Bridegrooms of Death

The Spanish Foreign Legion was famously said to be "Ninety percent Spanish, ninety percent of the time".  It was conceived as fierce fighting shock troops and found infamy during the Rif war. They were used to oppose and terrorize the Berber tribes.  This extended to brutal treatment of civilians and the razing of villages to the ground.  They forced the Berbers to surrender and during the Spanish Civil War brought these horrific techniques to the mainland.  In a war that is full of atrocity tales on both sides you will find the Foreign Legion feature heavily.

Which brings us to this charming chap:

 
This is Jose Millan Astray, the head of the Foreign Legion and the man responsible for making the Legion the cult of death that it became.  He popularized the Legion's battle cry of Viva La Muerta (Long Live Death).

This one armed, one eyed, Bond villain was appointed Chief Minister for Propaganda and Press.  This is the guy who encouraged his subordinates to threaten journalists covering the war and writing ideas they didn't agree, with the firing squad. This is the guy who, when being beaten in an argument with the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, screamed "Death to Intellectuals!" in his face and had his goons drag him away for house arrest.

These subordinates included, the frankly crazy, Captain Gonzalo de Aguilera.  He shot laborers on his estate to stop them "getting ideas" above their station, blamed modern sewage systems for promising the working class some standard of living beyond that of a slave and "giving them ideas" above their station and advocating the killing of the  nation's shoe-shines as they were bound to be Communists (I would assume that being a Communist would "give them ideas" above the station of a shoe-shine.)

In AWA the Foreign Legion have great Initiative and Morale.  A Foreign Legion battalion consists of three ten man squads.  I tend to base the majority of squads of two model per base with the occasional single base.  This is to allow the removal of causalities.

¡No pasarán!