Chasseurs (Fr.: chasseurs, hunters) were light troops in the French army, like their counterparts Jägers (Ger., also ‘hunters’) in the German army. There were four main types, two in the cavalry and two in the infantry. Chasseurs à cheval (mounted chasseurs) were first raised in the 18th century as European armies responded to demands for light troops. There were twelve regiments by 1789, and 31 by 1811. Twenty-four regiments formed part of the Restoration army, but subsequent restructuring reduced this number as some were converted to lancers. There were twelve regiments of chasseurs à cheval in the Second Empire, and the arm was re-established after the Franco-Prussian war, serving on into two world wars. Chasseurs, now mechanized, are part of the French army's armoured corps. For much of their history chasseurs à cheval wore hussar-style uniform, often with fur hussar caps, although there was a tendency to make chasseur uniforms more sombre than those of the showy hussars. Green was the arm's distinctive colour, and hunting-horn insignia appeared on accoutrements.
Chasseurs d'Afrique (African light cavalry) were raised during the French conquest of Algeria in 1831, and attracted numerous volunteers, not least those who sought to ‘redeem their civil offences by heroic sabre-cuts’. There were soon four regiments, which soon gained a formidable fighting record. They formed a cavalry division in the Franco-Prussian war, and their gallant but hopeless charge at Sedan on 1 September 1870 drew the exclamation ‘Ah! Les braves gens!’ (Ah! The brave fellows) from the king of Prussia, who witnessed it. The Chasseurs d'Afrique, unlike the spahis, recruited Europeans and wore a similar uniform to chasseurs à cheval, though always with a casquette d'Afrique or képi rather than a fur cap or tall shako. But, like the spahis, they were given to non-regulation embellishments which reflected a devil-may-care style. They remained part of the French army until Algerian independence.
Although the French army had long maintained light infantry, both as regiments of infanterie legère and in the light companies of line regiments, by the 1820s the functional differences between light and line infantry had become thoroughly blurred. The fighting in Algeria demanded infantry who could move fast and shoot straight, and in 1838 a new experimental battalion of tirailleurs d'Afrique was raised. The unit was widely known, from its garrison on the eastern outskirts of Paris, as Chasseurs de Vincennes. Equipped with the new Minié rifles from 1839, the chasseurs were an instant success, and ten battalions were raised in 1840. The keen interest taken in them by the monarch's brother the Duc d'Orléans earned them the title Chasseurs d'Orléans, but with the 1848 Revolution this changed to the more familiar chasseurs à pied.
The chasseurs à pied had much in common with rifle regiments in the British army or Jägers in the German. They wore sombre uniforms, with grey-blue trousers rather than the red of the line, drilled at the quickstep, used bugles rather than drums to transmit orders, and wore the hunting-horn badge. Their training emphasized marksmanship, fieldcraft, and individual resource, and they attracted some of the best officers in the army: two of the first ten commanding officers became marshals. Although they lost some of their unique appeal when French infantry as a whole was issued with the rifle, they nevertheless managed to preserve their individuality. Their most celebrated battle honour was Sidi-Brahim where in 1845 Major Froment-Coste's 8th Battalion defended itself against Abd al-Qadir and was reduced to a mere fifteen survivors. A stirring bugle march, le Sidi-Brahim, became the chasseurs' signature tune.
Finally, the Chasseurs alpins, formed during the military renaissance following the Franco-Prussian war, were specialist mountain infantry, drawing on recruits from France's alpine départements. Their uniform included a huge floppy beret, a short blouse, and putties. Like their comrades the chasseurs à pied, they survive to this day.
— Richard Holmes
