The Battle of Camerone (Mexico, 1863) is a founding episode in the Foreign Legion, which celebrates this "fort Alamo" French version every year. In 1862, France came to the aid of Emperor Maximilian, whom it imposed on the throne of Mexico. On April 30, 1863, a detachment of about sixty legionnaires distinguished themselves at Camerone by standing up to 2,000 Mexicans. This minor event in history in the context of the Mexican expedition launched by Napoleon III allows us to understand how it was essentialized by the Legion to the point of becoming the keystone of its tradition.
Cameron's context
Since its independence, Mexico has been a weakened country both territorially (cession to the United States of California, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, part of Wyoming…), politically (strong political dissensions between conservatives and liberals) and above all economically. In 1858, under the presidency of the anticlerical Benito Juarez, a rebellion led by conservative generals shook the country. In 1861, President Juarez ended up repelling the rebels, but the conflict dealt a fatal blow to the economy of the country which, despite the nationalization of Church property, found itself in the flagrant impossibility of reimbursing its European creditors... Juarez decided then to suspend for two years the payment of the debt he contracted with Spain (9 million pesos), France (3 million) and especially the United Kingdom (70 million).
For Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, there was an opportunity to seize. A military intervention would make it possible to replace a weak republic, prey to civil war and poor payer, by a Catholic empire allied with France. A good way for France to extend its informal empire and its “soft power” to the New World. The opportunity was all the more beautiful since the United States itself in the midst of a civil war was unable to intervene in its Mexican neighbor.
The international operation against Mexico
It is therefore a coalition that intervenes against the Mexican republic:the Spaniards who were already in Cuba sent against their former colony General Joan Prim with 6,300 men, the British sent their centerpiece, the navy, commanded by Admiral Dunlop, as for France, it deployed the largest contingent. On December 17, 1861, the Spaniards landed, followed on January 8, 1862 by the French under Admiral Jurien de La Gravière. In Veracruz the French expected a jubilant crowd, favorable to the return of the monarchy, which would have provided them with many auxiliaries. However, this is not the case... They only rally the modest, ragged troop of General Galvez (about 200 men).
Worse, the health situation is rapidly deteriorating in this region known as the "Hot Lands" where yellow fever, vomito negro. Faced with this precarious situation, and the desire of the Mexican Republic to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, an agreement was signed in La Soledad. This convention allows the allies to advance a little further into the lands, more spared from yellow fever, the time to find an agreement on the debt. The allies sign the convention although Jurien de La Gravière does not appreciate this implicit way of recognizing the Mexican government.
Pressed to leave this inhospitable region, the Spaniards and the British quickly conclude a new financial agreement (which will not be more respected than the previous ones…) and withdraw their troops. On the French side, on the other hand, Jurien de La Gravière was disavowed, General Latrille de Lorencez took command of the troops and France entered a phase of conquest alone. Claiming mistreatment of French residents in Mexico City, the French Empire declared "war on an iniquitous government, which had committed unheard-of outrages".
The Beginnings of the Mexican Expedition:The Siege of Puebla
The French expeditionary force, with less than 7,000 men, 10 guns (small pieces of 4 moreover), little food and no reserve was therefore going to embark on a risky conquest of Mexico. From April 27, Lorencez marched on the city of Puebla de Los Angeles, which had been presented to him as devoted to the monarchists and ready to open its doors to him. But on May 4 he finds himself facing a city fortified and defended by 12,000 Mexicans! Outnumbered, still receiving virtually no support from the hoped-for popular uprising, Lorencez nevertheless attempted an assault that went wrong.
Fully aware of his lack of military means to carry out any conquest, Lorencez retreated (the so-called Six Mile Retreat) to Orizaba where he entrenched while waiting for reinforcements from France. Lorencez's reports describe well the absence of any monarchical party favorable to France, and as if this defection were not enough Maximillian himself did not seem very involved in the future of his hypothetical future kingdom. But for the Emperor it was not possible to withdraw so quickly after a failure, so he sent reinforcements:during the summer about 23,000 men landed under the orders of General Elie-Frédéric Forey who reestablished contact with General Lorencez, removed from office.
