Memoirs of the Foreign Legion

1925. Lawrence turned his introduction to Memoirs of the Foreign Legion into the essay the Memoir of Maurice Magnus, which recounts Lawrence's short, tangled relationship with this obscure writer. The essay touched off a literary controversy between Lawrence and Norman Douglas, who felt Lawrence's account was inaccurate and mean-spirited.

Maurice Magnus (7 November 1876 – 4 November 1920) was an American traveller and author of Memoirs of the Foreign Legion, which exposed the cruelty and depravity of life in that French army unit in 1916–17. AS Magnus describes it at that time, a significant number of the men were fugitives from the law, living under assumed names, with their actual identities closely protected by the Legion.

Since 1831, when the Legion was formed by King Louis-Philippe, more than 35,000 legionnaires have died in battle, often anonymously, and more often in vain.

The Legion was created primarily to gather up some of the foreign deserters and criminals who had drifted to France in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. It was discovered that these men, who were said to threaten civil society, could be induced to become professional soldiers at minimal cost, then exiled to North Africa to help with the conquest of Algeria.

1925. Lawrence turned his introduction to Memoirs of the Foreign Legion into the essay the Memoir of Maurice Magnus, which recounts Lawrence's short, tangled relationship with this obscure writer. The essay touched off a literary controversy between Lawrence and Norman Douglas, who felt Lawrence's account was inaccurate and mean-spirited.