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Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The Foreign Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935
A superb follow up to The Last Valley, Windrow paints a wonderfully vivid portrait of the Foreign Legion's exploits during the turbulent years of French imperial expansion.' Saul David
Martin Windrow is at once a connoisseur of the Legion, a master of the battle narrative, and a painstaking scholar, a hat trick of talents that combine to make Our Friends Beneath the Sands a riveting and enlightening read.' Douglas Porch, author of The French Foreign A Complete History
`Windrow's great strength lies in explaining not just what happened in a battle, but why and how it happened...excellent photographs.' James Delingpole
`Astounding...meticulous historical research combined with wonderful story-telling.'Brigadier Tony Hunter-Choat, Hon. Sec. Foreign Legion Association, GB
Ever since the 1920s the popular legend of the French Foreign Legion has been formed by P.C. Wren's novel Beau Geste - a world of remote forts, warrior tribes, and desperate men of all nationalities enlisting under pseudonyms to fight and die under the desert sun.
As with all cliches, the reality is far richer and more surprising than this. In this book Martin Windrow describes desert battles and famous last stands in gripping detail---but he also shows exactly what the Foreign Legion were doing in North Africa in the first place. He explains how French colonial methods there actually, had their roots in the jungles of Vietnam, and how the political pressures that kept the empire expanding can be traced to battles on the streets of Paris itself. His description of the Berber tribesmen of Morocco also reveals some disturbing modern the formidable guerrillas of the 1920s were inspired by an Islamic fundamentalist who was adept at using the world's media to further his cause.
This unique book is the first to examine the `golden age' of the Foreign Legion in such detail Martin Windrow has been studying the Legion for forty years, and is the first English writer to travel throughout Morocco locating and examining some of their desert and mountain battlefields. His meticulous, research and vivid writing will make this the last word on what remains one of the most famous military organizations in the World.
Martin Windrow is at once a connoisseur of the Legion, a master of the battle narrative, and a painstaking scholar, a hat trick of talents that combine to make Our Friends Beneath the Sands a riveting and enlightening read.' Douglas Porch, author of The French Foreign A Complete History
`Windrow's great strength lies in explaining not just what happened in a battle, but why and how it happened...excellent photographs.' James Delingpole
`Astounding...meticulous historical research combined with wonderful story-telling.'Brigadier Tony Hunter-Choat, Hon. Sec. Foreign Legion Association, GB
Ever since the 1920s the popular legend of the French Foreign Legion has been formed by P.C. Wren's novel Beau Geste - a world of remote forts, warrior tribes, and desperate men of all nationalities enlisting under pseudonyms to fight and die under the desert sun.
As with all cliches, the reality is far richer and more surprising than this. In this book Martin Windrow describes desert battles and famous last stands in gripping detail---but he also shows exactly what the Foreign Legion were doing in North Africa in the first place. He explains how French colonial methods there actually, had their roots in the jungles of Vietnam, and how the political pressures that kept the empire expanding can be traced to battles on the streets of Paris itself. His description of the Berber tribesmen of Morocco also reveals some disturbing modern the formidable guerrillas of the 1920s were inspired by an Islamic fundamentalist who was adept at using the world's media to further his cause.
This unique book is the first to examine the `golden age' of the Foreign Legion in such detail Martin Windrow has been studying the Legion for forty years, and is the first English writer to travel throughout Morocco locating and examining some of their desert and mountain battlefields. His meticulous, research and vivid writing will make this the last word on what remains one of the most famous military organizations in the World.
752 pages, Hardcover
First published April 8, 2010
35 people are currently reading
140 people want to read
About the author
Martin Windrow
133 books26 followersMartin C. Windrow is a British historian, editor and author of several hundred books, articles and monographs, particularly those on organizational or physical details of military history, and the history of the post-war French Foreign Legion. He has been published since the mid-Sixties.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 28, 2022
This book is clearly a labour of love from an author who knows his subject so for those without French it is an excellent source to go to for facts. But unfortunately it is dull and ponderous read - I'm not going to pretend I read it all, I couldn't, I was bored to tears struggling through the leaden prose. I was deeply disappointed in this book because I wanted so much to know more about and understand both the 'true' history of the Legion but also about legionaries. This book may be for others but it certainly wasn't for me.
March 16, 2012
Very, very long; very, very detailed; scrupulously researched. Extraordinarily tedious to read.
July 18, 2017
Well where to start, I read perhaps 10 books a year all either non fiction mostly history, true crime and sporting biogs and I can say with absolute truth I never give up on a book, the reason being is because I research my purchase first to avoid disappointment (I did this and it is generally well regarded by reviewers) .
However this book was the exception, I do not like being to critical about books that have clearly been written by authors with great knowledge of a subject, but as I paid 15 pounds for this book I must be honest and have a right to be so, it was dull dull dull nay TEDIOUS seriously I'd rather read a phone directory. I got to about page 170 then just stopped reading, my brain seemingly just could not go on it was becoming matchsticks on the eyelids time and I realized I just did not care who lived and who died, I flicked through onto random pages and chapters and realized it was all the same therefore I could not continue with the other 400 odd pages.
