French Foreign Legion 1872–1914

This volume covers the classic 'Beau Geste' period, of the French Foreign Legion when the corps was expanded during the most dynamic years of French imperial expansion. Legion battalions fought in the deserts and mountains of southern Algeria and Morocco, as well as in the jungles of North Vietnam, West Africa and Madagascar. Their varied uniforms and equipments for each period and theatre are illustrated and examined. Written by a leading expert on the French Foreign Legion, this is a colourful introduction to the period when the Legion forged their legendary fighting reputation.

Martin Windrow was born in 1944 and educated at Wellington College. Since the 1970s he has worked in book publishing as a commissioning and art editor specializing in military and aviation history. He is a series editor at Osprey and an authority on the French Foreign Legion. He is the author of the highly successful Men-at-Arms 300: French Foreign Legion since 1945 and Men-at-Arms 322: The French War in Indochina 1946-54. He is an Associate of the Royal Historical Society and of the Foreign Legion Association of Great Britain. In 2004 his major study The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam was published to critical acclaim in Britain and the USA.