Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 28, 2025
To my horror I found that they were Turcos and not the regular French troops which we had thought were holding that part of the line. Lieutenant Dansereau spoke French to them, but many pretended they did not understand. Almost immediately the bombardment of St. Julien became fiercer and the number of Turcos coming back greater.
When finally, all too late, MacMahon arrived with his troops, Douay's unfortunate command was shattered, and the battle of Weissenburg lost. In spite of this terrible disaster, the retreat of the French troops was accomplished in good order, and but few prisoners fell into the hands of the Prussians; even those few were mostly Zouaves and Turcos, not real French soldiers.
At the time I arrived a force of Turcos had been ordered forward to clean Soissons of the Germans, and the French artillery was endeavoring to disclose their positions on the hills. The loss of the bridges did not embarrass the black men. In rowboats they crossed to Soissons and were warmly greeted. Soissons was drawing no color-line.
Sadness as well as fear was revealed in the spirit of those fugitives, a sadness that Paris, Paris the beautiful, should be in danger of destruction, and that all her hopes of victory had ended in this defeat. Among all these civilians were soldiers of many regiments and of two nations Turcos and Zouaves, chasseurs and infantry, regulars and Highland British.
Thinking of those fine soldiers, and then casting back my memory to the services recently rendered by their successors, the Senegalese Riflemen- -first-class troops, useful anywhere, like our Algerian Turcos, who have already proved what they are worth I ask myself why we should not utilise the considerable recruiting opportunities Western Africa offers us to raise a number of negro battalions.
There are Russians shaggy peasants such as we see in cartoons or plays at home, and Mongol Russians with flat faces and almond eyes, who might pass for Chinamen. There are wild-eyed "Turcos" from the French African provinces, chattering untamed Arabs playing leap-frog in front of their German commandant as impudently as street boys back in their native bazaars.
I suggested he was having a hard time. "If we remained in Paris," he said, "we all had to help. It was a choice between volunteering to aid Mr. Herrick at the embassy or Mrs. Herrick at the American Ambulance Hospital and tending wounded Turcos. But between soothing terrified Americans and washing niggers, I'm sorry now I didn't choose the hospital."
They were completely blocked by the German advance. They were like rats in a trap and could not move. At the start of the battle, the Canadian lines ran from the village of Langemarcke over to St. Julien, a distance of approximately three to four miles. From St. Julien to the sector where the Imperial British had joined the Turcos was a distance of probably two miles.
I had an opportunity, during a visit to Strassburg in the spring, to see the soldiery of France. At the time the prestige of the Second Empire was at its height, Magenta and Solferino were considerable battles and the French had won them. Turcos and Zouaves had long passed in the world as soldiers of the best type and in our Civil War we had copied zealously their fantastic apparel and drill.
Like the Indian troops with the British, they were fighting a new warfare. For gallant charges over dry desert sands had been substituted mud and mist and bitter cold, and the stagnation of armies. Terrible tales have been told of the ferocity of these Arabs, and of the Turcos also. I am inclined to think they are exaggerated.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking