Zouaves

The Zouaves (French pronunciation: ​[zwav]) were a class of light infantry regiments of the French Army serving between 1830 and 1962 and linked to French North Africa, as well as some units of other countries modelled upon them. The zouaves, along with the indigenous Tirailleurs Algeriens, were among the most decorated units of the French Army.

It was initially intended in 1830 that the zouaves be a regiment of Berber volunteers from the Zwawa group of tribes in Algeria—thus the French term —who had gained a martial reputation fighting for local rulers under the Ottoman Empire. The regiment was to consist of sixteen hundred Zwawa Berbers, French NCOs and French officers. Five hundred Zwawa were recruited in August and September, but to raise numbers to the desired sixteen hundred, it was decided that the pool of recruits should be expanded to volunteers of any ethnicity, so the first zouave regiment was a mixture of Berber, Arab, European and black volunteers. Twelve years later, zouaves began to be recruited exclusively from Europeans, a policy which continued (with the exception of the Second World War) until the final dissolution of these regiments after the independence of Algeria.

In the 1860s, new units in several other countries called themselves "Zouaves". The Papal Zouaves were organized by General de La Moricière, a former commander of North African zouaves, while a former zouave sergeant, François Rochebrune, organized the Polish "Zouaves of Death" who fought against Russia in 1863-64. In the 1870s, former Papal zouaves formed the cadre for a short-lived Spanish zouave unit. The "zouave" title was also used by Brazilian units of black volunteers in the Paraguayan War, possibly due to a perceived link with Africa.

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