Camerone Day

[johnduffer]

It's Camerone Day again. I've added some information since last year to (hopefully) make for a better article.

April 30th is Camerone Day. All posts of the French Foreign Legion pause each year to honor the memory (even under heavy fire at Dien Bien Phu in 1954). France was emboldened to set up an empire in Mexico while the Civil War kept the U.S. from enforcing the Monroe Doctrine and, conversely, hastened to leave with the end of that war and a huge U.S. standing army starting to mass at the border. United States newspapers gave regular reports on the conflict with a strong pro-Mexican bias in the North.

At 1 AM, April 30th 1863, Captain Jean Danjou led the half strength 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the French Foreign Legion out from Chiquihuite, Mexico to scout the road for a convoy bringing supplies, siege artillery and 3 million in gold bullion from Vera Cruz.

The patrol was in response to a report from an Indian spy about a large Mexican force assembled to ambush the convoy. All officers of the 3rd were sick that day so Danjou along with Sous-Lieutenants Napoléon Vilain and Clément Maudet volunteered to lead the company. The Captain had lost his left hand in an accident years earlier and now wore an articulated wooden one in it’s place covered by a white glove. Stifling heat had modified the regulation uniform, white canvas trousers replaced the usual baggy red wool and the local sombrero was worn by all. Knapsacks and haversacks were left behind, each man carrying only rifle, canteen, sixty rounds and their beloved kepis hanging from the belt.

Six AM found the company halted by a pond a mile east of the village of Camerone where - following Legion custom - canteens were emptied into communal pots to make coffee and handed over to a detail for refilling. A sudden appearance by Mexican cavalry forced them to fall in without coffee or water and begin moving back towards the village.

The 3rd of the 1st - 65 officers and men - were now confronted with 300 to 400 cavalry and more arriving minute by minute attracted to the firing. The horsemen approached at a walk to within sixty yards before charging full speed at the French unit formed in square. Disciplined volleys quickly halted this attack and more saddles were emptied as they withdrew. Several more charges were beaten back but Captain Danjou realized they couldn’t remain in the open and decided to retreat to the shelter of a ruined two story hacienda where he would “amuse the enemy” and prevent them joining the ambush forces. Unfortunately the Mexicans got to the building first, occupying all but one room and, even worse, trying to cross a cactus filled ditch broke up the square’s cohesion briefly, sixteen men were cut off and overwhelmed as the pack mules carrying food, water and the reserve ammunition bolted.

The remaining 49, several wounded, took shelter in the adobe walled corral behind the hacienda and set up a defensive perimeter. The ten foot high walls had few loopholes except for three large breeches and the one room at the northwest corner of the hacienda that let them fire into the area along the road; the legionnaires could only shoot as men showed themselves at the hacienda windows, came over the walls or tried to force the breeches. Sergeant Morzycki climbed to the 2nd story roof to scout the situation. He reported a Mexican strength exceeding 600 cavalry and the approach of a messenger offering immediate surrender or certain slaughter. Morzycki came down to ask the Captain how to reply: “Réponds simplement que nous avons des cartouches et que nous ne nous rendons pas” - (“Simply say we have ammunition and we don’t surrender.”). Despite being outnumbered 10 to 1 the shared opinion was they could stand off any number of cavalry. As voiced by Corporal Berg: “With no bayonets on their short carbines, they did not have the ability to wipe out a Company of the Legion sheltered behind walls.”

