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Several military units have been known as the Belgian Legion. The term "Belgian Legion" can refer to Belgian volunteers who served in the French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars, Revolutions of 1848 and, more commonly, the Mexico Expedition of 1867.
The French Revolutionary armies incorporated a number of "legions" of foreign volunteers during the French Revolutionary Wars after 1792. These included a number of units recruited among exiles from the failed Brabant (1789–90) and Liège revolutions (1789–91). A number of separate units were organised, including:
These units incorporated a number of influential revolutionary figures, including Jean-Baptiste Dumonceau and Louis Lahure who both served in the Belgian Legion.
Temporarily regaining control of the Southern Netherlands, on 2 March 1814, Austria formed several military units from regional recruitment. This volunteer force was known as the Légion belge (Belgian Legion) and initially was intended to strengthen the Austrian position in their former provinces in the event of a counterattack from France. With the full occupation of the Southern Netherlands by Austria, Prussia and the United Provinces (Holland), a provisional government was established under the Duke of Beaufort and local levies continued to be recruited separately by each of the three allies. The largest of these was the Belgian Legion which, under the command of the Belgian born Austrian General Count von Murray, was now intended to keep local order. [1] Administered by the Baron Poederlé, secretary general for armaments, this Legion was made up of 4 line infantry regiments (from Brabant, Flanders, Hainaut and Namur), a light infantry regiment, two cavalry regiments and an artillery regiment.
This unit merged into the army of the Kingdom of the Netherlands on 1 September 1814, when that nation annexed the territory that would later form Belgium.
The Corps of Belgian Riflemen fought for the Portuguese Liberals in the Liberal Wars under Major Pierre-Joseph Lecharlier.
In March 1848, during the French Revolution of 1848, Belgian workers living in Paris formed an "Association des démocrates belges" (94, rue de Ménilmontant), led by Blervacq a wine merchant and an old officer called Fosses. This gave rise to a new Belgian Legion. Informally supported by Ledru-Rollin, Caussidière and other members of the French government dreaming of a Republican uprising in the Southern Netherlands and a subsequent French annexation of that area, this Legion's aim was to overthrow the monarchy and establish a Belgian republic. Commanded by Blervacq, Fosses and Charles Graux and escorted by students of the École Polytechnique, a troop of 1100 to 1200 unarmed men in three corps departed Paris on 25 March. Passing via Douai then Seclin (27 March), they were resupplied by the commissioner of the Nord department, Charles Delescluze, and by general Négrier.
However, France's Minister for War Cavaignac, alerted by a recent incident provoked by Belgian workers who had returned to the frontier at Quiévrain by train, demanded that Négrier give no assistance to any violation of the Belgian frontier. Négrier obeyed by ordering the Polytechniciens to turn back and closing the gates of Lille. On the evening of 28 March, however, the Legion broke camp and seized the arms and ammunition gathered by Delescluze before crossing the frontier between Neuville-en-Ferrain and Mouscron. They then confronted Belgian troops under General Joseph Fleury-Duray in Risquons-Tout (then a hamlet in the commune of Rekkem, but now part of Mouscron) and were defeated, with 7 killed, 26 wounded and 60 captured, a skirmish known as the Risquons-Tout incident. Some of the captured democrats were imprisoned in the Citadel of Huy and 17 of them condemned to death and executed at Antwerp. [2]
During the Mexico Expedition 1,500 Belgian volunteers were formed into a Belgian Legion to fight in the army of Emperor Maximilian, whose wife, Princess Charlotte of Belgium, was Leopold I of Belgium's daughter.
Officially "The Belgian Expeditionary Corps" this Legion comprised an infantry regiment of two battalions - the "Empress Battalion" of grenadiers and the "King of the Belgians' Battalion" of voltigeurs. The officers and non-commissioned officers were mainly drawn from the regular Belgian Army as were some of the other ranks. [3] The Belgians formed part of a much larger "Imperial Mexican Corps of Austrian and Belgian Volunteers", though they served separately from the Austrian contingent which was brigaded with Mexican Imperial troops. [4]
The first detachment of the Belgian Legion, numbering 604 men, embarked for Mexico on 16 October 1864. Three further contingents were sent over the next three months, bringing the total force up to about 1,500. The Legion's first encounter with the Mexican Republican forces was at the Battle of Tacámbaro on 11 April 1866, where a Belgian detachment of 300 men was forced to surrender after losing up to a third of its strength. The remainder of the Belgian Legion performed well in subsequent clashes but by the late summer of 1866, with the French army preparing for evacuation, morale amongst the foreign contingents attached to the Mexican Imperial army was low. Thirty Belgian officers petitioned to return to Europe on the grounds that their contracted terms of service were about to expire. Others transferred to mixed Mexican/foreign units. [5] On 12 December 1866 the Legion was disbanded and 754 of the contingent returned to Belgium where they dispersed. [6]
A small group of elderly survivors of the Belgian Legion escorted the coffin of Charlotte after her death at the Castle of Bouchout in 1927. [7]
The French Foreign Legion is a corps of the French Army that consists of several specialties: infantry, cavalry, engineers, airborne troops. It was created in 1831 to allow foreign nationals into the French Army. It formed part of the Armée d’Afrique, the French Army's units associated with France's colonial project in Northern Africa, until the end of the Algerian war in 1962.
