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The final moments of the Camerone epic as Lt. Maudet with his legionnaires bayonet-charge the Mexicans.
Camerone, a point on the long, vulnerable French line of communication to Puebla from the coast. Mexico City was entered 3 weeks after Puebla fell on 17 May but the Foreign Legion action was to be the one moment of glory in a wearisome guerrilla war lasting till French evacuation in 1867.
A schematic reconstruction of the fight at Camerone. Amazingly the Mexicans had men in the farmhouse yet took nine hours to win it.
‘Baionnette au canon!’ shouted the lieutenant. The five men still standing fixed bayonets. ‘En avant! Vive la Legion !’ With a yell they burst through the ruins and into the dust and smoke. Only two men survived the wounds they received in that final charge but the nine-hour minor action of Camerone fought in Mexico on 30 April 1863 has become an epic of the French Foreign Legion. They celebrate it every 30 April as Camerone Day and remember the sacrifice of 65 officers and men of 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, not in the service of France, but as soldiers of the Legion.
The Legion had been sent to Mexico because its officers had petitioned the Emperor Napoleon III to use the force on the expedition and save it from a soul-destroying routine of road-building in Algeria. It was for service outside France that the corps had been originally formed in 1831. France was involved in Mexico because of a civil war won by Benito Juarez, a Zapotec Indian and passionate believer in Mexican independence. A bitter enemy of hereditary power and wealth, anti-clerical and fiercely xenophobic, Juarez had sent home the Spanish Minister, expelled the Papal Nuncio and suspended payment of all foreign loans. By the October 1861 London Convention, France, Britain and Spain agreed to send a punitive expedition to Mexico. Undeterred, Juarez mobilized all males aged between 21 and 60. Britain and Spain continued to give support to the anti-Juarist faction, but let France bear the lion’s share of military action.
The French regular forces broke the Juarists in conventional fighting so the Mexicans changed to guerilla tactics. The Legion had missed most of this fighting when its three battalions under Colonel Jeanningros landed at Veracruz on 31 March 1863. Morale was high, the land was said to be rich, the women beautiful and willing, and food and drink plentiful. But disappointment came rapidly; the Legion battalions were broken up and posted in static garrisons. The French commander General de Division Elie F. Forey stationed the Legion on the grimmest part of the 260 -mile route up from Veracruz to Mexico City. In the unhealthy plains near the sea many men died from fever. Morale plunged and in the heat the Legionnaires discarded their kepis (low peaked caps) and took to wearing local sombreros. Their only work was to guard the route, check through supply convoys and protect them from Mexican irregulars.
On 29 April a special convoy came up from Veracruz. It consisted of 60 carts and 150 mules and, besides munitions, carried three million francs in gold to pay the 26,000-strong French army which had been besieging 22,000 Mexicans in Puebla for the past six weeks. The duty company for the escort to Puebla was the Legion’s 1st Battalion’s 3rd Company. Its paper strength was 112 men and three officers, but 50 men and all three officers were down with fever. The battalion adjutant, the paymaster and a 1st Company lieutenant volunteered to officer the depleted escort. They set out from the village of Chiquihuite at 0100 on 30 April.
The men who made up the escort were neither the romantic figures of popular fiction, nor the vicious thugs who feature in some ‘factual’ accounts of the Legion. They had been students, weavers, bookbinders and blacksmiths. There was a saddler, two sailors, a wood gilder, several waiters, two tilemakers and a draper in the ranks. Nationalities were varied, but the bulk came from Spain, Italy and Germany.
The officers were Legion products too. Captain Jean Danjou, son of a Carcassonne tradesman, was 28 years old, prematurely balding and sported a full ‘military’ moustache. An efficient adjutant, he was also a very brave fighting officer. When a musket exploded and shredded his left hand during Crimean War fighting at Sevastopol in 1855, he had coolly fixed a tourniquet and continued to command his company. Now he wore a jointed wooden hand covered with a white glove. Sous-Lieutenant Jean Vilain was only 20. Joining up for adventure he received a battlefield commission in Italy at the Battle of Magenta (1859). He had already won the Legion d’Honneur in the Crimea. Like Vilain, Sous-Lieutenant Clement Maudet had been promoted from the ranks at Magenta. A journalist actively opposed to Napoleon III’s rise in 1848, he had preferred the Legion to prison.
Danjou took his company forward of the main convoy to reconnoiter the route. He knew that the Mexicans with their excellent intelligence system must realize the convoy’s value. What the French did not know was the unusual strength of the guerilla force. Indeed, Danjou had refused an extra platoon offered by the Foreign Legion outpost at Chiquihuite for fear of leaving it more exposed to a hit-and-run raid. Colonel Milan had assembled a Mexican force at Jalapa to capture Puebla-bound siege artillery in Soledad, but the convoy presented itself as an excellent target of opportunity for the 300 regular cavalry, 350 irregular horsemen and three infantry battalions of 300-400 men. The cavalry were armed with 1850s-pattern Remington and Winchester rifles, but many of the infantry had nothing but old flintlock muskets. The Legionnaire weapon was the 1849 Minie rifle, a rifled single-shot muzzle-loader firing a French-invented pointed bullet with a hollow base which the exploding gases expanded to engage the barrel rifling. It was an accurate long-range weapon and in the hands of highly trained troops.
