Voices Of The Foreign Legion

The French Foreign Legion has built a reputation as one of the world’s most formidable and colorful military institutions. Established as a means of absorbing foreign troublemakers, the Legion spearheaded French colonialism in North Africa during the nineteenth century. Accepting volunteers from all parts of the world, the Legion acquired an aura of mystery and a less-than-enviable reputation for extreme brutality within its ranks. Voices of the Foreign Legion explores how the Legion selects its recruits, their native lands, and why these warriors seek a life full of hardship and danger. It analyzes the Legion’s brutal attitude toward discipline, questions why desertion has been a perennial problem, and assesses the Legion’s remarkable military achievements since its formation in the year 1831. This is the real story of the Legion, featuring firsthand accounts from the men who have fought in its ranks. Its scope ranges from the conquest of the colonies in Africa and the Far East through the horrors of the two world wars, to the bitter, but ultimately hopeless, battle to maintain France’s far-flung imperial possessions. The story is brought fully up-to-date with accounts and anecdotes from those contemporary foreign legionnaires who continue to fight for French interests around the globe. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

The French Foreign Legion in Its Own Words.

No military unit - not even the SAS - has been more glamourised, fictionalised, or been the subject of more myth-making than the French Foreign Legion. But despite the hype, quality first-hand accounts of life in the ranks of France's cosmopolitan elite colonial force are relatively rare. This is one of the finest of that select group. It is the work of the adopted son of the famous Russian writer Maxim Gorki. Pechkoff served in the Legion during the Great War, and later in North Africa. He was on peacekeeping duties in Algeria, and fought in the Rif Wars of the 1920s against the forces of the great tribal guerilla leader Abd-el-Krim. This memoir is based on the author's diaries, and was written while he was recovering from wounds in a hospital in the Moroccan capital, Rabat. Pechkoff gives vivid accounts of his rough, tough Legion comrades, and of fierce military action. He was one of a special 'Group Mobile' assigned to relieving Legion outposts besieged by the Rif rebels, and his accounts of the fighting pays tribute to the heroism of both sides. A first-class military memoir which gives the truth behind the romantic 'Beau Geste' image, this book has a foreword by the famous French writer Andre Maurois, a map of Morocco, the music for the legion’s anthem 'Marche de la Legion Etrangere', a frontispiece drawing of a Legionairre, and an appendix giving a brief history of the Legion from its foundation in 1831. A 'must-have' book for all lovers of the Legion and its literature, and for all students of desert and guerilla warfare.

The son of underpaid Mexican immigrants, Jaime earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue. But at twenty-three, he was disillusioned with the corporate fast track. So he became an outcast American in a hard-bitten group of recruits-men on the run from their pasts, men without hope: He joined the French Foreign Legion. From the Legion's notoriously brutal training to Salazar's fierce competitiveness, ultimate disillusionment and dramatic desertion, Legion of the Lost is a compelling, firsthand account of today's French Foreign Legion that will dispel myths while adding to the legend of the finest trained army of warriors the world has ever known.

What attracts men from 136 different nations to embrace the harsh military code of an army that requires them to lay down their lives for a country not their own, if ordered to do so by politicians whose language many of them hardly speak? Douglas Boyd's history of the Legion answers that question, with fifteen historic photographs and eleven battle/campaign maps. Founded in 1831 to fight France's colonial wars without spilling French blood, this mysterious army is today a world-class fighting force. Training is so tough that five recruits out of six are rejected, never to wear the coveted white kepi. This is a world where fact exceeds the wildest fiction: men fighting literally to the last bullet at Camarón in Mexico in 1863; cooks and clerks with no parachute training volunteering to be dropped into beleaguered Dien Bien Phu in 1954 with the intention of dying beside their comrades; the paras who mutinied in Algeria to bring down the government of France; the heroes who dropped on Kolwezi to rescue thousands of European hostages. Praise for The French Foreign Legion 'A tight and fascinating history of the nearly two centuries of the Legion's activities.' - Brig Anthony Hunter-Choat (UK's senior ex-legionnaire) Perhaps the greatest praise of the book is the fact that legionnaires liked this history of their incredible army so much that they elected author Douglas Boyd an honorary ex-legionnaire. RAF Russian linguist, international businessman, music impresario, BBC Television Producer/Director, Douglas Boyd has been writing full-time since setting up home in a medieval farmhouse in south-west France thirty-five years ago. His published fiction and non-fiction, translated into many languages, includes three novels set against a Legion background: The Eagle and the Snake, The Truth and the Lies, The Honour and the Glory. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

In the Foreign Legion is an autobiograpy by Erwin Rosen. It depicts the author and his joining the French Foreign Legion; its gruesomeness and how he managed to change his life for the better.