CAMERONE
On 29 April 1863 Colonel Jeanningros asked Captain Danjou to organize a company as escort to a major convoy leaving Vera Cruz for Puebla, Mexico. It was the 3rd Company’s duty tour, but noting that all its officers were sick Danjou proposed that he should command it. To assist him in his task he took the standard bearer, Second Lieutenant Maudet, and the paymaster, Second Lieutenant Vilain.
The column left at one o’clock in the morning on the 30th intending initially to reach Palo Verde. Meanwhile the Mexicans, having learned of the passage of the convoy, organized a force of 800 cavalry and three battalions of infantry – about 2,000 all told – to attack it.
At about five o’clock Danjou’s company stopped for a brief rest. After posting sentries the men set about making coffee, which was well under way when sentries announced approaching cavalry. In a few moments the coffee was thrown away, the mules were re-loaded and the company was moving to the outskirts of the village of Camerone, whence rang out the first shot of the battle, that of a nervous Mexican sentry. The first cavalry charge quickly followed and was as quickly broken up and repulsed by well-controlled fire and by use of the thick scrub into which Danjou had moved his force. In the hubbub the mules took fright, broke loose and disappeared with the rations, water and spare ammunition.
The sixty-five men had about sixty rounds each. Danjou decided to stand and fight, thus distracting the enemy’s attention from the valuable convoy, and rapidly moved his force to a defensive position in the nearby hacienda, where they were to hold for the next ten hours. By nine o’clock the sun was already high. The legionnaires had no water, no food. Colonel Milian, commanding the Mexicans, called on the legionnaires to surrender. They replied that they had ammunition and had no intention of surrendering.
The legionnaires promised Danjou that, come what may, they would fight to the bitter end. He was killed at about eleven o’clock. At this moment the three battalions of Mexican infantry arrived on the scene and again the legionnaires were called upon to surrender. They replied "Merde!". The situation worsened. The Mexicans had broken into various rooms of the hacienda, killed the legionnaire occupants and set fire to the rooms. For the wounded there was intense heat, dust, smoke and no water. The battle continued. Vilain was killed just before two o’clock and Maudet took command, but by five o’clock he had only twelve men in a state to fight.
Again Milian called on the legionnaires to surrender – they did not deign to reply – and a fresh attack was launched against them. Maudet was by now alone with a corporal (Maine) and four legionnaires (Leonhard, Catteau, Wenzel and Constantin).
Their cartridge boxes were empty. They fired a final volley, left their shelter and charged the Mexicans with their bayonets – all fell before reaching them. Maudet received two bullets. Legionnaire Catteau, who had thrown himself in front of his officer to protect him, was hit nineteen times. They were the last. It was six o’clock. The battle was over.
Of the sixty-five strong company, two officers and twenty-two legionnaires were dead, one officer and eight men mortally wounded, and nineteen soon died of their wounds in captivity; twelve others, all wounded, were captured. The Mexicans had lost more than 300.
Maine, Wenzel and Constantin, although wounded, were still able to walk. When called upon to surrender they said they would not do so unless they were allowed to keep their arms and tend the wounded; Colonel Milan said, “One can refuse nothing to men like you.”
The Emperor Napoleon III had the name "Camerone 1863" inscribed on the banners of the 1st Regiment and decreed that the names of Danjou, Vilain and Maudet would be engraved in golden letters on the walls of Les Invalides in Paris.
In 1892 on the site of the battle a monument was raised on which is inscribed:
Ils furent ici moins de soixante
Opposés à toute un armée
Sa masse les écrasa
La vie plutôt que le courage
Abandonna ces soldats français
Le 30 Avril 1863
A leur mémoire la Patrie éleva ce monument
They were here less than sixty
Opposed to all of an army
Its mass crushed them
But life rather than courage
Abandoned these French soldiers
30 April 1863
To their memory the nation built this monument
Mexican soldiers pass by the monument at Present Arms.
Each year on April 30th every unit of the French Foreign Legion celebrates the anniversary of Camerone. At Legion headquarters in Aubagne, Captain Danjou’s wooden false hand, recovered from the battleground, is paraded in a grand ceremony.
Should a Legionnaire find himself in prison during Camerone a Legion tradition may come into force: he may be granted amnesty if there are fewer than ten days remaining in his sentence on Camerone Day.
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