It has long been an affinity of mine to find often obscure topics in arms history and try to discover more on these areas, and this, with the Foreign Legion (Regiment Etranger) of course seemed a good one.
As has been seen, for some of us, the stories of the Foreign Legion we were exposed to in our younger years are long remembered, just as would be the case with young boys yearning for adventure. Ironically in the movie "Beau Geste" which I unfortunately used anecdotally here, the opening scenes had to do with young boys dreaming of adventure, which of course brought in the "Legion'.
It would be hard to look into this topic without these elements brought to the fore.
In seeking more information as I had hoped for here, I have gone into a number of references and it seems there is a remarkable lack of information on the Foreign Legion in the 19th century, particularly in North Africa. That was primarily the reason for the use of the movie in opening, as this has been virtually the only context generally remembered as noted in the discussion.
I finally found a source which might explain this situation, from "French Foreign Legion" (Martin Windrow, 1971,p.3) ;
"...it is arguable that no body of fighting men in the whole history of European arms has been so inundated with ill informed publicity as the French Foreign Legion. For more than a century this famous corps has been alternately libelled and romanticized by a steady stream of sentimental fiction, ill founded horror stories in the popular press, indignant newspaper leaders, and catch penny film and television scripts. Some of the most persistent myths are still in wide currency today".
This is an intriguing opening for a history of a famed military group, and which explains here that it was known more for being notorious than elite it seems.
This seems much more the case for the years of the 19th century, which of course is the period for which I sought information here.
In further explaining the romanticizing of the Legion, this reference in describing Algeria (the region of interest noted 1867-82 the period setting for the "Beau Geste" novel) says,
"...the years 1867-75 were unhappy for the officers and men of the Regiment Etranger. Minor tax gathering sorties alternated with road building and deathly monotonous garrison duty in tiny posts in the Sahara. It was in conditions such as these that the abuses sprang up of which novelists have made so much".
While once again having to strain the patience of the parameters of the forum ajenda by using the "Beau Geste' fiction in analogy, it appears this period is indeed that intended in the original novel, despite its 1926 publishing.
Here also, we can see the distortion of the perception of the Legion which might account in degree for the lack of specific attention in the body of published material on French arms history as pertains to these regions and times.
What I have been able to find however suggests that the Chasspot rifles and later the Gras rifles were primary weapons used by the Legion in these areas and times.
The rest is as they say, history, and as this topic seems at a terminus here, I'd like to thank you guys for the entries and participation.
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