Royal Fusiliers

Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment)
Active	1685 – 1968
Country	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Branch	British Army
Type	Infantry
Role	Fusiliers
Colors	Blue facings
March	British Grenadiers

The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) was an infantry regiment of the British Army until 1968 when it was amalgamated with other regiments to form the The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. It was known as the 7th Regiment of Foot until 1881^[1].

History

Vladimir Jabotinsky (L) as an Officer and David Ben-Gurion (R) as a Private of the Royal Fusiliers uniform.

Formation

It was formed as a fusilier regiment in 1685 by Lord Dartmouth, George Legge, from two companies of the Tower of London guard, and was originally called the Ordnance Regiment. Most regiments were equipped with matchlock muskets at the time, but the Ordnance Regiment were armed with fusils This was because their task was to be an escort for the artillery, for which matchlocks would have carried the risk of igniting the barrels of gunpowder.

Nomenclature

The regiment became the 7th Regiment of Foot (Royal Fusiliers) in 1751, although a variety of spellings of the word "fusilier" persisted until the 1780s, when the modern spelling was formalised.^[2] In 1881, under the Childers Reforms when regimental numbers were abolished the regiment became The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment).^[3]

American Revolution

The Royal Fusiliers played an active part in saving Canada from invasion by the army of the American Continental Congress during the autumn of 1775^[4] and winter of 1776. Later, the regiment was sent to New York and participated in the occupation of Philadelphia, the Battle of Monmouth (1778), the capture of Charleston (1779), and the southern campaigns under the command of General Cornwallis.

French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars

The Royal Fusiliers formed part of the famed Fusilier Brigade in Wellington's Peninsular Army along with the 23rd Regiment of Foot (The Royal Welch Fusiliers) at the Battle of Albuhera on 16 May 1811.^[5]

First World War

22 August 1914: "A" Company of the 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, resting in the town square at Mons.

The Royal Fusiliers served with distinction in the First World War^[6], raising 76 battalions who wore the regimental cap badge. They served on the Western Front, in Africa, the Middle East and Macedonia. Members of the Royal Fusiliers won the first two Victoria Crosses of the war near Mons in August 1914, and the last two in North Russia. Its war memorial is on High Holborn, near Chancery Lane tube station, surmounted by the lifesize statue of a World War One soldier, and its regimental chapel is at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate.

The 38th through 42nd Battalions of the regiment served as the Jewish Legion in Palestine; many of its members went on to be part of the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.^[7].

Second World War

The Royal Fusiliers were involved in many notable battles of the war, including Operation Shingle, or as it is now known, the Battle of Anzio. Company C was ordered to hold the bridgehead against a Tiger I tank assault. There were many casualties ^[8] , including Eric Fletcher Waters, father of Pink Floyd band member Roger Waters, who wrote the song "When the Tigers Broke Free" about the attack.

Post 1945

The Garden of Remembrance, St Sepulchre's Church. Originally meant as a memorial to those Fusiliers who died in the two World Wars but is now dedicated to all Fusiliers killed in action since 1914.

On 23 April 1968 the regiment was amalgamated with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers (5th Ft), The Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers (6th Ft) and the Lancashire Fusiliers (20th Ft) to form 3rd Bn. The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.^[9]

Colonels

• –1854: Sir Edward Blakeney
• 1854–1855 George Brown
• 1855–1868 Samuel Benjamin Auchmuty ^[10]
• 1868–: Sir Richard Airey ^[11]

See also

• Media related to Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) at Wikimedia Commons

References