The French Foreign Legion has many traits and characteristics that may be labelled as strange, anachronistic or controversial. It is, however, a fully functional and well performing military unit. What are the inner mechanisms that allowed it to remain in existence until the present day? If we leave out external influences and consider the Foreign Legion as a typical total institution, we can try to find and classify these factors. The first group of mechanisms is connected to admission and accession of the candidates to the Legion and includes a formal change of the applicants' identity, weakening of their links with their own personal history and an indoctrination aimed at creating a strong bond with the Foreign Legion. In the second category we find characteristics and processes that further deepen this acquired loyalty, such as rituals, customs, songs etc. However, these mechanisms aren't always working properly. The French military campaign in Indochina after the end of the Second World War is an example of a situation where some of these functional prerequisites were limited or missing completely. The image of the Foreign Legion during the Indochina War was affected by the so-called myth of German veterans, according to which a major part of the Legion composed of legionaries of German...

The Nauvoo Legion was a branch of the Illinois state militia, located in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois. To obey the state military service requirement, provide adequate protection for themselves, and display loyalty to the state, the inhabitants of Nauvoo organized a militia within their city. Having received necessary state approval, the citizens designated their militia the "Nauvoo Legion," which functioned from February, 1841 to January, 1845, when the Legion charter was repealed by the state legislature.Organized and staffed mainly by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Legion was considered by some opponents as a possible threat to non-Mormons. Consequently, almost from the Legion's inception, opposing forces sought to abolish it. This concern about the Legion's purpose and power was one of the reasons for the harassment and opposition to Latter-day Saints in Illinois.Regardless of its brief four-year history, however, the Legion established a very respectable record, grew to a number over 2,000 soldiers, and through their efficiency, and soldier-like appearance, gained an envied reputation.

Soldiers and civilians alike sought to make sense of the war following the silencing of the guns with the signing of the armistice in 1918. One of the foremost veteran groups leading this effort was the American Legion, founded in 1919. This World War I veteran organization would provide an outlet for Great War veterans to share camaraderie, interact with their local communities, and ultimately pay homage to their fallen brothers in arms. In line with the national organization's agenda and programs, the American Legion Kings Mountain Post No. 24 in Johnson City, TN executed two very different versions of WWI memorialization, one built in 1922 and another in 1935. These two memorials served the community in vastly different ways throughout the 1900s. The first was a commemorative marker and the second was a community centerpiece. In this paper, I argue that the differences between two World War I memorials in Johnson City are demonstrative of how the community progressively oriented its identity and infrastructures around Great War veterans following the conflict. Johnson City's physical and memorial landscapes changed as the city sought to reconcile the war and its survivors. Each memorial served veterans and the larger community in ways that aligned with both the veterans' needs and larger social contexts of Johnson City at the times of their creations. Ultimately, the memorials were intended to serve very different purposes within the community. Both veterans and nonveterans in the community responded more favorably to the 1935 Johnson City WWI memorial initially, and then continued to utilize it much more frequently throughout the twentieth century. It was a memorial that was intended to be interacted with regularly. The second memorial's central role in the community was cemented by how the memorial's placement and style differed from its predecessor. The second memorial was more accessible to the public, partnered with a more prominent municipal facility, had an expanded scope, and utilized nationalistic iconography. These key differences are a result of the community's increased dedication to Great War veterans by 1935. As care for World War I veterans became a central component of the city, so did memorializing the conflict. / Master of Arts

The public tends to think of war memorials as fixed monuments, but I argue that the American and Canadian Legions served as living memorials that acknowledged veterans’ war-time service by providing service to veterans and to the public. This dissertation focuses on how Legionnaires interacted with one another and with their local communities during the interwar years to construct memories of the First World War. By analyzing local chapter records from Michigan, New York, and Ontario, Canada, this case study highlights the contrast between the organizations’ national and local activities. The local posts’ and branches’ wide range of activities complicated the national organizations’ collective memories of the First World War. A new way to construct a holistic depiction of veterans’ organizations is to study them as living memorials. From this perspective, all of their day-to-day activities fulfill the larger purpose of preserving and perpetuating the memory of their war experiences. At the national level, the American and Canadian Legions advocated for legislation to benefit veterans, but it was primarily at the local level where rank-and-file members shaped the Legions’ collective memories of the war. This study explores elements of those memories, including sacrifice, service, and camaraderie, through the tensions that sometimes arose between the national leadership and the local chapters and compares the American and Canadian Legionnaires’ experiences.

This dissertation examines the five battalions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force designated as the American Legion. Authorized in Canada between 1915 and 1917, these units were formed to recruit volunteers from the United States to serve in the Canadian Overseas Contingent during the First World War. This work reviews the organization of Canada’s militia and the history of Anglo-American relations before examining the Canadian war effort, the formation of the American Legion, the background of its men, and the diplomatic, political, and constitutional questions that it raised. Much of the research focuses on the internal documents of its individual battalions (the 97th, 211th, 212th, 213th and 237th) and the papers of Reverend Charles Bullock now housed at the Public Archives of Canada. Documentation for the diplomatic furor the American Legion caused comes largely through the published diplomatic documents, British Foreign Office records held at the Public Record Office at Kew, and United States Department of State files at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. The most useful sources for American Legion correspondence are the Beaverbrook papers held at the House of Lords Record Office, the papers of Canadian Prime Minister Sir Robert Laird Borden, and those of the Governor-General, the Duke of Connaught found in the Public Archives of Canada. During its brief existence the American Legion precipitated diplomatic and political problems in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Dominion of Canada. Among the issues raised by the controversy surrounding the American Legion were: the relationship between the dominion government in Canada and the British government; the structural problems of imperial communications; the rise of a Canadian national identity and the desire for greater autonomy; and, the nature of citizenship and expatriation. This dissertation is also a long overdue account of the thousands of United States citizens who left their homes and families to join the American Legion in order to fight another country’s war.

Tübingen, Univ., Staatsexamensarb., 2008.

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2003. / Restricted until October 2004. Bibliography: leaves 117-121.

The thesis is a biography of the last member of the Czechoslovak legions Alois Vocásek (1896 - 2003). His long life story is presented chronologically. The author describes the period of his childhood and adolescence, participation in the First World War, service in the Czechoslovak legions, life in Czechoslovakia under German occupation and after the defeat of Nazism. The greatest attention is devoted to his service in the Czechoslovak foreign army and his political positions during the occupation. These two historical stages form the main part of the master's work. Life story is confronted with archival materials.

No description available.

Thesis Media reflections on Czechoslovak Legions 1918-1939 analyzes period articles, theater plays and publications dedicated to the participants of the first resistance and describes how the Czechoslovak public was informed about legionaries based on the study of archival materials and the content of analysis. A scrapbook catalog of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the National Archives in Prague, that contains authentic collections of articles about legionaries and the activities of legionary organizations was used as a main source of information. The diploma thesis briefly summarizes the work of the Czechoslovak revolutionary army during the First World War and the development of the press in the Czech lands. A significant part is focused on the popular periodicals called Lidove noviny and Narodni osvobozeni and their articles. It describes the legionary cult and its symbolism. A large part of the thesis describes the person of J. J. Svec. It analyses the first great Czechoslovak film based on his story. Part of the work is based on christianlegion symbols in a time when the separation of the Church and the state was an eminent period topic. It documents how the story was presented to the readers by means of the period articles.