French Foreign Legion information. An online project dedicated to the famous Foreign Legion.
105 years ago, in late April 1915, the Allied forces consisting of French, British, Australian and New Zealand troops landed in the Gallipoli peninsula in todays Turkey, to open a new theatre of the First World War. Among the landing French troops, there was also a Foreign Legion Battalion with a strength of more than 1,000 legionnaires. The tormented odyssey of forgotten heroes had started…
Read moreFrench Foreign Legionnaires in Southeastern Europe during World War I
Since 11 May 2020, Foreign Legion Recruitment ONLY FOR INVITED!
UPDATE OF 11 MAY 2020: Candidates living outside France should send the form once they are present in mainland France.
Read moreFrench Foreign Legion recruitment for invited candidates only
On April 23, during Operation Barkhane, a military tanker of the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (1er REC) was struck by an improvised explosive device near Gao in Mali, West Africa. Two legionnaires were seriously imjuried. One of them died a week later, on May 1.
On April 30, as every year since 1931, the French Foreign Legion celebrated their most important holiday, Camerone Day. That day, all officers and legionnaires of the Foreign Legion commemorate the Battle of Camerone, an action which occurred in Mexico 157 years ago, in 1863.
In early April 2020, Knut Flovik Thoresen, a Norwegian military officer and historian, released his another work dedicated to the Foreign Legion. He decided to map the allied expedition in northern Norway in April-May 1940 and, chiefly, the heroic fighting of the Foreign Legion’s 13th Foreign Legion Half Brigade (13e DBLE), which resulted in first allied victories over German forces in WWII.
Today, on 17 March 2020, the recruitment of candidates for the French Foreign Legion was suspended until further notice due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
A royal ordinance of Louis Philippe I, King of the French, was issued 189 years ago, on 10 March 1831. That ordinance ordered the formation of a Foreign Legion with the aim of engaging foreign deserters asking to serve France and, too, foreign soldiers of then the freshly disbanded Hohenlohe Regiment (ex-Hohenlohe Legion or Royal Legion). Until the 2000s, the 10th of March 1831 had marked the official birthday of the current French Foreign Legion which derived its origin from that original 1831 Legion. Nevertheless, the lineage of the current Legion is far more complex. See a more detailed article.
80 years ago, on 29 February 1940, Prince Aage, Count of Rosenborg died after a very short illness. A famous French Foreign Legion officer, he was born in Denmark to the Danish royal family. This post was written in remembrance of him.