Chapter II: Foreword

Let the fastidious beware! Here is no inviting account of a holiday in France. The fighting author does not apologize for this terrible tale. He has written literally, unglossed—no glamour, to Help you understand the horrors of War and Prussian dreadfulness. This gripping catalogue of catastrophe is by an American. It contains romance, history—but absolutely no fiction. It is a Love story. “Greater love hath no man than this....” The National Society of Real Americans, in the shadow of Independence Hall, Philadelphia, reminds Us that we have two Countries— United States and France. “Jack Bowe,” in this, his second volume on War, presents a French viewpoint, rather than the British. Cosmopolitan, born on the Scotch-English border, he Knows no boundaries in Freedom’s cause. He has served in five regiments in France. Wounded and spent, he has been restored in five different hospitals. Evacuated from the front, twice, he has recuperated in England and returned, on furlough, to America. When he received “Certificate of Honor” for promoting the sale of Liberty Bonds. Thrice decorated for distinguished conduct and valor in Europe, He wears, also, three medals from service in the Spanish-American War and in the Philippine Insurrection. He has been marched through countless villages of France whose Names he did not know—nor could he have pronounced them if he did. Indian file, in black night, he has tramped hundreds of miles of Trenches, which he could not have recognized in the morning. He has endured twenty days and nights of continuous cannonade. Experiencing every sort of military warfare on land, he has also survived a Collision at sea. He has been Mayor of his own town, Canby, Minnesota. In Minnesota’s Thirteenth, he fought for the Stars and Stripes, being Present at the capture of Manila, P. I., August 13, 1898. Having represented, with honors, earth’s two greatest Republics, he is still enrolled under the Tri-color of France, in that wonderful, international composite of Individual fearlessness, the Foreign Legion. “Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass, And the wildest tales are true.”

CHARLES L. MacGREGOR,
Collaborator.

CONTENTS

PAGE
Dedication 5
Introductory 7
Foreword 11

CHAPTER
I Joining the Legion 17
II History of the Legion 27
III Americans in the Legion 38
IV First American Flag in France 92
V Foreigners in the Legion 97
VI Englishmen and Russians Leave 109
VII Trenches 114
VIII July 4th, 1915 121
IX Outpost Life 130
X Champagne Attack 146
XI Life in Death 159
XII The 170th French Regiment 162
XIII The 163rd and 92nd Regiments 166
XIV Hospital Life 169
XV An Incident 177
XVI Nature’s First Law 186
XVII The Invaded Country 199
XVIII Love and War 208
XIX Democracy 225
XX Autocracy 233
XXI Their Crimes 245
L’Envoi 259

=Alone=
=They Went Before=

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To those gallant fellows who left the peace and comfort of happy American homes, when their country was yet neutral; in order to carry out their ideals of Right and Justice;—this book is a reminder they have not suffered in vain—and are not forgotten.

Soldiers of the Legion