As I have said the author clearly knows his subject and is a real deal historian but the book is as samey as the fucking desert itself, it perhas needed a good editor and perhaps about four hundred pages lopping off. I do not really know what I expected but I have read military narratives now for about twenty years so perhaps I'm just bored with the subject matter, but a book should be better than this it should have some soul, it should contain some excitement it should go into detail of the men it describes a reader should care shouldn't they?, seriously if you open it up randomly then fast forward two or three hundred pages you;ll find the same boring paragraphs about events that are just basically detailed rather than described, on and on it goes. I guess I was hoping to understand how the legion recruited the men and something about their lives to know them and how they felt in the battles they fought ie their own experience, but I never got that far, life is just to short.
Every now and again there is some mention of the legion, it just pops up like a fart on a bus ( like the characters) but frankly it could have just as easily been written about the French army itself (and who the hell outside of France wants to read about that?), BUT I brought it to read and learn about the Legion. So I feel rather ripped off that I parted with 15 quid on a third read book that will go straight to a charity shop. If you need a good sleep buy it.
However this book was the exception, I do not like being to critical about books that have clearly been written by authors with great knowledge of a subject, but as I paid 15 pounds for this book I must be honest and have a right to be so, it was dull dull dull nay TEDIOUS seriously I'd rather read a phone directory. I got to about page 170 then just stopped reading, my brain seemingly just could not go on it was becoming matchsticks on the eyelids time and I realized I just did not care who lived and who died, I flicked through onto random pages and chapters and realized it was all the same therefore I could not continue with the other 400 odd pages.
As I have said the author clearly knows his subject and is a real deal historian but the book is as samey as the fucking desert itself, it perhas needed a good editor and perhaps about four hundred pages lopping off. I do not really know what I expected but I have read military narratives now for about twenty years so perhaps I'm just bored with the subject matter, but a book should be better than this it should have some soul, it should contain some excitement it should go into detail of the men it describes a reader should care shouldn't they?, seriously if you open it up randomly then fast forward two or three hundred pages you;ll find the same boring paragraphs about events that are just basically detailed rather than described, on and on it goes. I guess I was hoping to understand how the legion recruited the men and something about their lives to know them and how they felt in the battles they fought ie their own experience, but I never got that far, life is just to short.
Every now and again there is some mention of the legion, it just pops up like a fart on a bus ( like the characters) but frankly it could have just as easily been written about the French army itself (and who the hell outside of France wants to read about that?), BUT I brought it to read and learn about the Legion. So I feel rather ripped off that I parted with 15 quid on a third read book that will go straight to a charity shop. If you need a good sleep buy it.
April 23, 2021
'A nos amis sous les sables'..To our friends beneath the sands..a traditional Legion toast. And there are many there. By the time this is over you may have a mild form of PTSD, after the dozens (hundreds?) of battles, skirmishes, ambushes, surprise attacks, massacres, atrocities, and sheer suffering (sick, hungry, thirsty, anyone?) encountered in these pages. It is a superb effort and if you had any questions about the French Foreign Legion before reading this, they will almost certainly be answered. Apparently Douglas Porch has written an 'exhaustive' history of the Legion, which I can hardly imagine. This book covers 'only' 1870-1935 but as this was by far the most active period of the Legion, it is enough. Indochina, West Africa, Madagascar, Algeria, Morocco are the primary theaters. The accounts of Legion fighting in 1885 in what is today Vietnam read so much like accounts of America in Vietnam circa 1967, that it is creepy. The difficulties of fighting a native people in a harsh and unique (jungle in this case) environment were learned 80 years before Marines landed at Da Nang in 1965 (to say nothing of the French just 10 years before in the 1950s). Yet it is Moroccan 'adventure' from about 1912-1935, that comes to dominate the narrative. Again, fighting in harsh and unforgiving terrain and climate against highly motivated natives. The critical wadis (oueds in French), endless mountains (djebels), and plains (bleds) of that amazing country were the setting for decades of what now can only be viewed as utterly futile efforts to subjugate the numerous mainly Berber tribes. By 1935 it 'succeeded' but to what end can only be asked? Anyone wanting a convincing argument for the absurdity of colonialism need only consult these pages. Some 20 years after the fighting was over, France was gone from Morocco, having left thousands of her own and soldiers from numerous countries (the Legion being highly multi-national) beneath the sands. But putting aside the rationale for it all, this is a amazing account of the Legion, its makeup, training, feats of marching, tenacious fighting, incredible bravery and yes, élan. The maps are numerous and excellent and need constant referencing if you are to have any idea of what is happening. Also, there are excellent footnotes and appendices with information on the Legion in WW1, the Levant and one on the author of Beau Geste, the 1925 novel that sort of birthed the legend.
January 27, 2023
Couldn't get through this. Reached page 170 (of 612) and realised life is too short.
