Battle of Camarón Defined The Devilish Bravery Of French Legionnaires

During the spring of 1863, Camarón is nown as a dreary village in eastern Mexico on the fever-haunted road connecting Veracruz and the French fleet there with Puebla, on the Mexican plateau.

At Puebla lay the French Army, still trying to win an empire for Napoleon III and his Habsburg puppet, Maximilian, younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph. The French intervention had begun as an attempt to recover interest payments on large loans from several European nations on which the Mexican government had defaulted.

Foreign troops had occupied several Mexican ports, promising President Benito Juarez that they would keep out of Mexican political affairs. All but the French soon saw the futility of the effort and went home. But the French, hungering for empire and determined to put the Austrian prince on the throne of a faraway country in name of French banks, held out.

Napoleon III was a pale imitation of his formidable namesake. He saw the Mexican default as a chance for both military glory and a renewed French foothold in the new world. It was a harebrained notion, and both Franz Josef and the British government advised against the adventure.

Besides the difficulty of campaigning in Mexico, it was clear to the unbiased observer that the United States would never tolerate a European power ruling part of the Western Hemisphere. The American Civil War would be over in time, and two of the finest armies in the world—the Union and Confederate Armies facing each other in the field—were both American.

One night at the end of April 1863, an Indian spy brought word to Legion Colonel Pierre Jeanningros that the next supply convoy would be attacked by powerful Mexican forces, including regular troops. The convoy was a large one—60 carts and 150 mules—and it was critical, carrying not only food and ammunition but also four million francs in gold and badly needed artillery. The convoy would need help along the road, and that help could come only from the Legion.

Jeanningros had few troops of his own to send. In addition to the convoy’s small escort, he could spare only a single company, the 3rd Company of the Legion’s 2nd Battalion, already down to half strength. But the colonel could send the experienced Jean Danjou as its commander. The captain would have two other officers to help him, both second lieutenants. One, Napoleon Vilain, was a boyish ex-enlisted man; the other, Clement Maudet, was an old sweat who had risen through the ranks to sergeant-major before winning his commission.

Shortly after daylight, at a halt to refill its canteens with water and make a little coffee, the company saw its first Mexican cavalry. Danjou reacted instantly, falling back toward Camarón to cover the all-important road. He was fired on from a dilapidated hacienda in the village, a place called Hacienda La Trindad, and a legionnaire was wounded.

And then Danjou saw hundreds of Mexican cavalrymen. The company formed a hollow square, and its disciplined volley firing twice broke Mexican charges, littering the ground with fallen horsemen. Danjou knew that he must find cover—the enemy was far too strong to take on in the open. He ordered a retreat into Camarón.

Danjou’s men began to take casualties early from the heavy Mexican fire. They returned it, firing carefully and choosing their targets. Not only is fine fire-discipline a Legion tradition, but the Legion pack-mules had bolted at the first Mexican charge, taking with them the reserve ammunition. Danjou’s men had only the 60 cartridges each carried in his pouch.

To make matters worse, the legionnaires were also low on water, most of which had vanished with the frightened mules. None was available in the building they were to hold. The company had to endure the horrors of thirst in the oven-like enclosure. It was especially horrible for the wounded. Before the day was over, they would be reduced to licking the blood from their own wounds for moisture. At 9:30 A.M., the Mexican commander sent in a flag of truce and offered the legionnaires the chance to surrender. Danjou scornfully refused.

To each man Danjou gave a sip of the raw pinard, and required each soldier to swear an oath to die rather than surrender. Each man swore, and before the end of the hellish broiling day, each man would keep faith with this strange communion. "Legionnaires die better than any men in the world," Danjou said with a certain proud fatalism.

A little while before noon, Danjou kept his own rendezvous with destiny. He was running from one building to check a detachment behind a barricade when a sniper’s bullet hit him in the chest. He lived only moments. Young Lieutenant Vilain got to him; Danjou tried to speak but could not. Then he was still. Vilain took command of the 40 remaining men and fought on, declining another chance to surrender with the typical Legion oath: "Merde!"

Vilain was also killed as he, too, crossed the open area to check on his men. Maudet, the ex-sergeant-major, took command of the pitiful little band that remained. Nearly everyone was wounded by now, and the barrels of the long Le Gras rifles were far too hot to touch.

At last, nearly all the blue-coated soldiers lay still in the dirt. Only five remained standing—the hard-eyed Maudet, husky Corporal Maine, and three privates. They were down to one last cartridge apiece, and Maudet looked around at the remnants of his little command. He gave his last orders, and his men nodded. They fired a last volley together and then they followed him with their bayonets into thousands of howling mob of Mexicans drawing ever closer.

As they charged into the blazing sun, a blast of Mexican fire stopped the legionnaires in their tracks. A Belgian legionnaire named Catteau stepped in front of his officer and took 19 bullets intended for Maudet. Even so, Maudet went down too, along with one of the privates. Their ammunition was entirely gone, but their luck held.

The mass of Mexicans was halted by their officer, a French-born colonel named Combas, who blocked his men’s bayonets with his sword blade and called on the legionnaires in French to surrender. Maine, the ranking officer, agreed, "if we keep our arms and you care for our officer."

Combas answered, "One refuses nothing to such men as you." His superior, Colonel Francisco de Paula Milan, wanted to know where the others were. "There are no more," said Combras. "Pero, no son hombres, son demonios," said Milan. "Then these are not men, but devils."

Thus ended the stand at Camarón, 11 hours in the blazing sun, during which the legionnaires had fired almost 4,000 rounds and left at least 300 of their enemy dead or wounded around them. In return, 39 legionnaires lay dead in the hacienda. The terrible heat and wounds would kill most of the rest, including Maudet, despite Mexican attempts to save them. The few survivors passed into captivity and were later exchanged for Mexican prisoners. The convoy would go through untouched.

The relief column, which arrived at Camarón much too late to rescue any of Danjou’s legionnaires, buried their dead comrades in a common grave. Danjou’s wooden hand was picked up by a local rancher, who kept the thing as a sort of souvenir for a couple of years before selling it back to General Achille Bazaine, the French commander in Mexico, himself a one-time Legion officer.