Read Online Amazing Tales for Making Men Out of Boys by Neil Oliver - Free Book Online
Authors: Neil Oliver
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establish an empire in Mexico. It had been anexploit the French government probably wanted to forget. But for one group of men, none of them French, it would never, ever be forgotten.
The Demons of Camerone
Les Invalides in Paris was once a hospital for the care of France’s wounded soldiers. For most of its existence it has been a resting place for her honored dead. The body of Napoleon Bonaparte was interred there in 1841, having been repatriated from its first grave, in exile on the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic. Les Invalides is a place of memory and remembrance. High on one wall is a word inscribed in letters of gold. It reads: “Camerone.” In the town of Aubagne is the Legion Hall of Honor, dearest of all places to the men of the “La Légion des Etrangers”—the French Foreign Legion. Inside, in a place of the highest honor, rests a carved wooden hand.
On the morning of April 30, 1863, just 62 non-commissioned officers and men of the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the French Foreign Legion were fit for duty. Their normal complement was three officers, 112 NCOs and other ranks, but illness had taken its toll. They had been in Mexico just a few weeks, supporting efforts to establish a French colony under the puppet-rule of one Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph von Habsburg, an Austrian aristocrat handpicked for the job by Napoleon III, Emperor of France. Maximilian would be accompanied by his new Belgian wife, Marie Charlotte Amélie Léopoldine, taking on the Mexican form of her name to make her the Empress Carlota.
The Americas offered the hope of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and with a civil war occupying the attentions of the inhabitants of the north of the continent, opportunist European nations were making inroads into the disputed and turbulent lands of the south. Mexico had also run up debts with several foreign powers,and by 1861 a coalition of British, Spanish and French troops were in occupation in the country in hope of getting their money back. The three proved incapable of agreeing on a strategy and within months both Britain and Spain had abandoned the operation, leaving the French in sole occupation.
Although a French Expeditionary Force had been in action in Mexico from the start, the Legion had had to petition Napoleon himself for permission to join them on the campaign. Two battalions under the command of Colonel Jeanningros had landed in Vera Cruz on March 28, 1863, but their arrival had not been a happy one. Having expected to march toward the city of Puebla, the main seat of local opposition to the French invasion, instead they suffered the indignity of being placed on escort duty, babysitting supply convoys in the east of the country. The low-lying marshlands sweated and stank, and the Legionnaires were succumbing in the main not to bullets and bayonets but to cholera, typhus and yellow fever. It was a miserable posting enlivened only by the constant threat from snipers.
Puebla had been besieged by the French since the middle of March but there was no sign yet of victory. On April 29, a month or so after the Legion’s arrival, word reached Jeanningros that a hugely valuable convoy was to be sent by road from Vera Cruz to the besieged city. Along with vital equipment and rations, the wagons would be carrying 3 million francs’ worth of gold bullion for the soldiers’ pay. It would be the job of the Legion to ensure its safe passage.
Sorely depleted by illness though it was, Jeanningros selected the 3rd Company for the job. It was anyway the only body of men available and they would have to make the best of it. Three other officers volunteered to go along: Second Lieutenant Maudet, company pay officer Lieutenant Vilain and Captain Jean Danjou.
Vilain and Maudet had risen through the Legion’s ranks. Almostcertainly French by birth, they had enlisted as other nationalities—Frenchmen being forbidden by law to join the Legion (the men
The Demons of Camerone
Les Invalides in Paris was once a hospital for the care of France’s wounded soldiers. For most of its existence it has been a resting place for her honored dead. The body of Napoleon Bonaparte was interred there in 1841, having been repatriated from its first grave, in exile on the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic. Les Invalides is a place of memory and remembrance. High on one wall is a word inscribed in letters of gold. It reads: “Camerone.” In the town of Aubagne is the Legion Hall of Honor, dearest of all places to the men of the “La Légion des Etrangers”—the French Foreign Legion. Inside, in a place of the highest honor, rests a carved wooden hand.
On the morning of April 30, 1863, just 62 non-commissioned officers and men of the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the French Foreign Legion were fit for duty. Their normal complement was three officers, 112 NCOs and other ranks, but illness had taken its toll. They had been in Mexico just a few weeks, supporting efforts to establish a French colony under the puppet-rule of one Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph von Habsburg, an Austrian aristocrat handpicked for the job by Napoleon III, Emperor of France. Maximilian would be accompanied by his new Belgian wife, Marie Charlotte Amélie Léopoldine, taking on the Mexican form of her name to make her the Empress Carlota.
The Americas offered the hope of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and with a civil war occupying the attentions of the inhabitants of the north of the continent, opportunist European nations were making inroads into the disputed and turbulent lands of the south. Mexico had also run up debts with several foreign powers,and by 1861 a coalition of British, Spanish and French troops were in occupation in the country in hope of getting their money back. The three proved incapable of agreeing on a strategy and within months both Britain and Spain had abandoned the operation, leaving the French in sole occupation.
Although a French Expeditionary Force had been in action in Mexico from the start, the Legion had had to petition Napoleon himself for permission to join them on the campaign. Two battalions under the command of Colonel Jeanningros had landed in Vera Cruz on March 28, 1863, but their arrival had not been a happy one. Having expected to march toward the city of Puebla, the main seat of local opposition to the French invasion, instead they suffered the indignity of being placed on escort duty, babysitting supply convoys in the east of the country. The low-lying marshlands sweated and stank, and the Legionnaires were succumbing in the main not to bullets and bayonets but to cholera, typhus and yellow fever. It was a miserable posting enlivened only by the constant threat from snipers.
Puebla had been besieged by the French since the middle of March but there was no sign yet of victory. On April 29, a month or so after the Legion’s arrival, word reached Jeanningros that a hugely valuable convoy was to be sent by road from Vera Cruz to the besieged city. Along with vital equipment and rations, the wagons would be carrying 3 million francs’ worth of gold bullion for the soldiers’ pay. It would be the job of the Legion to ensure its safe passage.
Sorely depleted by illness though it was, Jeanningros selected the 3rd Company for the job. It was anyway the only body of men available and they would have to make the best of it. Three other officers volunteered to go along: Second Lieutenant Maudet, company pay officer Lieutenant Vilain and Captain Jean Danjou.
Vilain and Maudet had risen through the Legion’s ranks. Almostcertainly French by birth, they had enlisted as other nationalities—Frenchmen being forbidden by law to join the Legion (the men
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