By 9 AM the heat was suffocating and there was nothing to drink except for the Captain’s small flask of wine which he shared out equally – a few drops per man -- asking each to take an oath to fight to the death with him. With the Mexicans desperate to overwhelm the legionnaires quickly, intense fighting occurred at the gates and from room to room in the house. A couple of hours later the Captain kept his part of the blood oath, shot through the chest. Sous-Lieutenant Vilain took command and continued to beat back repeated assaults. A distant bugle at midday gave brief hope of rescue but turned out to herald the arrival of 1,500 Mexican infantry under command of Colonel Francisco de Paula Milan. Eager to end the siege and get on with the convoy ambush he offered surrender a second time. Morzycki replied on his own: “Merde!” Milan now franticly pushed his men over and over to breach the walls and destroy the little band of stubborn defenders but savage hand to hand fighting stopped them cold. Hour after agonizing hour the 3rd fought on under a blistering sun, nothing to drink. Those that could squeeze out a few drops of urine drank that, wounded men lying helpless in the corral opened their wounds and lapped at the blood. Vilain was hit in the forehead, dying instantly, and the remaining officer, Sous-Lieutenant Maudet took command, fighting on without false hope. Told Morzycki was dead, he replied coldly: “Bah! One more! Soon it’s our turn!” The steady attrition left no doubt of the eventual outcome but a third surrender demand was ignored completely.

Driven back from the walls, house and outbuildings set on fire by the Mexicans, the few remaining legionnaires gathered in the ruined stable and shot down anyone trying to cross the corral through the smoke. Just before dark, down to five men with one cartridge each, Maudet ordered: “You will fire on my command, then charge with the bayonet. You will allow me to lead. Mes enfants, I bid you farewell.”. A last small volley and a charge into hundreds of Mexican infantry ensued. All but Corporal Maine were hit immediately. Fusiler Catteau was shot nineteen times trying to shield the Sous-Lieutenant - but to no avail - Maudet was fatally wounded. The slaughter of the three left standing was only prevented by the intervention of Major Angel Luciano Cambas beating down the Mexican bayonets at their chests with his sword. His shout of “Surrender!” was met with a defiant demand - they would surrender only if they were allowed to keep their weapons and their wounded were cared for. “One can refuse nothing to men like you!” came his response. The battle was over. Said Colonel Milan: “Pero non son hombres! Son demonios!” – (“These are not men! They are devils!”)

It was a French defeat but a defeat that has defined the standard of “Fidelity to the Mission” for the Legion in the 149 years since. 65 legionnaires had fought some 2,100 infantry and cavalry for twelve hours, inflicted 300 casualties and saved the convoy from ambush. Danjou’s wooden hand was taken by the victors as a souvenir but later recovered and returned to France to become the Legion’s most precious possession.

Captain Jean Danjou lies today with the 3rd of the 1st in their mass grave near the site of the struggle beneath a monument inscribed:

THERE WERE LESS THAN SIXTY OF THEM
OPPOSED TO A WHOLE ARMY
IT’S MASS CRUSHED THEM
LIFE RATHER THAN COURAGE
ABANDONED THESE FRENCH SOLDIERS
April 30, 1863

Jordan, David
“The History Of The French Foreign Legion From 1831 To The Present Day”
Lyons Press, 2005

Poarch, Douglas
“The French Foreign Legion”
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991

Rickards, Colin
“The Hand Of Captain Danjou, Camerone And The French Foreign Legion In Mexico, 30 April 1863”
Marlborough, GB, The Cromwell Press, 2005

Ryan, James W.
“Camerone, The French Foreign Legion’s Greatest Battle”
Westport, CT., Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996

Sergeant, Pierre
“Camerone, La Campagne Héroique de la Légion Étrangère Au Mexique”
Paris, Fayard, 1980

Hendryx, Kevin
“Not Men But Devils.”
Military History Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 6
June 1987

Maine, Corporal Philippe (interview with Lucien Louis Lande)
‘Le combat de Camerone: vu par le Caporal Maine’
“Vert et Rouge: Revue de la Legion Etrangere”
May 1945
Reprinted from:
‘Cameron, 30 avril 1863:Episode de la guerre du Mexique’
“Revue des Deux Mondes, 28”
July 1878

[Rob Weaver]

Magnificent story of bravery. Responding to a surrender request with the single word "Merde" is actually an allusion to the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon's Old Guard made the same response, which has gone down in history via its English translation "The Guard dies but never surrenders."
The French war in Mexico is usually overshadowed by the great bloodletting among Anglos that was happening at the same time a little farther north. It was a vicious tooth and nail war with guerilla actions that would make Goya blanch. It's sobering to stop once and a while and remember it. Thanks.

