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Review
'Exemplary...we get both the grim reality and the heart-pounding drama...a very exciting read.' (Tim Newark FINANCIAL TIMES )
'A detailed and fascinating trawl through the real history of this most romanticised of fighting forces.' (CATHOLIC HERALD )
'Proves that the reality which inspired the myths is every bit as captivating.' (SUNDAY BUSINESS POST )
'Brings a lost world alive ... a vivid and welcome piece of history writing' (HISTORY TODAY )
'A detailed and fascinating trawl through the real history of this most romanticised of fighting forces.' (CATHOLIC HERALD )
'Proves that the reality which inspired the myths is every bit as captivating.' (SUNDAY BUSINESS POST )
'Brings a lost world alive ... a vivid and welcome piece of history writing' (HISTORY TODAY )
Book Description
The gripping true story of the French Foreign Legion in the Sahara.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Martin Windrow's latest opus, following on from his deserved success with the epic 'The Last Valley', which covered the battle of Dien Bien Phu, is a stunning history of the French Foreign Legion in France's colonial wars between 1870 and 1935. This is classic Beau Geste territory and the book is an excellent combination of solid historical research, judicious analysis and a really fine narrative style. From the prologue, which sees the Foreign Legion in action in the battle for Paris in 1871 against the communards, through the familiar territory of North Africa to some rather less well known, but possibly even more remarkable campaigns in French Indo-China, with excursions into Dahomey and Madagascar, this book does a remarkable job of not only capturing the essence of colonial warfare, but also getting behind the legend of the Legion and seeing exactly how this remarkable fighting force was raised, trained, officered and deployed.
Particular points that caught my attention was the good use made of legionnaires memoirs, including those of two Englishmen, Frederic Martyn and Adolphe Cooper (enough material here for any number of Richard Sharpes) and the excellent maps, which as another reviewer has commented are particularly helpful. This is a model of how military history should be written and I greatly look forward to Mr Windrow's next book.
Particular points that caught my attention was the good use made of legionnaires memoirs, including those of two Englishmen, Frederic Martyn and Adolphe Cooper (enough material here for any number of Richard Sharpes) and the excellent maps, which as another reviewer has commented are particularly helpful. This is a model of how military history should be written and I greatly look forward to Mr Windrow's next book.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is 'proper' military history at its best.
Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The Foreigh Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935 starts in a place you wouldn't expect but the action soon shifts to the hot deserts of Algeria, before moving onto Vietnam, Benin, Madagascar, Morocco, The Western Front and back to Morocco again. This is the Legion of Beau Geste and (ahem) Jean-Claude van Damme's Legionnaire but the truth is much more interesting than the fiction.
Windrow writes succinctly, vividly and with authority on both the political and social background to the Legion and its campaigns and the military actions that took place. As you might expect he is at his very best on the battles and the soldiers that took part in them. Camerone (which precedes the events in this book) would not be the last time elements of the Legion were trapped and surrounded by numerically superior forces and forced to fight it out in vicious firefights like the siege of Tuyen Quang in 1885.
The maps are excellent which you might expect from Windrow but which is unusual for a book of this type. The photos brilliantly capture the men of the Legion and their battlefields in which they fought on, although it is a shame there are no colour photos of the ground the author walked when researching it.
Altogether definitely worth it for anyone interested in the French Foreign Legion or looking for fresh outlook on the colonial experience which is not centred on the British Empire.
Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The Foreigh Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935 starts in a place you wouldn't expect but the action soon shifts to the hot deserts of Algeria, before moving onto Vietnam, Benin, Madagascar, Morocco, The Western Front and back to Morocco again. This is the Legion of Beau Geste and (ahem) Jean-Claude van Damme's Legionnaire but the truth is much more interesting than the fiction.
Windrow writes succinctly, vividly and with authority on both the political and social background to the Legion and its campaigns and the military actions that took place. As you might expect he is at his very best on the battles and the soldiers that took part in them. Camerone (which precedes the events in this book) would not be the last time elements of the Legion were trapped and surrounded by numerically superior forces and forced to fight it out in vicious firefights like the siege of Tuyen Quang in 1885.
The maps are excellent which you might expect from Windrow but which is unusual for a book of this type. The photos brilliantly capture the men of the Legion and their battlefields in which they fought on, although it is a shame there are no colour photos of the ground the author walked when researching it.
