 Though the song is set in the Sahara, Asso was likely influenced by the Battle of Camarón (1867), during the failed French attempt to prop up the regime of the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico - a major founding myth familiar to anyone who served in the Legion.At Camerone, as in Asso's song, there were only three survivors (though there, their lives were spared through their opponents' generosity).Sung to the accompaniment of martial music of drums and trumpets, "The Flag of the Legion" can be said to glorify war in general and colonial war in particular.