Early history The first permanent army of
France, which was paid with regular wages instead of being supplied by
feudal levies, was established in the early 15th century under
Charles VII. It was formed due to the need for reliable troops during the
Hundred Years' War, though the Army was not disbanded because it saw continued use by the
Kings of France following the conflict. Upon the outbreak of a conflict, an
ordonnance would be issued to govern the length of service, composition and payment of units. The
Compagnies d'ordonnance formed the core of the
Gendarme well into the 16th century, and were stationed throughout France and summoned into larger armies as needed. There was also provisions made for
francs-archers, which was a militia of bowmen and foot soldiers raised from the non-noble classes, but the units were disbanded once war ended. Meanwhile, the bulk of infantry was still provided by urban or provincial militias, which were raised from an area or city to fight locally and that were named for their recruiting grounds. Gradually, the units became more permanent, and in the late 15th century, Swiss instructors were recruited, and some of the 'Bandes' (Militia) were combined to form temporary 'Legions' of up to 9000 men. The men would be paid, contracted to fight and receive military training.
Henry II further regularised the French Army by forming standing infantry regiments to replace the Militia structure. The first of them (Régiments de Picardie, Piémont, Navarre and Champagne) were called
Les Vieux Corps (The Old Corps). It was normal policy to disband regiments after a war was over as a cost-saving measure with the
Vieux Corps and the
French Royal Guard being the only survivors. '' by
Jean Alaux, 1839. The
French Royal Army at the
Battle of Denain in 1712 Regiments could be raised directly by the King and so be called after the region in which they were raised or by the nobility and so called after the noble or his appointed colonel. When
Louis XIII came to the throne, he disbanded most of the regiments in existence, leaving only the
Vieux and a handful of others, which became known as the
Petite Vieux and also gained the privilege of not being disbanded after a war. at the
Battle of Fontenoy in 1745 In 1684, there was a major reorganisation of the French infantry and another in 1701 to fit in with
Louis XIV's plans and the
War of the Spanish Succession. The reshuffle created many of the modern regiments of the French Army and standardised their equipment and tactics. The army of the Sun King tended to wear grey-white coats with
coloured linings. There were exceptions and the foreign troops, recruited from outside France, wore red (Swiss, Irish etc.) or blue (Germans, Scots etc.) while the
French Guards wore blue. In addition to the regiments of the line the
Maison du Roi provided several elite units, the
Swiss Guards, French Guards and the Regiments of
Musketeers being the most famous. The white/grey coated French Infantry of the line
Les Blancs with their Charleville muskets were a feared foe on the battlefields of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fighting in the
Nine Years' War, the Wars of Spanish and
Austrian Succession, the
Seven Years' War and the
American Revolution.
Wars of the Coalition at the
Battle of Jemappes in 1792 The
French Revolution caused the Army to lose most of its officers to
aristocratic flight or the
guillotine, and thus it became demoralised and ineffective. The revolutionary militias of
Sans-culottes, and the bourgeoise
National Guard formed the nucleus of the
French Revolutionary Army alongside the remnants of the dissolved
Royal French Army; it was created following the
storming of the Tuileries palace, where the
French National Guard joined the revolt, the loyal
Swiss Guards were massacred and the King was deposed. From 1792, the Revolutionary Army fought against a combination of European powers in the
French Revolutionary Wars, with the state directing most of its industry and population to war efforts, marking the start of modern
conscription in the world, it also allowed more flexible military strategies, setting way for
Napoleonic warfare. Moreover, many noble officers were retired, decreasing
stratification and increasing
military specialism. These, and the extreme investments into war efforts allowed France to begin a
steady advance into Europe. Under
Napoleon I, the
French Imperial Army conquered most of Europe during the
Napoleonic Wars. Professionalising again from the Revolutionary forces and using columns of attack with heavy artillery support and swarms of pursuit cavalry the French army under Napoleon and his marshals was able to outmanoeuvre and destroy the allied armies repeatedly until 1812. Napoleon introduced the concept of all arms
Corps, each one a traditional army 'in miniature', permitting the field force to be split across several lines of march and rejoin or to operate independently. The
Grande Armée operated by seeking a decisive battle with each enemy army and then destroying them in detail before rapidly occupying territory and forcing a peace. '' by
Charles Meynier. After defeating Prussian forces at
Jena, the
Grande Armée entered Berlin on 27 October 1806 In 1812, Napoleon invaded the
Russian Empire with a new
Grande Armee, seeking to remove their influence from
eastern Europe and secure the frontiers of his
empire and client states. The campaign initially went well, but the vast distances of the
Russian Steppe and its cold winter forced his army into a shambling retreat preyed on by Russian raids and pursuit. This force could not be replaced and with the "ulcer" of the ongoing war in the Iberian peninsula against Britain and Portugal, the French Army was badly short of trained troops and French manpower was almost exhausted. After Napoleon's abdication and return, halted by an Anglo-Dutch and Prussian alliance at Waterloo, the French army was placed back under the restored Bourbon Monarchy. The structure remained largely unchanged and many officers of the Empire retained their positions.