Altogether definitely worth it for anyone interested in the French Foreign Legion or looking for fresh outlook on the colonial experience which is not centred on the British Empire.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A Hundred Feet Over Hell: Flying with the Men of the 220th Recon Airplane Company Over I Corps and the Dmz, 1968-1969
Those who have read Martin Windrow's "The Last Valley" will not be surprised by the painstaking research and commitment to accuracy apparent in "Our Friends Beneath the Sands". Windrow, whose 40-odd years as a military editor for various publishing houses and numerous periodicals has not been wasted, writes with the authority of a man who knows, and is passionate about, his subject. He has drawn not only on his already considerable knowledge of the French Foreign Legion, but on memoirs of men who took part in the various North African campaigns. These long-out-of-print tracts, some going back a hundred years or more and heretofore available only in French, add an immediacy to the book that will not be found in any other English language history of the Legion. It is a work that appeals as much to academics with an eye for historical detail as to romantics taken by heroic deeds a la Beau Geste. But "Our Friends Beneath the Sands" is not a book limited to the period it describes. The shifting rivalries and alliances of the North African tribes that the French commanders - in particular Marshall Hubert Lyautey - so effectively manipulated and bent to their own purpose, have a particular relevance to today's wars. Challenges that were met and won by the Legionnaires between 1870 and 1935 had to relearned in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first decade of the 21st century. No serious military historian's library is complete without a copy of Windrow's latest tour de force.
Those who have read Martin Windrow's "The Last Valley" will not be surprised by the painstaking research and commitment to accuracy apparent in "Our Friends Beneath the Sands". Windrow, whose 40-odd years as a military editor for various publishing houses and numerous periodicals has not been wasted, writes with the authority of a man who knows, and is passionate about, his subject. He has drawn not only on his already considerable knowledge of the French Foreign Legion, but on memoirs of men who took part in the various North African campaigns. These long-out-of-print tracts, some going back a hundred years or more and heretofore available only in French, add an immediacy to the book that will not be found in any other English language history of the Legion. It is a work that appeals as much to academics with an eye for historical detail as to romantics taken by heroic deeds a la Beau Geste. But "Our Friends Beneath the Sands" is not a book limited to the period it describes. The shifting rivalries and alliances of the North African tribes that the French commanders - in particular Marshall Hubert Lyautey - so effectively manipulated and bent to their own purpose, have a particular relevance to today's wars. Challenges that were met and won by the Legionnaires between 1870 and 1935 had to relearned in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first decade of the 21st century. No serious military historian's library is complete without a copy of Windrow's latest tour de force.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A hymn to the legion !
Excellent account ! I agree with all the 5-star reviewers.
Just a minor remark: The book abounds with resourceful notes, but these are placed in the last pages. Read more
Just a minor remark: The book abounds with resourceful notes, but these are placed in the last pages. Read more
Published 6 months ago by DIM G. STAVROULAKIS
Our freinds beneath the sands
Ver well written, accurate well researched and puts the legion in a political context. The war against the Rif Kabyles is a little elaborated, though.
Published 7 months ago by anderssonx
Highly recommended
A very readable account of the Legion and the quality and originality of the 20s and 30s Berber battles is spot on. Read more
Published 11 months ago by anicoll5
the Foreign Legion
I was very pleased woth Amazon UK's service. The book got to me very quickly by post. The book looks great, has maps of the terrain at various times in the history of the Legion... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Patrizia
Atmospheric
The author's combination of detail and descriptive writing is outstanding and transports readers back to an age which though comparitively recent, was completely different to the... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Mike France
Beau Geste revealed....
Every few years a book comes along that can truly be called a 'classic'. Martin Windrow's The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French defeat in Vietnam (Cassell Military... Read more
Published on 27 May 2010 by Wklynch
Five stars are not enough for this outstanding report!
Good books about the French Foreign Legions history are very rare, especially those covering the years between 1870 and the 1930's. This on is secend to none. Read more
Published on 25 May 2010 by Volker Roger Rogalski
MalcolmC
I thought Martin Windrow's The Last Valley was excellent, up with Bernard Fall and so was very keen to read this book.
I was not disappointed. Read more
I was not disappointed. Read more
Published on 5 May 2010 by Malcolm
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