Fighting for the French Foreign Legion

Americans who joined the First World War in 1914

Nils Elmark

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781399069175
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

"Author Nils Elmark tackles the life and times of several notable Americans – primarily aviator Eugene Bullard, poet Alan Seeger and North African adventurer David Wooster King – against their impact on the war and their personal exploits while never losing sight of the overall context in which these events occurred. It is well written, easy to read and woven together as a single fabric." — Indy Squadron Dispatch On 24 August 1914, forty-four Americans joined the Foreign Legion and "with a cowboy swing" marched through Paris, wildly cheered by the crowd. They were Ivy League graduates, artists and dreamers and soldiers of fortune starting on equal terms as recruits in the French Army. They were the first Americans in the Great War, driven by a love for France and a thirst for adventure with no idea of the horrors awaiting them. This book is the amazing story of these American legionnaires told by three of the young volunteers: • David Wooster King – a 21-year-old dropout from Harvard, son of a rich businessman. King survived four years in the trenches ending as an officer in the US Army chasing German spies in Switzerland. He became a modern global adventurer and when the world went to war again David King was the first to volunteer for an even greater adventure in North Africa. • Alan Seeger – a 26-year-old poet and dreamer from a New York family of intellectuals. Seeger was killed during the Battle of the Somme on 4 July 1916. Six weeks earlier, he wrote the famous poem, 'I Have a Rendezvous with Death' which was to become his legacy and the favorite poem of President Kennedy. It has inspired a line of American presidents during the 20th century and is an indestructible poetic lifeline linking France and the United States of America. • Eugene James Bullard – the last of the three legionnaires and a 19-year-old entertainer and boxer from Columbus, Georgia. His father was born a slave, his mother was Creek Indian. Although wounded at Verdun and invalided out of the French Army, Bullard became the world's first black aviator. After the war he settled in Paris and ran a bar in Montmartre before going to war for France again in 1940. The three men represent different pillars of the American soul, and their lives and dreams symbolize the story of how America became modern and remind us of the strong historic ties between France and America. Most of all, this book is a fantastic saga of brave men, great adventures and terrific sacrifices that bring hope and a new direction in a time of human division.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Paris - August 1914
• In the Foreign Legion
• Trench Life - Spring 1915
• The Battle of Champagne - Autumn 1915
• Fighting for the 170th Regiment
• Verdun 1916
• Bullard gets his wings
• King joins the artillery
• Spying for America
• Montmartre, Paris - 1920s
• From New York to Calcutta
• King in Afghanistan
• Jazz Age Paris
• The Unbearable Pain
• Bullard Bars & Boxers
• Paris - September 1939
• Adventure in North Africa
• King’s underground work in Casablanca
• New York - New York
• Peekskill Riots
• The Last of the Braves
• Postscript
• Plates