The Luxembourg Armed Forces are the national military force of Luxembourg. The army has been a fully volunteer military since 1967. As of December 2018, it has 939 personnel.
The Zouaves were a class of light infantry regiments of the French Army serving between 1830 and 1962 and linked to French North Africa; as well as some units of other countries modelled upon them. The zouaves were among the most decorated units of the French Army.
The second French intervention in Mexico, also known as the Second Franco-Mexican War (1861–1867), was a military invasion of the Republic of Mexico by the French Empire of Napoleon III, purportedly to force the collection of Mexican debts in conjunction with Great Britain and Spain. Mexican conservatives supported the invasion, since they had been defeated by the liberal government of Benito Juárez in a three-year civil war. Defeated on the battlefield, conservatives sought the aid of France to effect regime change and establish a monarchy in Mexico, a plan that meshed with Napoleon III's plans to re-establish the presence of the French Empire in the Americas. Although the French invasion displaced Juárez's Republican government from the Mexican capital and the monarchy of Archduke Maximilian was established, the Second Mexican Empire collapsed within a few years. Material aid from the United States, whose four-year civil war ended in 1865, invigorated the Republican fight against the regime of Maximilian, and the 1866 decision of Napoleon III to withdraw military support for Maximilian's regime accelerated the monarchy's collapse. Maximilian and two Mexican generals were executed by firing squad on 19 June 1867, ending this period of Mexican history.
The 1st Foreign Regiment is a depot regiment of the Foreign Legion in the French Army. It is located at Aubagne.
The Foreign Legion has had a long and unique history amongst the units of the French Army. It was historically formed of expatriate enlisted personnel led by French officers. Founded by a royal ordinance issued by King Louis Philippe of France on March 9, 1831 with aim of bolstering the strength of the French Army while also finding a use for the influx of refugees inundating France at the time. The Foreign Legion subsequently found a permanent home in the ranks of the French military. The Foreign Legion's history spans across Conquest of Algeria, the Franco-Prussian War, numerous colonial exploits, both World Wars, the First Indochina War, and the Algerian War.
A demi-brigade is a military formation used by the French Army since the French Revolutionary Wars. The Demi-brigade amalgamated the various infantry organizations of the French Revolutionary infantry into a single unit. Each one was headed by a chef de brigade.
The Tonkin Expeditionary Corps was an important French military command based in northern Vietnam (Tonkin) from June 1883 to April 1886. The expeditionary corps fought the Tonkin Campaign (1883–86) taking part in campaigns against the Black Flag Army and the Chinese Yunnan and Guangxi Armies during the Sino-French War and the period of undeclared hostilities that preceded it, and in important operations against Vietnamese guerrilla bands during the subsequent 'Pacification of Tonkin'.
The Papal Zouaves were an infantry battalion, later regiment, dedicated to defending the Papal States. Named after the French zouave regiments, the Zuavi Pontifici were mainly young men, unmarried and Catholic, who volunteered to assist Pope Pius IX in his struggle against the Italian unificationist Risorgimento.
The Battle of Tacámbaro was a battle of the French Intervention in Mexico which took place on 11 April 1865 in the state of Michoacán in western Mexico. The battle, named after the town in which it was fought, pitted 300 members of the Belgian Legion supporting the Mexican Empire against approximately 3,000 Mexican republicans.
The 5th Hussar Regiment was a French Hussar regiment.
Risquons-Tout is a hamlet of Wallonia in the municipality and district of Mouscron, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium on the border with France.
The Marching Regiments of Foreign Volunteers were temporary formations of the Foreign Legion organized from Foreign volunteers during World War II. These regiments were formed on 16 September 1939:
On September 16, 1939, the war minister decided to form special corps of foreign volunteers part of the Foreign Legion. They were part of the Marching Regiments of Foreign Volunteers.
The Committee of United Belgians and Liégeois or United Committee of Both Nations was a political committee in Revolutionary France which brought together leaders of the failed Brabant and Liège Revolutions (1789–1791) who sought to create an independent republic in Belgium.
The Legion of Belgians and Liégeois was a military unit within the French Revolutionary army composed of volunteers from the Austrian Netherlands and Prince-Bishopric of Liège in modern-day Belgium. Its volunteers were émigrés from the failed Brabant (1789–90) and Liège revolutions (1789–91) and among the 12,000 Belgians who served in the French Revolutionary armies.
The Belgian Legion was a military unit within the French Revolutionary army composed of volunteers from the Austrian Netherlands in modern-day Belgium. Its volunteers, predominantly Vonckists, were émigrés from the failed Brabant Revolution (1789–90) and among the 12,000 Belgians who served in the French Revolutionary armies. It was one of a number of separate Belgian "legions", the most important of which were the Belgian Legion, the Liégeois Legion, and the Legion of Belgians and Liégeois.
Charles-Louis Du Pin was a French military man. He participated in the Second French intervention in Mexico, where he reorganized the local militia.
Alfred van der Smissen, 2nd Baron van der Smissen was a Belgian general.