[Pvt Schnapps]

It is certainly a great story, Rob, but it's also a bit of what Twain would call a "stretch." The French account overstates the number of Mexicans and Mexican losses, and underplays the number of Legion survivors. The Mexican commander turned in an AAR just a few days after the battle that gave his strength as 850 and his losses as 31. The convoy the legionnaires "saved" had not in fact started out and had an escort of 800 men even without Danjou's company. Corporal Berg of the Legion listed 21 fellow POWs as "not wounded."

Perhaps embarassed by any lost battle, and obviously not content that their force was only (!) outnumbered 14 to one, the French developed the story we're familiar with somewhat later in the year, after the survivors were exchanged. It came from an officer who wasn't there (the ones who were died) based on interviews with survivors who had no way of knowing the actual numbers against them or the losses they inflicted.

The math of the French claim -- that 60 men with some 3,000 rounds inflicted 300 casualties -- flies in the face of what we know of the effectiveness of infantry fire in the day. An examination of the ratio of rounds fired to wounds inflicted in Fox's "The Chances of Being Hit in Battle" and the "Hit by 1,000" factors in Livermore's "Numbers and Losses" supports Colonel Milan's account and in fact makes the French claim look a bit ridiculous.

The real story remains one of heroism against great odds on the French part, but also includes dogged determination and no small amount of skill on the part of the Mexican soldiers. Apart from a few companies of lancers, these mainly consisted of the local defense soldiers of the Guardias Nacionales -- generally uniformed, but poorly armed.

I particularly like one line from Milan's report. While the format strikes me as remarkably similar to those from the civil war, when it comes time to single out individual officers or men for praise, he simply states, "All of the citizens composing the Brigade of the Center have done their duty."

Indeed they did, and today it seems as appropriate to salute the men who defended their homes and their republic, as those who invaded from across the sea at the behest of a bumbling emperor.

[johnduffer]

My article is based on the bibliography listed at the end, all of which disagress with Mr Shaffner. I have Pierre Sergeant who was a Legion office in Indochina and Algeria that's written a 500 page book and then I have some guy on the Internet that disagrees. Tough call. Apparently nobody was hit at the OK Corral since it takes 8 or 9 hundred rounds to hit a man no matter what the situation.

The Legionaires fired over 3,000 rounds at ranges of 5 to 50 yards as well as a great deal of close quarters bayonet fighting.

Mexican eyewitness Captain Sebastian I. Campos:
"The shots of the enemy were almost always fatal for our men."

French eyewitness Corporal Philippe Maine:
"..we sighted our rifles coldly, did not fire until a shot was sure and when we did, knew well that our man was down. Those in front fell."

Internet expert Mike Shaffner:
"Those guys don't know what they're talking about."

Your milage may vary.

[reddcorp]

It is certainly a great story, Rob, but it's also a bit of what Twain would call a "stretch." The French account overstates the number of Mexicans and Mexican losses, and underplays the number of Legion survivors. The Mexican commander turned in an AAR just a few days after the battle that gave his strength as 850 and his losses as 31. The convoy the legionnaires "saved" had not in fact started out and had an escort of 800 men even without Danjou's company. Corporal Berg of the Legion listed 21 fellow POWs as "not wounded."

Perhaps embarassed by any lost battle, and obviously not content that their force was only (!) outnumbered 14 to one, the French developed the story we're familiar with somewhat later in the year, after the survivors were exchanged. It came from an officer who wasn't there (the ones who were died) based on interviews with survivors who had no way of knowing the actual numbers against them or the losses they inflicted.

The math of the French claim -- that 60 men with some 3,000 rounds inflicted 300 casualties -- flies in the face of what we know of the effectiveness of infantry fire in the day. An examination of the ratio of rounds fired to wounds inflicted in Fox's "The Chances of Being Hit in Battle" and the "Hit by 1,000" factors in Livermore's "Numbers and Losses" supports Colonel Milan's account and in fact makes the French claim look a bit ridiculous.

