Knut Flovik Thoresen: Norwegians in the Foreign Legion from 1831 until 2017

Knut Flovik Thoresen, a Norwegian military officer and historian, has released his new work this month. An author interested in less-known history of the Norwegian military, he decided to map the stories of Norwegian men serving in the French Foreign Legion from 1831, the year of its first establishment, until nowadays.

Hundreds of men, having joined one of the most mythical military unit in the world, were born in Norway. These descendants of the Vikings were fighting and dying for France in Algeria, in the Crimean War or in Tonkin in the 19th century, in France during WWI, in Morocco, in Syria and Lebanon during WWII, in the First Indochina War, in the Algerian War, during the Gulf War or the war in the Balkans in the 20th century, in Afghanistan or in Africa in the 21st century. Knut F. Thoresen collected as many data as possible about Norwegian legionnaires to introduce them to his readers.

Knut Flovik Thoresen (46) has studied history at the University of Agder. He is an author of several historical books focused mainly on the World War II period. Ranked Captain in the Norwegian Army, he served in Libya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo or in Afghanistan.

Knut Flovik Thoresen: Norwegians in the Foreign Legion from 1831 until 2017
Knut Flovik Thoresen: Norwegians in the Foreign Legion from 1831 until 2017. For those interested (and speaking Norwegian), you can buy the book here on Adlibris. (Please note, this is not an affiliate link to receive money. Thanks.)
Knut Flovik Thoresen and Norwegian Legionnaires in August 2017
Knut F. Thoresen (left) with some of Norwegian former legionnaires during a gathering at the occasion of releasing the new book, mid-August 2017. The picture is taken in front of the staue of Colonel Henrik Angell (1861-1922), a regimental commanding officer who gave up his military carreer in the Norwegian Army and joined RMLE (Foreign Legion Regimental Combat Team, the most awarded unit of the French Army during WWI, now 3e REI) in 1917 to fight on the Western Front.