I am not an expert on military history and there was I thinking the french foreign legion had the best soldiers
Well they woukld have a good regime as the French foreign legion began as an IRISH one created by Napoleon!
From the flight of the earls to the Jacobite rebellion Irish soldiers have fought in every country in Europe as the most prized soldiers. Battles between irish regiments on either side were the bloodiest where Irish regiments fought against other Irish regiments. Napoleon created the regiment that would become the French foreign legion from I think the 4th regiment of Irish volunteers. The Irish and some polish Huzzars and Germans from Hesse (the same that later fought in the American wars) became that regiment. The French foreign legion began as the 4th Irish or 35th battalion of Irish volunteers. Also the Hessian that the empire prized were only named as such after the original hession/Hessian (IRISH name) Hessian turned upon empire in favour of George washington and fought for American Independence. These were the elite artillery and riflemen of the American liberators as the Irish regiments were the most highly trained and battle hardened. The remaining Germans were given the name Hessian and called such only to hold the namesake and align it with the area of Hess/e in Germany to make it a household name among them for morale but the original Hessian mercenary hails from the connaught tribes in the west of Ireland banished to connaught by Cromwell. The anglo saxon even tried to steal the title hessian from the Irish in this well woven transplant of historical reference.
The Huzzar is also originally an Irish military brigade spread across europe as the Irish spread all across the continent with their soldiering prowess. The English cavalry had the Irish as the best horsemen and even the best thorough bred stallions were Irish livestock but this would not do for their version of history as their officers within the cavalry had to be English gentlemen etc putting it simply.
Even the Americans of the western and south western states should be thankful it was only a handful of Irish soldiers who switched sides and went to mexico or California would have a mexican flag. Antonio López de Santa Ann lauded them too.An Irish soldier is like a cog in the most efficient fighting machine because they won't break or fail under fire.The only thing that matters is the mission or task given. This value holds true still in the French foreign legion along with the non surrender although in the legion it only alludes to non surrender of ones weapon to the enemy.
In the blood of any "pure blooded" Irishman (not new generation half breeds etc) is justice or vengeance. The Irish have not forgotten how food exports like wheat, barley , beef ,dairy etc were increased five fold during the so called famine where liverpool, manchester and france, holland were fed whikle Irish protestants profitted while Gael Catholics were told to take the boat or starve and luckily for you dumb ass yanks they landed on your shores along with their German ,French and polish brethern turning your country into a free powerhouse the likes the world has never seen. These great men built your country and invented everything while your anglo saxon remnant kept slaves and practiced backward occult mumbo jumbo and talked shit in their private country clubs and how they could extract ground rent from your asses and take all the land left behind from the colonials who they still swear allegiance to.
Now getting back to France on a more recent note:
Marshal Foch’s Tribute to the Irish Soldiers of the Great War
MARSHAL FOCH'S FRENCH ARMY
Marshal Foch’s Tribute to the Irish Soldiers who fought on the French Soil and along French soldiers in the First World War
On 10 November 1928, a tribute from Marshal Foch was published in The Irish Times on the request of a special correspondent based in Paris. In this text, Foch depicted the everlasting ties that were established between France and Ireland on the battlefield during the Great War. Ten years after the armistice, Foch expressed France’s gratitude for the support provided by Irish women and men during these tragic times.
Extracts of the tribute have been carved into the stone and bronze monument presented by France to Ireland to remember these Irish soldiers who fought and lost their lives during the Great War, but also during significant conflicts of French history, such as the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) and the Second World War (1939-1945).
PARIS, FRIDAY, Nov. 9th, 1928
“The Heroic Dead of Ireland have every right to the homage of the living for they proved in some of the heaviest fighting of the world war that the unconquerable spirit of the Irish race— the spirit that has placed them among the world’s greatest soldiers—still lives and is stronger than ever it was.
I had occasions to put to the test the valour of the Irishmen serving in France, and, whether they were Irishmen from the North or the South, or from one party or another, they did not fail me.
Some of the hardest fighting in the terrible days that followed the last offensive of the Germans fell to the Irishmen, and some of their splendid regiments had to endure ordeals that might justly have taxed to breaking-point the capacity of the finest troops in the world.
ON THE SOMME
Never once did the Irish fail me in those terrible days. On the Somme, in 1916, I saw the heroism of the Irishmen of the North and South, I arrived on the scene shortly after the death of that very gallant Irish gentleman, Major William Redmond. I saw Irishmen of the North and the South forget their age-long differences, and fight side by side, giving their lives freely for the common cause.
In war there are times when the necessity for yielding up one’s life is the most urgent duty of the moment, and there were many such moments in our long drawn-out struggle. Those Irish heroes gave their lives freely, and, in honouring then I hope we shall not allow our grief to let us forgot our pride in the glorious heroism of these men.
They have left to those who come after a glorious heritage and an inspiration to duty that will live long after their names are forgotten. France will never forget her debt to the heroic Irish dead, and in the hearts of the French people to-day their memory lives as that of the memory of the heroes of old, preserved in the tales that the old people tell to their children and their children’s children.
A GERMAN TRIBUTE
I know of no better tribute to Irish valour than that paid after the armistice by one of the German High Command, whom I had known in happier days. I asked him if he could tell me when he had first noted the declining moral of his own troops, and he replied that it was after the picked troops under his command had had repeated experience of meeting the dauntless Irish troops who opposed them in the last great push that was expected to separate the British and French armies, and give the enemy their long-sought victory.
The Irishmen had endured such constant attacks that it was thought that they must be utterly demoralised, but always they seemed to find new energy with which to attack their assailants, and in the end the flower of the German Army withered and faded away as an effective force.
“THEY NEVER FAILED”
When the moment came for taking the offensive all along our line, it was these same worn Irish troops that we placed in the van, making call after call on their devotion, but never finding them fail us. In the critical days of the German offensive, when it was necessary that lives should be sacrificed by the thousand to slow down the rush of the enemy, in order that our harassed forces should have time to reform, it was on the Irish that we relied repeatedly to make these desperate stands, and we found them responding always.
Again and again, when the bravest were necessary to delay the enemy’s advance, it was the Irish who were ready and at all times the soldiers of Ireland fought with the rare courage and determination that has always characterised the race on the battlefield.
“WE SHALL NEVER FORGET”
Some of the flower of Irish chivalry rests in the cemeteries that have been reserved in France, and the French people will always have these reminders of the debt that France owes to Irish valour. We shall always see that the graves of these heroes from across the sea are lovingly tended, and we shall try to ensure that the generations that come after us shall never forget the heroic dead of Ireland.”