The real story remains one of heroism against great odds on the French part, but also includes dogged determination and no small amount of skill on the part of the Mexican soldiers. Apart from a few companies of lancers, these mainly consisted of the local defense soldiers of the Guardias Nacionales -- generally uniformed, but poorly armed.

I particularly like one line from Milan's report. While the format strikes me as remarkably similar to those from the civil war, when it comes time to single out individual officers or men for praise, he simply states, "All of the citizens composing the Brigade of the Center have done their duty."

Indeed they did, and today it seems as appropriate to salute the men who defended their homes and their republic, as those who invaded from across the sea at the behest of a bumbling emperor.

When legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Borrowed from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

A.Redd

[huntdaw]

Responding to a surrender request with the single word "Merde" is actually an allusion to the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon's Old Guard made the same response...

Notably with the same result. Perhaps the French have rethought this since then.

[Pvt Schnapps]

My article is based on the bibliography listed at the end, all of which disagress with Mr Shaffner. I have Pierre Sergeant who was a Legion office in Indochina and Algeria that's written a 500 page book and then I have some guy on the Internet that disagrees. Tough call. Apparently nobody was hit at the OK Corral since it takes 8 or 9 hundred rounds to hit a man no matter what the situation.

The Legionaires fired over 3,000 rounds at ranges of 5 to 50 yards as well as a great deal of close quarters bayonet fighting.

Mexican eyewitness Captain Sebastian I. Campos:
"The shots of the enemy were almost always fatal for our men."

French eyewitness Corporal Philippe Maine:
"..we sighted our rifles coldly, did not fire until a shot was sure and when we did, knew well that our man was down. Those in front fell."

Internet expert Mike Shaffner:
"Those guys don't know what they're talking about."

Your milage may vary.

John, there's no need to get upset. You don't have to believe some "guy on the internet." My conclusions are based on Colonel Milan's contemporaneous report, the writings of Fox and Livermore, and Rickards' book.

To those whose principal experience of 19th century warfare consists of war games or reenactments, hitting one enemy soldier with every ten shots fired does not seem like much of an accomplishment. But it would be difficult to find a precedent for anything like such accuracy in the annals of 19th century military history.

William F. Fox concluded (again, see “The Chances of Being Hit in Battle,” The Century Magazine, Vol. 36, Issue 1, May 1888 ) that “the old saw” that “It takes a man’s weight in lead to kill him... expresses an absolute truth devoid of exaggeration.” For a specific example, Fox examined General Rosecrans’ analysis of the fighting at Stone’s River, in which two million rounds fired by Federal soldiers resulted in 13,832 Confederate small arms casualties – a ratio of 145 shots fired for each hit. Fox notes that actual Confederate casualties came closer to 9,000, which gives us a ratio of about 220 rounds fired for each hit. At this rate, the number of Mexican casualties at Camerone would come rather closer to fifteen than three hundred.

Thomas L. Livermore, in Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America (1900) took a different approach to recording losses with a chart showing the effective number of soldiers engaged in certain battles, the numbers of casualties suffered per thousand effectives, and the casualties inflicted per thousand (“Table A,” p. 140). Taking this approach, with sixty legionnaires inflicting three hundred Mexican casualties, the “Hit by 1,000” rate would come to 5,000. But none of the 64 Civil War engagements analyzed by Livermore a rate even remotely close to that. The highest “Hit by 1,000” rate – 631 – belonged to the Confederate defenders of Battery Wagner during the assault of July 18, 1863. If the legionnaires at Camerone achieved a similar level of effectiveness, they would have inflicted about three dozen Mexican casualties.

One may argue that the legionnaires presented a special case, one of trained European soldiers fighting for their lives at close range against an enemy armed with inferior weapons. We have no exact equivalent for this in the Civil War, but if we fast-forward a few years to 1879 we find a rough analogy in the battle of Rorke’s Drift, in which a small garrison of British soldiers fought off a large force of Zulu warriors. The arms of the British consisted of breech-loading Martini-Henry rifles. With the exception of a handful of trade guns, the Zulu arms consisted of short stabbing spears. Over the course of the battle the British fired an estimated 20,000 rounds and inflicted between five and eight hundred casualties. This results in one hit for every 25 to 40 rounds.

