4th Hussar Regiment (France)

The 4th Hussar Regiment (4e régiment de hussards) is a hussar regiment in the French Army, raised and embodied in 1783 and still in existence.

It was created as the hussards Colonel Général on 31 July 1783 for the Duke of Chartres, by taking one squadron from each of the Bercheny, Chamborant, Conflans and Esterhazy regiments of hussars. On 30 May 1788 it was reinforced by a contingent of soldiers taken from the régiment de Quercy, régiment de Septimanie, régiment de Nassau, régiment de La Marck, régiment de Franche-Comté and régiment des Évéchés, all then cavalry units.

The hussars played a prominent role as cavalry in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). As light cavalrymen mounted on fast horses, they would be used to fight skirmish battles and for scouting. Most of the great European powers raised hussar regiments. The armies of France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia had included hussar regiments since the mid-18th century. In the case of Britain, four light dragoon regiments were converted to hussars in 1806–1807.

Hussars gained notoriety in the Grande Armée after the invasion of Egypt. At the Battle of Salalieh in August 1798, brigade commander Antoine Charles Louis de Lasalle fought "like a demon" and solidified his reputation as a maverick rider upon returning to France and receiving Weapons of Honour. At the ceremony (in a remark often mistakenly attributed to Napoleon), Lasalle quipped "Any hussar who isn't dead at age 30 is a layabout." The hussars of Napoleon's army created the tradition of sabrage, the opening of a champagne bottle with a sabre. Moustaches were universally worn by Napoleonic period hussars, the British hussars were the only moustachioed troops in the British Army — leading to occasional taunts of "foreigner" from their brothers-in-arms. French hussars also wore cadenettes, braids of hair hanging to either side of the face, until the practice was officially proscribed when shorter hair became universal.

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