VALUE OF FOREIGN REGIMENTS
89
and "Column, forward march!" As soon as the signal sounds for a halt, the front rows form front without orders, and every man sits or lies down during the halt as suits him best. The marches are regulated by the one principle March as you like, with crooked back or toes turned in, if you think that nice or better, but march :
!
always being drummed into the legionnaire is intended for nothing else in this world except for marching. If the pangs of hunger are gnawing at his stomach or thirst parches his tongue, that is so much the worse for him, but is no sort of It
is
that he
a reason for his not marching on
!
He may
be but he
dead tired, completely exhausted must not stop marching. If his feet are bleeding and the soles burn like fire, that is very sad but the marching pace must not be slackened. The sun may burn till his senses are all awhirl, he must go on. His task in life is to march. The greatest crime that he can commit is to fail on the march. There is no such thing as an impossible marching
tired,
performance for the regiment of foreigners. Each individual is inoculated with the one idea, it is hammered into him, that he has to march as long as he can control his legs. And when he can no longer control them, then he must at least try to crawl. It
is
a merciless system, which, however, produces
wonderful
soldiers.
Inseparable from the march of the Legion baggage of the legionnaire.
The French equipment
is
the
foreign soldier marches with an " tenue de campagne called the