Several years ago I was in the position to buy 5 documents that had belonged to a former French Foreign Legionair who originated from Russia.
His name was Nicolas TOUNGOUSKOV, born 6 December 1887 in Vaika, Russia.
Even when taken into account the documents being more than 100 year old, they appeared more battered than usual. Almost as if they had been neglected.
My attention was drew to these documents again when in Februari 2021, I was reconstructing the history of a legionnaire of Dutch origin called Reginald Pierre van Biene. Through naturalization he got the French citizenship. I found the announcement via the great French website Gallica. I noticed that several other soldiers of the French Foreign Legion had applied for the French citizenship at around the same time.
Reginald Pierre van Biene was listed as number 24 and to my ammazement I saw, only two lines up, a familiar name that of Nicolas Toungouskov.
Part of his documents was this Diplome of his Citation à l’Ordre de la Division.
The Motif de la Citation is as follows:
“legionnaire d’une bravoure allant jusqu’a la témérité, toujours volontaire pour les missions périlleuses a ete grièvement blesse le 22 février 1918 au cours d une patrouille”
Signe 12 mars 1918, colonel Metz commandant le depot du Regiment de Marche de la Legion Etrangere