Britannica Sources used in this answer

Why did nationally organized French Foreign Legion units have morale problems during World War I?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

French Foreign Legion soldiers in uniform with white hats and rifles stand in formation during a Bastille Day parade on the Champs Elysees in Paris. — French Foreign Legion Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion in a parade celebrating Bastille Day in Paris.

During World War I, the French Foreign Legion experienced significant morale problems due to the integration of new foreign volunteers—including many Jewish refugees—with the grizzled veterans of France’s colonial wars, as these groups mixed poorly.1

This issue was exacerbated by initial attempts to organize the newer volunteers into nationally homogeneous units, which proved resistant to discipline and difficult to manage. These morale challenges, which included mutinies in some battalions during the 1915 Artois offensive, eventually led the French government to permit many foreign volunteers to transfer into regular French units. To address the situation, the remaining legionnaires on the Western Front were reorganized into a task force known as the Régiment de marche de la Légion étrangère (RMLE).1