Camerone, legendary victory of the international legion | EUROtoday

On Apr 30, 2025

Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.

En France, the military isn’t solely a navy mission, however a political and mental accomplishment. Its function isn’t restricted to the safeguarding of the integrity of the state. The goal of citizen standing, the justification of the republican mission, the first definition of the fatherland is the military. Emmanuel Macron naturally continues this motion by going to Aubagne tomorrow, the place he’ll preside the ceremony devoted to the reminiscence of the Battle of Camerone, manufactured from legendary arms of the Foreign Legion.

Napoleon III has not solely had good concepts. His plume generally bordered on the ridiculous, and from one to the opposite, as we all know, there is just one step. In the early 1860s, Europe agreed on an apparently wise mission. Put a European sovereign on the head of Mexico to counterbalance the affect of the United States on the American continent. Vienna and Paris agree: it will likely be Maximilien, the brother of the Emperor of Austria, François-Joseph. A design the place poetry disputed it to vanity, as solely the triumphant Europe of the XIX^e century knew methods to produce it.

Nothing goes as deliberate. The majority of Mexicans didn’t need this Viennese emperor, as for the French armies, alleged to accompany the conquest of the nation, they may fall again after a memorable rout. Maximilien I^ermaybe essentially the most charming of the XIX Habsburgs^e century, who adored botany, his spouse and the town of Trieste, was shot by the Mexican insurgents in 1867. This deadly journey left dangerous reminiscences, except an act of heroism of the Foreign Legion.

The international legion based round 1830 by Louis-Philippe

In 1863, the French military has been in Mexico for 2 years. To safe a provide route, an organization from the Foreign Legion, commanded by Colonel Jeanningros, is shipped in reinforcement. Soldiers positioned beneath the command of Captain Danjou go on a recognition mission and fell, on April 30, on the Mexican “rebellious” military, a number of kilometers from the village of Camerone. The legionaries take refuge in an inn and refuse the give up proposal.

It is set: they may defend themselves till demise. Oath is loaned. Starts a second of bravery. Sixty legionaries resist greater than two thousand Mexicans. The fighters fall one after the opposite, together with the officers since Captain Danjou himself, in the course of the day, receives a deadly bullet.

Read too Will the German military open its ranks to international recruits? At the tip of the afternoon, solely twelve males left across the final dwelling officer, the second lieutenant Maudet. The legionaries, wanting ammunition and exhausted, at all times refuse to give up. The final three survivors lastly agree to put down their arms offered they will deal with their wounded, which is granted by Mexicans admiring such braveness. Since then, Camerone has been on the coronary heart of the repute of the international legion.

This regiment which embodies way more than navy excellence. Founded by King Louis-Philippe within the early 1830s, the Legion was to include foreigners who got here to France and enhance the employees of the military. In the nineteenth^e A century, the legionaries will serve in Algeria and took part within the siege of Sébastopol in the course of the Crimean War (1854).

Legion rhymes with assimilation

According to its statutes, the Legion was not allowed to struggle solely outdoors France; In 1870, in the course of the warfare towards Prussia, it was nonetheless mobilized in France, within the military of the Loire. Under the III^e Republic, she participates in colonial conquests on all theaters of operations or nearly: Tonkin, Sudan, Madagascar, Morocco. After the Second World War, she was engaged in UN peacekeeping operations in Cambodia, Somalia, the previous Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and West Africa.

Read too 70 years of Diên Biên Phu: Geneviève de Galard, a heroic nurse trapped within the battle
To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

All this could be nothing with out the assimilation permitted by the Legion. Any legionnaire can request, after three years of service, their naturalization. This naturally refers back to the origins of the French military because the Revolution. An military considered an natural manufacturing facility of residents devoted to the triumph of universalism. A novel Republic on the earth, the place blood is nothing in comparison with ideas. An superb utilized to the service of a materiality: to change into French by conviction.

Adhering to the nation by means of intelligence naturally includes being able to serve it by that of weapons. What is the purpose of dwelling in precept if we refuse to die for? The troopers “are ready to die, so to kill,” summarized Winston Churchill in his War reminiscences.

https://www.lepoint.fr/postillon/camerone-victoire-mythique-de-la-legion-etrangere-29-04-2025-2588546_3961.php