Other Forces

"Viva la Muerte ! A mi la Legion !"

Francisco Franco (looking a bit nervous, left) with his early patron and subsequent cheerleader, Lt. Colonel José Millán Astray, founder of the Spanish Foreign Legion. Millán Astray was, to say the least, a strange character. Intended for the law, he insisted on following a military career, and served with conspicuous distinction in Spanish colonial conflicts in the Phillipines and North Africa. In the latter, he created a Spanish Foreign Legion in comparison to which its French model would have seemed like a children's tea party. Unlike its French equivalent, the Spanish Legion in its early days was largely composed of Spaniards - to be precise, Spain's violent criminals. Discipline was absolutely brutal, and Millán Astray, in spite of his small stature, was not unknown to administer personal beatings to these militarised thugs when they failed to show what he regarded as proper discipline. Apparently, they loved him for it. On the battlefield he appears to have been utterly fearless, exposing himself in the front line and suffering numerous wounds (including the loss of his left arm and an eye) in the process. Apart from Millán's romantic devotion to Spain's imperial and crusading history, comparisons with Oskar Dirlewanger inevitably occur. Both seem to have been fearless fighters, only comfortable in war; both were utterly brutal and ruthless; neither was able to find a comfortable place in civil life. After the Spanish Civil War (in which, of course, he supported his protegé, Franco), Millán Astray served as Press and Propaganda Minister in the Nationalist government, until Franco felt obliged to push him aside owing to potentially scandalous developments in his personal life. Still, the man obviously had something. I particularly like the story of a wedding he attended in Madrid towards the end of his life, at which an unseemly dispute broke out between the relatives in the church. The participants in the dispute must have been surprised when a slightly-built old man stood forward with a cry of "To me, the Legion", an old battle-cry of the Spanish Foreign Legion. They would have been more surprised when the old man was suddenly backed up by a number of very tough-looking middle-aged guys of the sort that one would not care to meet in a dark alley at night. Hardly a loveable character - but certainly an interesting one ... Best regards, JR.