For Napoleon III the situation has become more complex, now his project would rather be to overthrow the republic of Juarez, and to establish a stable government while waiting for the organization of a popular consultation which would determine the political future of the country (which is hardly possible in this country devoid of administrative organization). Whether all this ends with the coming to power of an Austrian or a Mexican, it does not matter in the end to France as long as the latter is a faithful ally in the future.
The Battle of Camerone
During the Siege of Puebla, the line of communication with Veracruz is paramount. This is where food and ammunition arrive, it is a vital axis for the French army. So of course it is a prime target for the Mexican guerrillas who continually harass the French troops in the area. To secure the area, the French deployed the 400 men of the Egyptian Negro Battalion (provided by the Viceroy of Egypt), the counter-guerrilla troops of General Dupin and the four battalions of the Foreign Regiment. It is in this context that the 3rd company of the 1st battalion of this regiment was exterminated in the village of Camaron (now Camerone) after a heroic resistance. The details of the fighting that took place in the hacienda are known to us only from the accounts of survivors. From these testimonies was written the official and epic account of the battle read to the legionnaires every April 30:
“The French army was besieging Puebla. The Legion's mission was to ensure, over one hundred and twenty kilometres, the circulation and safety of the convoys. Colonel Jeanningros, who was in command, learned on April 29, 1863, that a large convoy carrying three million in cash, siege equipment and ammunition was on its way to Puebla. Captain Danjou, his adjutant, decides to send a company ahead of the convoy. The 3rd Company of the Foreign Regiment was designated, but it had no officer available. Captain Danjou took command himself and second lieutenants Maudet, standard bearer, and Vilain, paymaster, joined him voluntarily.
On April 30, at 1 a.m., the 3rd company, three officers and sixty-two men strong, set out. She had traveled about twenty kilometers when, at 7 a.m., she stopped at Palo Verde to make coffee. At this moment, the enemy reveals himself and the fight begins immediately. Captain Danjou had the square formed and, while retreating, victoriously repelled several cavalry charges, inflicting the first severe losses on the enemy.
When he reached the Auberge de Camerone, a vast building with a courtyard surrounded by a wall three meters high, he decided to take refuge there. , to fix the enemy, and thus delay as much as possible the moment when this one can attack the convoy.
While the men hastily organize the defense of this inn, a Mexican officer, claiming the vast superiority of numbers, summons Captain Danjou to surrender. This one makes answer:“We have cartridges and will not surrender”. Then, raising his hand, he swore to defend himself to the death and made his men take the same oath. It was 10 o'clock. Until 6 o'clock in the evening, these sixty men, who had not eaten or drunk since the day before, despite the extreme heat, hunger and thirst, resisted 2,000 Mexicans:eight hundred horsemen, one thousand two hundred infantrymen. .
At noon, Captain Danjou was shot in the chest. At 2 a.m., Second Lieutenant Vilain fell, hit by a bullet in the forehead. At this moment, the Mexican colonel manages to set fire to the inn.
Despite the heat and smoke which increased their suffering, the legionnaires held on, but many of them were struck down. At 5 o'clock, around Second Lieutenant Maudet, only twelve men remained in a fit state to fight. At this moment, the Mexican colonel gathers his men and tells them what shame they will cover themselves if they do not succeed in bringing down this handful of brave men (a legionnaire who understands Spanish translates his words as he goes) . The Mexicans are going to make a general assault through the breaches they have managed to open, but beforehand, Colonel Milan still sends a summons to Second Lieutenant Maudet; he rejects her with contempt.
The final assault is given. Soon there are only five men left around Maudet:Corporal Maine, the legionnaires Catteau,
"We will surrender if you promise to relieve and care for our wounded and if you leave us our weapons." Their bayonets remain menacing.
“We refuse nothing to men like you! the officer replies.
Captain Danjou's sixty men have kept their oath to the end. For 11 hours they withstood two thousand enemies, killed three hundred and wounded as many. They have by their sacrifice, by saving the convoy, fulfilled the mission entrusted to them.
