Date of Award

Fall 2024

Language

English

Embargo Period

11-29-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of History

Program

History

First Advisor

Richard Fogarty

Committee Members

Maeve Kane, Michael Taylor, Ryan Irwin

Keywords

French Foreign Legion, Algeria, Military History, Masculinity, French Imperialism

Subject Categories

Cultural History | Diplomatic History | European History | History of Gender | Military History | Political History | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies | Social History

Abstract

The French Foreign Legion, part of the July Monarchy’s 1831 expansion of the Army of Africa, sought to create a non-French force entirely deployable outside of the metropole. The creation of the expatriate corps intended to solve two of France’s most pressing problems at the time: an excess of foreign migrants at home, and a dearth of French soldiers abroad. The Paris government hoped to attract recruits from its considerable non-national male population, particularly political exiles and migrant workers fleeing Europe’s 1830 revolutionary wave. Initially intended as a temporary expedient for the homeland’s demographic crisis, the expatriate fighting force grew to become one of the most recognizable units in the Army of Africa, the embodiment of both the best and worst of the nation’s martial masculine heritage. But the project betrayed an inherent contradiction, one that continued to plague both the Legion and France’s imperial legacy in Algeria for more than a century to come: a French corps comprised almost entirely of non-French members, raised in France but destined to serve only beyond its borders. From the Legion’s very inception France struggled to precisely define the relationship between the homeland and this body of foreigners fighting in its name. And this ambiguity led to more than a crisis of conscience: it bore very real consequences for the people who toiled within its ranks and relinquished their lives and senses of self in pursuit of France’s colonial power. The Foreign Legion from 1831 to 1854 became an arena in which competing views of French national identity played out. At the heart of the struggle, the foreign recruits challenged assumptions as they negotiated their participation in France’s efforts to assimilate them into the imperial project.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

Download

Share

COinS