between the French and Rif rebels in northern Morocco when those Berbers led by Abd el-Krim crossed the boundary and attacked the string of French outposts just north of the Ouergha River.  Several outposts held out for several weeks before falling.

(Thanks to EXciter for sharing the scan)

By Special Request

NOTE TO READERS & FOLLOWERS:  I’ve been a bit slow to posting items here–pretty much this entire year.  My recent efforts and how I have been approaching this blog are getting a bit disorganized and frankly I’ve also been a bit lazy.  I’ve started so many posts that remain just drafts and dozens of projects that remain unfinished even years after starting them.  I see slowdowns happen to many blogs I follow so I guess apathy or boredom might slowly build up over several years (I started this blog back in May of 2010).  However, I’m aware of this and know I can do better so I’ve taken to (re)organizing and indexing all of my books, digital files & pictures, magazines, miniatures and everything else I have on this subject.  I’ve been building an actual planner for future posts, backing up my hard drives and previous postings as well (I’ve seen some blogs get hijacked or hacked). 

So for the future there will still be a monthly pulp fiction story around the middle of the month but I’m going to discontinue the monthly “Hodgepodge” usually posted at the end of the month.  Instead of the Hodgepodge post, I’ll post an occasional “wrap-up” as needed to bring attention to smaller items I think might be of interest and related to one of the most interesting subjects of all–The French Foreign Legion.  So expect some changes soon and the frequency of the posting to start picking up over time.  Thanks for reading.