They recruited in principal from the Foreign Workers Companies (French: compagnie de travailleurs étrangers),[3] essentially Spaniards from the Retirada,[4] who represented 1/3 (one third) of formations, while the foreign Jews who enlisted voluntarily constituted 40% (forty percent) of formations.

Following a new combat engagement, while being heavily surrounded and tested with great force, the 21e RMVE was retrieved from the front on June 14, only to be reorganized.

From May 22 to May 26, the regiment held his sector, regaining the apprehension of villages several times over again, in Fresnes-Mazancourt, Misery, Somme and Marchélepot, and also defended the route towards Paris, south of Péronne.

These formations, composed of Spanish Republicans and Jews from Central Europe in majority, combat engaged with such a determination, that on June 5,6,7, while being completely surrounded at Villers-Carbonnel, near Péronne, and heavily bombarded by artillery and aviation, the regiment resisted during 48 hours to all the attacks.

During the unfolding, the battalions succumbed one after the other, due to the depletion of ammunition, and while the men refused to surrender, they engaged this time in close corps-a-corps combat near de Marchelepot.

Similarly to the previous world war, numerous foreign volunteers requested to serve in the ranks of the French Army.

To this effect, were created in October 1939, at camp Le Barcarès, in the Pyrénées-Orientales, the 21st and 22nd Marching Regiments of Foreign Volunteers.

The regiment illustrated capability in the sector of Buzancy, Ardennes - Le Mort-Homme on June 9 and 10 1940 then at the Grange au Bois.

The 22nd Marching Regiment of Foreign Volunteers 21e RMVE combat engaged in the region of Péronne, Somme and notably on May 24, 1940 during the apprehension of Villers-Carbonnel which they had to finally abandon following the successive repeated assaults of German tanks.