#camerone

1° marzo 1896, la disfatta di Adua. Perché in Italia ci si compiace delle proprie sconfitte?

La data del 1° marzo 1896 corrispondente alla disfatta di Adua si presta tutt’oggi in Italia alle più miserabili speculazioni autolesionistiche retaggio tipico del più bieco servilismo antinazionale. Ad esempio la sconfitta, al contrario di quanto si continua a voler far credere, non arrestò assolutamente le ambizioni coloniali italiane nel Corno d’Africa. Anzi! Segnò, invece, per merito del…

Today, 30 April, is the great celebration day of the French Foreign Legion.

It’s Camerone.

**

As part of the Second French intervention in Mexico, a French army was besieging the city of Puebla. The Legion’s 1st and 2d battalions were in Veracruz.

To support the siege, the French sent a convoy with 3 million francs in gold bullion, siege guns, and sixty wagons of ammunition. The third company of the 1st Battalion was sent to reinforce the convoy.

They had no officer, and Captain Danjou volunteered to command. Then 2d Lieutenants Napoléon Vilain and Clément Maudet volunteered to join him.

On the morning of the 30 April, the 62 légionnaires and 3 officers reached the Hacienda de La Trinidad in Camaron, its 50 meter long walls forming a square, enclosing a two-story ranch house on the north and an open stable on the south, long ago abandoned. They had just settled for coffee when Mexican cavalry was spotted around at 08.00.

Mexican forces were 2000, 800 cavalrymen and 1200 infantrymen.

It took them 10 to 11 hours to kill or capture the Legionnaires. The weather was very hot, they hadn’t eaten or drank of all day. One by one they fell, the Captain around noon, then Lieutenant Vilain who had assumed command, around 14.30. They rejected with contempt each demand for surrender.

To a “You will be needlessly slaughtered”, Danjou had answered, “ We have plenty of ammunition and shall continue to fight.”

In the same spirit, when offered a second chance to surrender, Sergent Vincent Morzycki answered “Merde!” the way Cambronne had once done.

By 17.00 the roof had been burned away, the Legionnaires were down to 12, a third chance was offered and rejected.

By 18:00, with ammunition exhausted, the last of Danjou's men, numbering only five, including Lt. Maudet, desperately mounted a bayonet charge. Two men fell outright, and the rest were surrounded. One of them, Victor Catteau, had leapt in front of Maudet in an effort to protect him, and died in the Mexican barrage. Major Campos ordered the Legionnaires to surrender to which Corporal Phillipe Maine answered, "We will surrender if you leave us our weapons and our equipment. You also have to promise to take care of our wounded lieutenant."

"We refuse nothing to men like you," replied the Mexican officer.

When Campos brought the trio to Milán, he asked, "Is this all of them? Is this all of the men who are left?" Then, in amazement, he exclaimed, "These are not men! They are demons!"

“¡Pero estos no son hombres, son demonios!

The company had fulfilled the mission: the convoy had reached Puebla.

**

The conduct of the Legion, who refused to surrender, led to a certain mystique, and the battle of Camarón became synonymous with bravery and a fight-to-the-death attitude.

When the Legion moved to France, Capitain Danjou's wooden hand was taken to Aubagne, where it remains in the Legion Museum of Memory. The hand is the most cherished artifact in Legion history and the prestige and honor granted to a Legionnaire to carry it on parade in its protective case is among the greatest bestowed on a Legionnaire.

30 April is celebrated as "Camerone Day," an important day for the Legionnaires, when the wooden prosthetic hand of Capitaine Danjou is brought out for display.

Every year, on 30 April, the Mexican government holds annual ceremonies at the memorial site, with political speakers and a parade of various Mexican military units. The village holds a fiesta on the same day. The ceremonies are sometimes attended by representatives of the French military, and the site is also visited by retired veterans of the French Foreign Legion. It is also tradition that any Mexican soldiers passing by the area turn towards the monument and offer a salute.

To this day, the battle of Camerone is hailed as an exemplary example of 'Fidelity to the Mission', which came to form the central myth of the Legion.The 1st Foreign Regiment has the Mexican eagle on its unit badge, and the "Camerone" battle streamer sits on top of their standard.The names of Danjou, Vilain and Maudet are on a plaque on the second-floor wall in the Court of Honor at Les Invalides.

The expression "making Camerone" is still used in the Foreign Legion.

Each April 30, the heroes of this combat are honored in all the regiments and by all the associations of the Legion; on this occasion is read the "official" account of the fight of Camerone. The idea of ​​the “Camerone oath” is there to recall the courage and determination of the legionaries and the respect for the word given accomplished until the supreme sacrifice. Each year since 1906, the inscription of the monument has been read on the front of the troops presenting the arms.