page_title: Zouave
section_title: French Zouaves
hierarchical_section_title: Zouave / French Zouaves
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Un zouave
context_page_description: The Zouaves 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 would be a regiment of Berber volunteers from the Zwawa group of tribes in Algeria—thus the French term zouave—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 non-commissioned officers 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, French European and black volunteers. Twelve years later, zouaves began to be recruited almost exclusively from Europeans, a policy which continued until the final dissolution of these regiments after the Algerian War.
caption: A French zouave from 1888 wearing white summer serouel trousers instead of the usual red
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