Legion Etrangere (1972)

[Badger]

I love this video ...

Chant - "Connaissez-vous ces hommes" (Do you know these men)

Refrain:
Ai O – Ai O – Ai O – OO (bis)

1.
Connaissez-vous ces hommes qui marchent là-bas
Écoutez un peu la chanson de leurs pas
Elle vous dit qu’ils ont martelé bien des routes
Et ça c’est vrai, il n’y a aucun doute
Du Tonkin à Dakar
D’Afrique en Norvège
Dans le sable, le vent et la neige
Gloire à la Légion Étrangère.

2.
Légionnaire de l’Afrique suis tes anciens.
De ton allure magnifique va ton chemin
Tête haute sans tourner les yeux,
L’âme légère et le coeur joyeux
Suis ta route sans peur de tomber
Avec Honneur et Fidélité.

[jonnyc]

Well, it's not "Le Boudin", but I loved it.

[Ovidio]

Makes me get the shivers.......

[jonnyc]

Le Boudin - Musique de la Légion étrangère (vidéo officielle) - YouTube

[Surpmil]

The Legion was not a totally new idea. Napoleon had numerous foreign regiments from Dutch to Swiss to Poles, and they served him well. The French kings had Scottish and Irish regiments for centuries before that. The Byzantine emperors had their Varangian Guard of Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons...But the brand recognition, the esprit de corps? That you cannot buy for love or money, and as Napoleon said, "in war the human is to the material as three to one".

The Monument Aux Morts was brought back from Sidi bel Abbes, but the rest of the barracks was demolished with explosives before the French left Algeria. It's a pity they didn't save the gate.

Attachment 80889Attachment 80890

Are the Belgians really bad shots?

[Ovidio]

Napoleon also had an Italian brigade, which was destroyed during the retreat from Russia at the Beresina river, holding up the enemy.

[Surpmil]

Yes, and his Dutch engineers under General Eblé(?) held up with their hands the bridge over the Beresina by which he escaped. Napoleon had previously ordered Eblé to destroy his mobile forges as they were considered a military secret, but the General disobeyed and kept some - had he not it is said the bridges over the Beresina could not have been built as the hardware could not have been forged. Napoleon would have ended his days in Siberia instead of St. Helena.

"An officer must know when to disobey".

And by way of comparison, Julius Caesar's legions built bridges across the Rhine in about a week.

[Gil Boyd]

A former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the emperor Hadrian. He built a wall across England but it didn't stop "Mel Gibson" and his clans coming south or Nicola Sturgeon going for Independence in 2022 lol

[Ovidio]

I’d like to see how effective the Berlin wall would have been in 2963 or later

[Gil Boyd]

Ovidio,
Probably would still be there is people hadn't chipped away at it