I think the subtitle is a clue for anyone not obsessively interested in nerdish levels of detail about the FFL: "The Foreign Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935". Right. That's quite niche, even for military history. It's not a history of the Foreign Legion, or a history of French colonialism. It's the intersection of those sets on a Venn diagram. Remember how interesting Venn diagrams were at school ? Well, this is the literary equivalent. And it's really, really dull, and also very difficult to read. The author jumps from general analysis of the formation, structure, and administration of the Foreign Legion to detailed accounts of individual campaigns, and back again, with no rhyme or reason. The reader doesn't get enough background (even with numerous maps) to make much sense of the campaign bits, and the bits about the Foreign Legion itself read like they should be in another book. As a whole, this book struck me as one of those works of scholarship pasted together from the research (extensive and painstaking, to give the author his due) done for other books, which didn't quite make it into said other books, but the author was d****d well going to make use of it anyway.
For people very, very interested in the FFL only. General readers should avoid. Except if they love semi-colons. Mr Windrow must be paid by the semi-colon. It's a surprise to read a sentence in this book which doesn't contain one.
I think the subtitle is a clue for anyone not obsessively interested in nerdish levels of detail about the FFL: "The Foreign Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935". Right. That's quite niche, even for military history. It's not a history of the Foreign Legion, or a history of French colonialism. It's the intersection of those sets on a Venn diagram. Remember how interesting Venn diagrams were at school ? Well, this is the literary equivalent. And it's really, really dull, and also very difficult to read. The author jumps from general analysis of the formation, structure, and administration of the Foreign Legion to detailed accounts of individual campaigns, and back again, with no rhyme or reason. The reader doesn't get enough background (even with numerous maps) to make much sense of the campaign bits, and the bits about the Foreign Legion itself read like they should be in another book. As a whole, this book struck me as one of those works of scholarship pasted together from the research (extensive and painstaking, to give the author his due) done for other books, which didn't quite make it into said other books, but the author was d****d well going to make use of it anyway.
For people very, very interested in the FFL only. General readers should avoid. Except if they love semi-colons. Mr Windrow must be paid by the semi-colon. It's a surprise to read a sentence in this book which doesn't contain one.
September 26, 2018
This book requires an investment of time, but for me it was well worth it. Just as he did in "The Last Valley", Windrow takes the reader on a very detailed tour of the operations of the Foreign Legion in Algeria, Vietnam, Madagascar, and most of all, Morocco. Along the way one marvels at how a group of men from disparate backgrounds coped with the hardships of war in inhospitable climes. What really shines through is the incredible esprit de corps that binds the Legion together to this day. This book is well worth a read, but be prepared to spend some time on it.
August 26, 2020
I came back to Martin Windrow after reading his fabulous "The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam" which I devoured while stuck in a hospital bed. My second outing wasn't as great as the first, but I still really liked this book. Interesting and well-researched, but this brick of a book's mountains of minutia (including troop strength and casualties, battalion/platoon identification, and the intricacies of wayward outposts and oases) will loom as dense and daunting as the sand dunes of the Sahara to the reader. Worth a read for serious history readers wanting to know specifically about the Rif War and French occupation of Morocco (and to a lesser extent Vietnam, French Guinea, Algeria, and Madagascar), but not for the faint-of-heart when it comes to sheer historical detail.
November 11, 2023
An exquisitely detailed journey through the operations of the "Old Legion," Windrow conveyed at the same time political, personal, cultural, and military matters in a fascinating arch masterfully interwoven. Somehow, even after more than 600 pages, I wanted more as I closed the final pages.
August 6, 2021
Friends beneath other types of earth than sand
January 17, 2022
Bon livre surtous s'est traduit en français
October 24, 2022
What a book. It's so informative and hugely entertaining to read. We (Foreign Legion) enthusiasts are so lucky to have a Martin Windrow to provide us with so many historical books about the Foreign Legion over the years, not to mention his ability to give so many stories of particular Legionnaires, and endless pictures, both written and photographic, of places, events, and situations concerning the Legion.
This book treats us to a massive panoramic history of the "Golden Period" of La Legion Etrangere?
We will never get a better tome than this.
Martin Windrow take a bow, and please give us a book about the Foreign Legion forts soon!!
"Look Capitaine, Fort Zinderneuf ahead”..
This book treats us to a massive panoramic history of the "Golden Period" of La Legion Etrangere?
We will never get a better tome than this.
Martin Windrow take a bow, and please give us a book about the Foreign Legion forts soon!!
"Look Capitaine, Fort Zinderneuf ahead”..
September 29, 2014
I got pretty much what I expected with this book - like Windrow's The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, this is a massive brick of a book overflowing with information. I liked this book pretty well, but it shares the previous book's flaws, namely that the endless details of which military organization each battalion, squad, etc. belongs to can get a little tiring. The book also suffers from a common historical pitfall the other book didn't in that it just reaches a stop line and ends without a climax, and honestly I felt like the end of the book was more interesting as the legion beings experimenting with cars and trucks instead of camels. These are mostly minor issues, though, and the Legion's history in Indochina and Morocco is quite interesting, even if the book never quite raises to the level of excellence from the author's previous work.
August 25, 2013
A very long, complex and detailed read about the French Foreign Legion at its heyday. It covers 65 years, from 1870 to 1935, and is at times very tedious. Then again if you are into more obscure historics like me it comes with the territory.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews