The Royal British Legion

The Royal British Legion (RBL), sometimes referred to as the The British Legion or The Legion, is a British charity providing financial, social and emotional support to members and veterans of the British Armed Forces, their families and dependants.

Membership

Service in the military is no longer a requirement of Legion membership. The Legion has an official membership magazine, Legion, which is free to all Legion members as part of their annual subscription.

History

The British Legion was founded in 1921 as a voice for the ex-service community as a merger of four organisations: the Comrades of the Great War, the National Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers, the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers and the Officers' Association. It was granted a Royal Charter on 29 May 1971 to mark its fiftieth anniversary which gives the Legion the privilege of the prefix 'Royal'.

Earl Haig, British commander at the Battle of the Somme and Passchendaele was one of the founders of the Legion and the President until his death.

British Legion (disambiguation)

British Legion could refer to:

British Legions

The British Legion or British Legions were foreign volunteer units that fought under Simón Bolívar against Spain for the independence of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru. Venezuelans generally called them the Albion Legion. They were composed of over seven thousand volunteers, mainly Napoleonic War veterans from Great Britain and Ireland, as well as some German veterans and some locals recruited after arriving in South America. Volunteers in the British Legion were motivated by a combination of both genuine political motives and mercenary motives.

Their greatest achievements were at Boyacá (1819), Carabobo (1821), and Pichincha (1822), which secured independence for Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. They also took part of the last major campaign of the Independence wars, culminating in the Battle of Ayacucho in Peru (1824), which marked the end of the Spanish rule in South America. The British Legions fought until the end of the wars, their number much depleted.

Background