Voltigeurs

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Voltigeurs of a French line infantry regiment cross the Danube before the battle of Wagram

Voltigeurs (about: Arch Springer, of vaulting , . Itl volta , fr. Volte : bow shock, arc jump) were a branch of service ( Light Infantry ), by Napoleon Bonaparte in March 1804 as the elite force was established and existed in France until 1868/70.

Above all, men were recruited as voltigeurs who had been considered unsuitable for military service due to their relatively small body size. The original plan to let small and lightweight infantrymen jump up (vaulting) on the rump behind cavalrymen and transport them to the front line of battle as a rapid reaction force failed quickly in practical implementation. Nevertheless, the voltigeurs remained specialists in the scattered battle . In the Plänklertaktik trained, they were among the best shooters of the army. They took over the relaxed fighting style of the tirailleurs that had been set up during the French Revolution .

Initially organized in independent companies, the voltigeurs were later added to the infantry battalions. A company of voltigeurs was assigned to each battalion of line infantry ( fusiliers ) or light infantry ( hunters , chasseurs ). It formed the left wing and was for scattered skirmish determined (the right wing when massaged storm formation presented in the line infantry, the grenadiers , light infantry in the carabineers ).

In Napoleon's Imperial Guard, the task of the voltigeurs had been provided by independent tirailleur regiments as part of the Young Guard since 1809 . The so-called Tirailleur-Jäger were renamed Voltigeure in 1811, the Tirailleur-Grenadiers have since been called simply Tirailleur.

The voltigeurs of the line troops were in 1868 by Emperor Napoléon III. abolished because the newly created unit infantry should generally be capable of relaxed rifle combat. Four regiments remained in the imperial guard to preserve tradition , but they perished with the empire in 1870.

The color of the voltigeurs' badges was always yellow ( complete epaulettes or their crescent moons, sometimes also collars).

literature

  • Georges Blond (1997): La Grande Armée, Napoleon and his German allies in the 1809 campaign , Barnsley, Greenhill Books.
  • Liliane and Fred Funcken (1978, 1979): Historical Uniforms (Vol. 3). Napoleonic period. French regiments of the line, British, Prussian and Spanish troops from the time of the First Empire. Mosaik Verlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-570-06389-5 ; as well as this. Historical uniforms (volume 4). Napoleonic period. French Imperial Guards, Allied troops, the Swedish, Austrian and Russian armies at the time of the First Empire. Mosaik Verlag, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-570-05449-7 .
  • Phillip Haythornthwaite (1983): Napoleon's Light Infantry , Oxford, Osprey Publishing.
  • Charles Stevens (1878): Reminiscences of my Military Life 1795 to 1818 , Winchester, Warren & Son.