Emperor Napoleon III decided that the name of Camerone would be inscribed on the flag of the Foreign Regiment and that, in addition, the names of Danjou, Vilain and Maudet would be engraved in gold letters on the walls of the Invalides in Paris.
In addition, a monument was erected in 1892 on the location of the fight. It bears the inscription:
“There were less than sixty here
opposed to an entire army,
his mace crushed them.
Life over courage
abandoned those French soldiers
April 30, 1863.
in their memory, the motherland erected this monument”
Since then, when Mexican troops pass the monument, they present arms. »
However, the official account says nothing about the sequence of events that allowed the survivors to tell their story. In fact, Captain Saussier's company, which arrived on the scene the next day, found no interlocutor except the drummer Laï, who had been left for dead with nine bullet and lance wounds. General Dupin's counter-guerrilla troops attacked the village of Cueva Pentada on June 13, where they freed one of Cameron's survivors:Legionnaire de Vries. On June 28, they took the village of Huatusco, defended by guerrillas who had taken part in Camerone:they discovered the tomb of Second Lieutenant Maudet, whom two Mexican officers had in vain entrusted to the good care of their sister. Finally, on July 14, 1863, twelve surviving prisoners were exchanged for Mexican Colonel Alba. Thus, 14 legionnaires survived the battle. Most of them received promotions and decorations.
Camerone, founding myth of the foreign legion
On the scale of the history of France, and even on the scale of the Mexican expedition, the battle of Camerone is only a very small event, a skirmish which involves only about sixty French soldiers. . Nevertheless, this French battle of Thermopylae is completely mystified, glorified, in such a way that it hides in collective representations the final failure that was the Mexican expedition. But then why this craze for Camerone? Each army corps needs its traditions, these "founding myths" in a way, significant events where the elders are given as an example, and the Foreign Legion which is then very young (it was only formed in 1831) should not be outdone. A few months after the event, Colonel Jeanningros obtained authorization from the Emperor to have the name "Camare" embroidered on the flag of his regiment (today included on all the flags of the Legion). Napoleon III also had the names “Camerone, Danjou, Maudet, Vilain inscribed. on the walls of the Invalides. On May 3, 1863 Colonel Jeanningros had a wooden cross erected on the site of the battle with the inscription "Here lies the 3rd company of the 1st battalion of the Foreign Legion », this cross is then replaced by a solid column. In 1892, the French consul Edouard Sempé erected a monument by subscription. The monument was redone and inaugurated in 1965. 
Camerone is therefore effectively a concrete historical event in which a handful of legionnaires distinguished themselves, but through commemoration the event is essentialized to draw the spirit from it. What is called "Cameron's spirit", and which must permeate every legionnaire, is this ability to obey and to fight to the death (since almost the entire workforce was annihilated) for the success of the mission (the Mexicans were delayed and the convoy saved). In other words, a real self-sacrifice and a sacred sense of duty.
The sacred aspect is hardly exaggerated since in the case of Camerone there is the recovery of what could be considered a relic:the hand of Captain Danjou's wood. This prosthesis had been sought in vain by the relief column, it would have been carried away by a Mexican guerrilla before arriving in the hands of a French rancher near Tesuitlan where the Austrian lieutenant Karl Grübert would have bought it. According to other sources, she was found during the arrest of General Ramirez. Colonel Guilhem deposited it in Sidi Bel Abbes (mother house of the Legion) in 1865. Today it is in the crypt of the Legion Remembrance Museum in Aubagne and only comes out for commemorations of the battle. Danjou's hand finally has all the attributes of a religious relic:a debated origin, a sacred place in a high place and a regular exhibition for a big party.
Since 1906, the official story presented above has been read to the legionnaires every April 30 so that the example of these sixty men of the Second Empire can be taught. As for the expression "to do Camerone" it emerged from the ranks of the Legion to spread throughout society as a synonym of "fight to the ultimate sacrifice".
To go further
- Camerone, April 30, 1863:The founding battle of the foreign legion, by André-Paul Comor. Tallandier, 2012.
- Camerone - The heroic campaign of the Foreign Legion in Mexico in 1863, by Pierre Sergent. Fayard, 1980.