Those are the French Foreign Legion Sapeurs:
Then marching to a different drum, a much slower one, came the Sapper Unit (Les Sapeurs) of the French Foreign Legion.
They were wearing harem pants, butchers aprons in leather, leather gloves, carrying axes on their shoulders instead of guns and sporting vast quantities of facial hair.
They were obviously extremely popular as , despite the driving rain, the got the best cheer of all.
Who were they and what did they do and where did they get the name from?
From Wikipedia :
A sapper or combat engineer is an individual soldier who performs a variety of combat engineering duties. Such tasks typically include bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, demolitions, field defences, and building, road and airfield construction and repair. He is also trained to serve as an infantryman when needed. A modern sapper's tasks involve facilitating movement and logistics of allied forces and impeding that of enemies.
A sapper, in the sense first used by the Assyrian Army in the early 7th Century BC, was one who excavated trenches under defensive fire to advance a besieging army's position in relation to the works of an attacked fortification, which was referred to as sapping the enemy fortifications. Sappers were excavated by brigades of trained sappers or instructed troops.
It is interesting to note that despite their not any longer building trenches the modern Fireman in France is called a Sapeur Pompier or a Pumping Sapper