Danjou divided his escort into two extended files to cover either side of the road. The captain marched in the middle beside the company’s two mules loaded with rations and spare ammunition and a small rear party followed the formation. At around 0700 they moved through the ruined hamlet of Camerone, and about a mile beyond Danjou called a halt for breakfast. The water for coffee was almost ready when the sentry sighted Mexican cavalry on the move. The water was tipped out and the men stood to. Over the skyline appeared hundreds of riders. Realizing that he was very vulnerable in the open Danjou decided to pull back to Camerone. He took his company through some thorn scrub which was difficult going for horsemen, but in the confusion the two supply mules bolted and 16 men became separated and were captured.
The story of the fight which followed has become the focal point of every Camerone Day celebration held by the Legion. It has been told innumerable times and in the telling has changed a little. Few contemporary accounts remain, but-the events to follow were recorded by the Swiss-born Count de Diesbach de Torny then a Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion’s 5th Company.
When the Legionnaires reached Camerone the village seemed to be occupied, for a Legionnaire was wounded by a shot. Danjou divided the company into two platoons to clear the village. They swept in on the left and right and linked up on the far side without meeting any opposition, then searched the houses for a quarter of an hour, but found them deserted. Now the Mexican cavalry began to appear and though they gave ground it required bayonet charges and steady rifle fire to drive them off. In the lull that followed Danjou took his men back towards the village, but as they were nearing it they were again attacked. Forming a square (a tactic often employed in North Africa) the company repulsed this charge with steady volley firing. Though under constant harassment the square was able to move off. towards the hacienda (estate) of Camerone.
The hacienda had been built with an eye to protection against bandits, but was deserted and partly ruined. The two-storey farmhouse took up the whole length of one of the four adobe (sun-dried brick) walls which enclosed an open courtyard. It was a rambling, dilapidated building with
windows looking out on the road and doors opening into the yard. The other three walls, each about 50 yards long, were lined with outhouses, stables and a barn and the yard was entered by double gates in the west wall. Danjou discovered that the enemy had reached the hacienda before him. Despite several attempts to eject them the Mexicans managed to hold a room in the upper floor of the farmhouse which had a large window overlooking the yard. The Legionnaires held a room in the NW corner of the farmhouse, and the main gate, which was barricaded and defended by a section; a section covered a breach in the SE angle of the wall and the remaining men were positioned to cover the roofs. By 0900 the 49 defenders were in their makeshift battle positions.
Before their attack, the Mexicans called on the Legionnaires to surrender. ‘We’ll die before we surrender’ was Danjou’s reply and the fight began in earnest. The horsemen raised clouds of dust and the Legionnaires, unfed since early morning and with empty water canteens, began to suffer from the heat and dust. Two men tried to reach the well on the far side of the house, but they were shot and one lay writhing from his wound and shrieking with pain. A friend who tried to crawl to his assistance was shot by the Mexican snipers in the farmhouse.
Not long before he was killed, Danjou made every man swear not to surrender. Some popular accounts say the men swore the oath on his wooden hand, others that the men cheered in reply. Whatever the form of the oath; its exactor died at about 1100 shot in the head by a marksman from the farmhouse. Sous-Lt. Vilain, who outranked Maudet by a day, assumed command. He rallied the men and their morale soared when they heard the sound of drums and bugles which they took to be the regiment marching to their assistance. It was a short-lived hope; the new arrivals were three Mexican infantry battalions from Veracruz, Jalapa and Cordova, another thousand attackers.
They were better suited to the fighting than the cavalry, encumbered by riding boots and heavy sabres. A breach was battered in the east wall opposite the gates and the Legion section brought under fire from the rear. More men had joined the Mexicans in the upper floor of the farm and now they could shoot into the whole of the courtyard. At about 1400 Vilain was killed by a bullet in the forehead and Maudet took over. When the Mexicans again called on the Legionnaires to surrender, Maudet did not have time to give a formal reply, one of his men yelled back an obscene answer.
The Legionnaires were now reduced to crouching behind walls and barricades where they fired at the Mexicans who swarmed around them in the dirt. Men were suffering agonies from thirst and some wounded were reduced to drinking their own blood. Despite their sufferings the Legionnaires were putting up a very effective defence, so the Mexicans decided to save lives by smoking out their enemies. They brought up heaps of straw and set light to it, but while this added to the discomfort of their enemies it did not force them into the open.
