Tirailleurs

A tirailleur (French: [tiʁajœʁ]), in the Napoleonic era, was a type of light infantry trained to skirmish ahead of the main columns. Subsequently tirailleurs was used by the French Army as a designation for infantry recruited in the French colonial territories during the 19th and 20th centuries, or for metropolitan units serving in a light infantry role.

The French army currently maintains one tirailleur regiment, the 1er régiment de tirailleurs. This regiment was known as the 170th infantry regiment between 1964 and 1994. Prior to 1964, it was known as the 7e régiment de tirailleurs algériens, but changed its name after being moved to France as a result of Algerian independence.

In the wars of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods the designation "tirailleur" was a French military term used at first to refer generically to light infantry skirmishers. The first regiments of Tirailleurs so-called were part of the Imperial Guard of Napoleon I. By the fall of the Empire, some 16 regiments had been created. The Guard Tirailleurs were usually grouped as part of the Young Guard, along with their sister Voltigeur regiments. The Guard Tirailleur regiments were disbanded during the reorganization of the French Army in 1814 by the new royal government. On 28 March 1815, during Napoleon I's short-lived return to power (the Hundred Days), Regiments 1-8 of the Guard Tirailleurs were officially re-raised. Only the 1st and 3rd Regiments actually took the field for the Waterloo campaign. All regiments of Imperial Guard Tirailleurs (along with the rest of the Guard) were disbanded following the Emperor's second abdication.

The first tirailleurs employed in French North Africa were a metropolitan light infantry unit — the 1er bataillon de tirailleurs de Vincennes which disembarked in Algiers in early 1840. This unit subsequently became the chasseurs d'Orléans but the title of tirailleurs was allocated the next year to newly raised regiments of indigenous Algerian infantry recruited from the Arab and Berber communities.

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