40 years ago: A throwback to the old Le Poilu (“the hairy one”) of Great War frame is this portrait of a Légionnaire of the 1er Régiment Etranger de Cavalerie (1 REC) at the French military’s Biltine camp in the Wadi Fira region of Chad in September 1983.
Contrast him to the spit and polished white kepi-clad legionnaires in the recruiting poster behind him, which, in a place like Chad, was probably put there with some irony in mind. Réf. F 83-382 LC308 Photo by Bernard Sidler/ECPAD/Défense
The Légionnaire, whose hand is bandaged, is possibly a sapper, which, as with the Canadian army and some other forces, in the French army are traditionally allowed to grow out their whiskers, even in field conditions. The unit was deployed to Chad during the lead-up to the so-called “Toyota Wars” between Gaddafi’s Libya and the French ally over the disputed Aouzou Strip. A Cold War flashpoint of which Africa was full of in the 1970s and 80s.
Judging from the age of the hard-bitten campaigner in the above image, he may have been a veteran of African combat going back to the French in Algeria and the Kolwezi intervention.
As for the 1st REC, the Legion’s cavalry unit was formed in North Africa just over a century ago and stood up at Sousse in French colonial Tunisia on 8 March 1921. Of the regiment’s inaugural draft of 156 troopers, 128 were exiled White Russians, most former officers and nobles of the deposed Tsar’s cossacks and guards cavalry units, a feature that earned the 1 REC the nickname of “Royal Etranger” for a generation.
I have a vintage 1 REC badge in my collection– part of my regular New Orleans rounds-– made by Arthus-Bertrand and carrying the unit’s motto: Honneur Courage Fidélité.
