Word: sidi
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...thick khaki uniforms and broad blue sashes, 508 men of the French Foreign Legion marched in full equipment to the railway yards at Sidi-bel-Abbes, Legion headquarters in Algeria, and entrained for French Morocco. Just what they were going to do when they got to Morocco only a few of the officers knew, but France does not spare her mercenaries. The Legionaries were ready to see action and face Death at the end of their trip...
...fighting Senussites in Libya, Frenchmen fighting Tuaregs in Algeria, Spaniards fighting Riffi in Morocco, to remember that North Africa is populated by four races ("white" Berbers, Arab conquerors, native Jews, Negroes) which include innumerable tribes and sects. Italy's troublesome Senussites are a rambunctious Arab sect founded by Sidi Mohammed ben Ali ben Es Senussi el Khettabi el Hassani el Idrissi el Mehajiri, who was born in Algeria with an urge to militant reform. He ordered his two sons to jump off a palm tree to decide which should succeed...
...Senussites are a Moslem sect founded in 1835 with the establishment of a monastery at Abu Kobeis near Mecca by the revered Sidi Mohammed ben Ali ben Es Senussi el Khettabi el Hassani el Idrissi el Mehajiri. Ever since Italy captured Tripoli (now known as Italian Libya, divided into the districts of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica) from the Turks in 1911 the Senussites have stubbornly resisted Italian penetration of the interior. One by one other Senussi chieftains have been forced to surrender, but Omar el Muktar always held...
Hours later when the heat, the dust, the drums and the waiting had worked up the crowd beyond restlessness, dervishes from the Sidi-Mohammed-Ben-Aissa tribe appeared and the great procession to the sanctuary of Moulai Ismail got under way. French soldiers were on duty to prevent anti-French rioting or manslaughter. Otherwise their orders were not to interfere in any religious ceremony...
...Algeria, in Sidi-bel-Abbes, hot and dusty citadel of the Legion, there was an ordinary dress parade, no more. Short and stocky Colonel Rollett, his red whiskers now streaked with grey, read the Legion roll of honor. The band blared "La Marseillaise," then rollicking war songs, the slightly sinister airs of the only military force in the civilized world today which, when it captures a town, has officially the right to loot, the Legion's cherished Droit de Pillage...