To sum up, in order to hit as many Mexicans as the French official account of Camerone claims, the legionnaires would have had to achieve a level of effectiveness not ten, or twenty, or thirty percent greater than Federal troops at Stone’s River, but 2,000 per cent (twenty times) greater.

Moreover, they would have had to score 1,000 per cent (ten times) more hits than the Confederate troops who defended Battery Wagner, not just with small arms, but with coast defense artillery, mines, and grenades.

Further, the legionnaires, armed with muzzle loaders, would have had to score 200-400 per cent more hits than British soldiers using breech-loaders against Zulus who had to close to literally within arm's reach to have any chance of harming them.

The extraordinary nature of the French claim leaves one wondering which to admire more – the skill of the legionnaires, or the incredible heroism of the Mexicans who persisted in the attack despite the diabolical accuracy of their foemen. But the question only exists to the extent that we can find some corroboration for a number that otherwise seems absurd.

If we try to estimate the actual Mexican casualties using credible data – by say, averaging the effectiveness of fire at Stone’s River and Rorke’s Drift and assuming a good bit of bayonet work – we would come up with something like thirty casualties rather than three hundred (i.e., 220 hits for Stone’s River, plus 24 for Rorke’s Drift, divided by two equals 122; 3,600 legionnaire rounds divided by 122 equals thirty hits).

This is almost exactly what Milan reports as his losses. The math supports the Mexicans.

One should note that the French themselves have never offered more than rhetorical support for the claim of 300 Mexican casualties. Colonel Jeanningros, who led the belated relief column to Camerone the day after the battle, did not stay to bury the dead legionnaires, much less look for dead Mexicans. Since all three officers of the 3rd Company died either in the battle or shortly after, the first hand accounts from the French consist of those of a few surviving enlisted men filtered through an embarrassed hierarchy and glossed over the years by admirers.

Campos, in his account written 30 years later, refers to the action occurring on May 4. His account of Camerone seems also to include the participation of those same Mexican units in the unsuccessful attempt relieve Puebla shortly after.

But I guess I should ignore Milan, Fox, Livermore, and Lt. Chard and instead believe some other guy on the internet.

[FloridaHoosier]

Ding, ding, ding. Time to go to your corner men! With all seriousness, we have a really good thread about historical knowledge that few in our realm of living history reenacting know about, and I look forward to this time of year for the esteemed Mr. Duffer's postings on this. I also appreciate good debate, and it holds more credance to me coming from a research-based historian like the esteemed Mr. Shaffner. What we have here are two good contributors to this site and the hobby in general, so lets keep it civil. You are both just "some guy on the internet" but you both offer lots to offer on this and all other posts

[RJSamp]

Actually some of us know a lot about this battle....and this has little or NOTHING to do with ACW Reenacting. My vote is for you to do your 'moderating' job Ross and move this somewhere else......this is OFF TOPIC.

[johnduffer]

The French column that arrived next morning found two mass graves - one French and one Mexican - both still uncovered and said the Mexican one had fifty bodies. A French column the following day reported finding 92 bodies in the area between the pond and the corral. I have Rickards' book, I reread it each year (most recently last week) and he does not concur with your numbers. Sergeant mentions that the 1 in 12 hit ratio is an amazing feat as 1 in 1000 is more the norm but he doesn't doubt it happened. Your suggestion of 800 Mexicans total ignores the semi-independent bands that outnumbered Milan's personal command. Maine was the only unwounded man in the corral at the conclusion. Several of the 16 captured at the cactus ditch were unwounded and a couple of men fighting at the breeches were overpowered and captured. I don't think you can decide if soldiers are lying or not based on statistics from other wars but that's just me.

In conclusion I would hope that anyone interested read some of the books listed and not rely on opinions expressed on here. I picked the lowest casualty figure I came across which is Sergeant. Ryan and Rickards both suggest higher figures but I've generally gone with Sergeant when there are disagreements - for example I thought his report of 'just say we don't surrender' to be far more likely than 'we will surrender when they have killed every last one of us'