page_title: Tirailleur
section_title: Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan tirailleurs
hierarchical_section_title: Tirailleur / History / Colonial period / Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan tirailleurs
caption_attribution_description: English: Vietnamese_Tirrailleurs_of_Nguyen Tiếng Việt: Quân lính thời Nhà Nguyễn
context_page_description: A tirailleur, 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 indigenous 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 it moved to France as a result of Algerian independence.
context_section_description: The tirailleurs from Algeria subsequently served in the Crimean War, the Second Italian War of Independence, the French intervention in Mexico and the Franco-Prussian War (1870), as well as in French colonial campaigns in Tunisia, Indochina, Morocco, Madagascar and Algeria itself. During the Crimean War the Algerian tirailleurs acquired the nickname of "Turcos" (Turks) by which they were widely known over the next hundred years. The name reportedly arose from comparisons between the Algerian troops and the Turkish allies serving alongside the French and British forces at the siege of Sevastopol.
  First raised in 1841 as battalions of tirailleurs indigenes, the locally recruited Algerian infantry were organised into three regiments of Algerian Tirailleurs by a decree dated 10 October 1855. The number of such units fluctuated over the next hundred years until in the early 1960s eight regiments of tirailleurs plus a number of independent battalions remained in French service. Two battalions of Algerian Tirailleurs formed the bulk of the Détachement Français de Palestine et de Syrie that participated in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign from 1917 onwards.
  In 1884, the 4th Regiment of Tirailleurs was created in Tunisia. Except for minor distinctions of insignia and uniform (their numbering was based on the figure "4" and its multiples, plus light blue tombeaus or false pockets on their full dress zouave jackets) the Tunisian tirailleurs regiments had the same appearance as their Algerian counterparts. It was only in 1921 that the French government decided to name them officially "Tunisian Tirailleurs Regiments".
  In 1914, during World War I, the 1st Regiment of Moroccan Tirailleurs was created. At the end of the period of French rule in 1956 six regiments of Moroccan tirailleurs were still in existence.
  The recruitment of Muslim tirailleurs was mainly voluntary, although a selective form of conscription was introduced in Algeria in 1913 and continued until the end of French rule in North Africa. Prior to 1939 up to 90% of the rank and file of each battalion had been indigenous. The proportion of French European (both metropolitan and pied-noir settlers) to Maghrébin (North African) personnel had however increased to about 30% by the end of World War II, as the tirailleur units became increasingly mechanized.
caption: Vietnamese "Tirailleur" soldiers of Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (Emperor Gia Long), circa 1800.
exif: {}