The French Foreign Legion 1872 to 1914

I recently acquired the Osprey Men at Arms title above (number 461) which covers the colonial period described in Martin Windrow's 'Our Friends Beneath The Sands' and this is very much a companion volume. For completeness I will need to acquire the volume that covers 1914 to 1945 but that will be for a later date. The book follows the usual Osprey format and the one thing that has really intrigued me is the role of the Legion in the Sino-French war. I was hugely inspired by the pictures of French gunboats (including some paddle wheel driven vessels!) accompanied by sampans and junks etc. Much of the theatre of operations had no road network to speak of so much use was made of the rivers for transport and troop movements etc. The ships look quite 'scratchbuildable' and so this is yet another obscure project for consideration....;-)

Why, oh why do we do this?