Email this page to friends About the Author Born in Ohio and raised in Wisconsin, Steven Wilson has been fascinated by history since he was a child. One of his first books, a birthday present from his aunt, was THE CIVIL WAR by Bruce Catton. He was equally enthralled by motion pictures, working in his great-uncle's theater at the age of seven, hauling tins of un-popped popcorn to the concession counter. Buy Voyage of the Gray Wolves by Steven Wilson He's held a variety of jobs including tower clock repairman, factory worker, shoe salesman, stock boy, roofer, construction worker and now, museum curator. Wilson began writing novels in 1993, after a sketchy attempt to write short stories. His eclectic interests include motion picture history, movie soundtracks, 19th Century military history, and World War II. He works fulltime as a curator and museum consultant and writes part-time. He considers research as least as important as the writing, and plans to write some non-fiction works in the future. Website: http://www.huntersandthehunted.com/ E-Mail: readermail@HuntersAndTheHunted.Com Related Links Steven Wilson Archives

It was the Foreign Legion's Alamo, and it may just have been its finest hour. History author Steven Wilson looks back on this bloody battle in 19th-century Mexico.

Disasters have a way of spinning noble myths, as if it benefits the survivors to find something worthwhile in the midst of a catastrophe. Sometimes these magnificent moments, if ever they existed at all, have to be dug out of the rubble, and dusted off. At that point they can be held high for everyone to see and proclaim as significant.

One of France's disasters (something that might have been called France's Viet Nam except that France really did have her Viet Nam) was the invasion and occupation of a portion of Mexico. At the time the United States was midway through fighting her Civil War, so she can be excused for allowing this lapse of attention to the Monroe Doctrine. The invasion by France came after the government of Mexico under Benito Juarez suspended payments of all foreign loans. This gave Napoleon III (apparently assuming that his name guaranteed military ability) an excuse to expand his empire by gobbling up a nation that in its short history had seen nothing but turmoil. France was accompanied by the Spanish and British, who were both hoping, by armed intervention if necessary, to convince Mexico to reconsider her position on payments. They soon realized that rattling sabers would not force Mexico to reconsider, and they withdrew; leaving a French emperor who coveted the exotic lands of Mexico as surely as a former, more talented French emperor coveted other, distant lands. Of course, Napoleon III could not go to Mexico of and reign over his newfound children - but he could send a surrogate. He thus dispatched Archduke Maximilian and his wife Charlotte, daughter of King Leopold I of Belgium. And of course he sent the French army, because the Mexicans, these Juarists, named after the insolent president of Mexico, would certainly never accept their new father unless they were properly chastised.

And so too went the Foreign Legion, two battalions landing in Vera Cruz (it appeared that all conquering armies must, under celestial edict, land on that particular spot before setting off into the interior of Mexico), on March 31, 1863 under the command of Colonel Pierre Jean Joseph Jeanningros, with the bulk of the entire legion to follow. Four thousand men, most of them veterans; all of them supposedly foreign (French citizens were prevented by law from joining, except as officers), and many of them hiding some secrets in their past. Less than half of them would return home. The officer corps of the regular French army looked down their noses at this band of ruffians, who were closer to convicts than to regular soldiers, and assigned them the most odorous duties in Mexico; specifically, guarding the roads or holding down posts in fever-prone regions. Sickness was a much more formidable enemy than the Mexican army. A battalion of the Chasseurs d’Afrique, transferred to San Luis Potosi, could only muster 76 out of a thousand men due to illness. Just months before the Legion landed in Vera Cruz nearly 2,000 people died of an epidemic, and the route from Vera Cruz to Mexico City was referred to as "the fever road." It was even suggested that any Legionnaires lost to illness or battle, could be replaced by Indians. Utilizing the same policy developed in Africa, two companies of Indians, approximately 175 men, were formed, with these new Legionnaires making their way up the ranks.

For their part, the Legionnaires contributed to their reputation as being a band of difficult thugs and thieves. They were recognized as the greatest sources of desertion among the French forces stationed in Mexico. "I shall have some of them shot," Major General Francois-Achille Bazaine, a veteran of North African wars, the Spanish Civil War, the Crimean Campaign, and the Italian Campaign of 1859, wrote in disgust. "It is quite clear that a good many of them enrolled in the corps to get a free trip, but it cost them dearly if they are caught." It would cost many of them dearly, but not in the manner that Bazaine envisioned.