The Legion of Frontiersmen is a voluntary organisation founded in Britain "for fellowship and for service to the State at any time of need".

It was initially formed in 1904 for the purpose of providing irregular mounted scouts for the British Army, but in 1906 the Legion almost became the official Branch of British Military Intelligence but lost out to MI5/MI6.

All Legion members were volunteers. Prior to the First World War, they undertook many covert intelligence-gathering & counter-intelligence operations; such as discovering a new secret German base in the Caroline Islands, surveying the Kiel Canal with the object of blowing it up in the event of war, and charting the Elbe defences and minefields. The first British troops in action in 1914 were Frontiersmen who paid their own way over for both them and their horses.Initially offering themselves to the French who declined they were accepted to the Belgians who to this day retain an official affiliation with the 3rd Belgian Lancers.In Canada the Frontiersmen made up reportedly 1/2 of the original draft PPCLI the first Cdn troops to serve in ww1.

Until recently, the Legion's many covert missions on the borders of the British Empire were shrouded in myth & legend - historians are only now beginning to discover the facts.

Further reading

Geoffrey A. Pocock. One Hundred Years of the Legion of Frontiersmen. (Phillimore, 2004)

External links

Frontiersmen Historian