At around 1700 there was a pause in the fighting. Now there were only 12 Legionnaires standing and one of them, a Spaniard called Bartolloto, translated the words of a speech they could hear being addressed to the Mexicans. It was Col. Milan. He told his men that at all costs the resistance must be crushed; failure to do this would bring undying disgrace. He was going to order a general assault.
The Mexicans attacked with renewed fervour and swarmed into the courtyard by every window, breach and gate available. At the main entrance only one Legionnaire remained alive. Corporal Berg, a Jew who had lost his lieutenant’s commission in the French Army for arguing with a senior officer, fought with his rifle and bayonet until dragged away wounded and unconscious by the Mexicans. In the SE corner Corporals Pinziger and Magnin with Legionnaires Kunasec and Gorski were now attacked from both front and rear. They were soon overwhelmed. By 1800 only Maudet, Corporal Philippe Maine a Frenchman, Polish Legionnaire Katau, Wenzel (German), Constantin (Austrian) and the Swiss, Leonhart, were still on their feet. Their Miniè rifles were so hot from firing that the barrels burned their hands. They fought for another quarter of an hour, from the ruins of a collapsed shed, but after they had exhausted ammunition stripped off the dead and wounded the end was inevitable.
They followed Sous-Lt. Maudet out through their barricade and across the courtyard in V-formation and such was the force of this final charge that it nearly cleared a path through the surrounding Mexicans. Maudet was at the head of the V, and, as the Mexicans fired, Legionnaire Constantin threw himself in front of the officer. He fell riddled, and seconds later Maudet fell mortally hit in the thigh and jaw. The Mexicans closed in and it seemed like the end. But Col. Milan who had watched the amazing charge rode forward and beating back his men with the flat of his sword saved three of the Legionnaires. Milan probably qualifies as the Legion’s most gallant foe, for enraptured by the battle he completely forgot about the bullion convoy yet ordered that the wounded survivors be carried by litter to a hospital 50 miles away.
Of the six, only Cp. Maine and Legionnaire Katau survived their wounds along with Cp. Berg. In addition 16 wounded were captured and some survived captivity. In all there were 32 survivors some of whom had been captured in the opening stages of the action. The Mexicans lost about 300 men of whom 200 were killed, but despite this they treated their prisoners well and exchanged them on a one-for-one basis. Maudet was buried with full military honours. Col. Milan, who withdrew his crippled force to Jalapa, was heard to mutter : ‘No son hombres; son demonios !’ (‘They are not men; they are devils’). The enormous disparity between Legion and Mexican losses was due mainly to the aimed and co-ordinated shooting of professional soldiers under cover against masses of less cohesive troops trying either to swamp them with ill-disciplined and hesitant rushes or pick them off with individual sharpshooters.
On the following morning Col. Jeanningros of the Legion arrived with a relief force, alerted by the convoy which had turned back on hearing firing ahead, and found Camerone a corpse strewn, smoking ruin. The company drummer was discovered alive, but with eight bullet wounds, under a pile of bodies, and he gave his version of the action. Danjou lay where he had died and before he was buried Jeanningros unhooked the bloodstained wooden hand. He said that he felt a sense of reverence as if he was touching something holy, and carried the hand with his belongings during the Mexican campaign. From captivity Cp. Berg was able to smuggle out a letter to his colonel telling him of the battle. He ended it ‘The 3rd Company is no more, but I must tell you that it contained nothing but good soldiers.’
When the news reached Paris the French and their Emperor were impressed by the courage and dedication of the Legion. As a tribute to this band of foreigners Napoleon ordered a memorial stone to be erected at Camerone. It reads:
Ils furent ici moins de soixante
Opposes a toute une armee.
Sa masse les ecrasa.
La vie plutôt que 7e courage
Abandonna ces soldats français.
Le 30 avril 1863.
Of the survivors Corporals Maine and Berg were promoted to sous-lieutenant. Maine rose to captain, but Berg died in a duel. Some accounts even say that it was fought with Maine, but how he died has not clouded the mystique of Camerone.
During the remainder of their five-year stay in Mexico (until US pressure and Mexican resistance led to abandonment of the installed Emperor Maximilian and evacuation) all French troops passing Camerone were ordered to present arms. Today all that remains of the hacienda are the vague outlines of some of the buildings and part of a wall. A railway line runs through the courtyard where the Legionnaires made their final charge.
Each new recruit who arrives in the present-day Legion depot at Aubagne (12 miles east of Marseilles in S. France) is told the story of Camerone. He learns that a Legionnaire does not surrender, and even when all hope has gone he dies facing the enemy with his weapon in his hands. Each 30 April the 1st Regiment parades Danjou’s wooden hand where it ‘takes the salute’ at the depot. An account of the action is read to every Legion unit on Camerone Day, and ex-Legionnaires remember the day all over the world. Though the wooden hand remains in its glass-sided box with the 1st Regiment, the ashes of the Camerone dead are held in rotation by the chapel of each Legion regiment. They are held in a reliquary carved in the shape of a Mexican eagle, which features in the 1st Regiment’s badge.