The 19th century The Bourbon restoration was a time of political instability with the country constantly on the verge of political violence. The army was committed to the
restoration of Spanish monarchial absolutism in 1824. It achieved its aims in six months, but did not fully withdraw until 1828. By comparison with the earlier Napoleonic invasion, this expedition was rapid and successful. Taking advantage of the weakness of the local
bey, the
French invasion of Algiers in 1830 again rapidly overcame initial resistance. The French government formally
annexed Algeria but it took nearly 45 years to fully
pacify the country. This period of French history saw the creation of the , which included the
Légion étrangère. The Army was now uniformed in dark blue coats and red trousers, which it would retain until the First World War. The news of the fall of Algiers had barely reached Paris in 1830 when the Bourbon Monarchy was
overthrown and replaced by the constitutional
Orleans Monarchy. During the
July 1830 revolution, the Paris mobs proved too much for the troops of the and the main body of the French Army, sympathetic to the crowds, did not become heavily involved. In 1848 a wave of revolutions swept Europe and
brought an end to the French monarchy. The army was largely uninvolved in the street fighting in Paris which overthrew the King but later in the year troops were used in the suppression of the more
radical elements of the new Republic which led to the election of Napoleon's nephew as president. The Pope had been forced out of Rome as part of the Revolutions of 1848, and Louis Napoleon sent a 14,000 man expeditionary force of troops to the Papal State under General
Nicolas Charles Victor Oudinot to restore him. In late April 1849, it was defeated and pushed back from Rome by
Giuseppi Garibaldi's volunteer corps, but then recovered and recaptured Rome. The French army was among the first in the world to be issued with
Minié rifles, just in time for the
Crimean War against Russia, allied with Britain. This invention gave line infantry a weapon with a much longer range and greater accuracy and lead to new flexible tactics. The French army was more experienced at mass manoeuvre and war fighting than the British and the reputation of the French army was greatly enhanced. A series of colonial expeditions followed and in 1856 France joined the
Second Opium War on the British side against China; obtaining concessions. French troops were deployed into
Italy against the Austrians, the first use of railways for mass movement. The French army was now considered to be an example to others and military missions to
Japan and the emulation of French
Zouaves in other militaries added to this prestige. However, an
expedition to Mexico failed to create a stable puppet régime. France was humiliated following its defeat in the
Franco-Prussian War, and while the army had far superior infantry weapons in the form of the
Chassepot and
Mitrailleuse, its tactics and artillery were inferior, and by allowing the
Prussian Army to take the initiative, the French Army was rapidly bottled up into its fortress towns and defeated. The loss of prestige within the army lead to a great emphasis on aggression and close quarter tactics.
The World Wars posing with their war-torn flag in 1917, during
World War I In August 1914, following the outbreak of the
Great War, the
French Armed Forces numbered some soldiers, and by the end of the war the French Army had called up 8,817,000 men, including 900,000 colonial troops; of these around 1,397,000 French soldiers were killed in action, mostly on the
Western Front. French soldiers, at the beginning of the war, still wore the colourful uniforms of the
Franco-Prussian War, with this conspicuous dress proving unsuited to the trenches and, accordingly, by 1915 the mostly blue and red peacetime uniforms had been replaced by
bleu-horizon (light blue-grey), with the
Adrian helmet in place of the
kepi. The traditional
capote of the French infantry continued to be worn in the trenches but in
bleu-horizon. Colonial and North African soldiers adopted khaki uniforms. In May 1940, at the beginning of
World War II's six-week long
Battle of France, the French Army deployed 2,240,000 combatants grouped into 94
divisions (of which 20 were active and 74 were
reservists) from the Swiss border to the
North Sea.These numbers did not include the Army of the Alps facing Italy or the 600,000 men dispersed through the
French colonial empire. After defeat in June 1940, the government of
Vichy France was allowed to retain 100–120,000
Armistice Army personnel in the
zone libre, as well as larger forces across the French colonial empire: more than 220,000 in Africa (including 140,000 in
French North Africa), and forces in
Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and
French Indochina.
Free French Forces, under the command of
Charles de Gaulle, continued the fight with the Allies until the final defeat of the Axis in 1945.
The Cold War Foreign Legionnaires at the
Battle of Bir Hakeim in 1942 After 1945, despite enormous efforts in the
First Indochina War of 1945–54 and the
Algerian War of 1954–62, both lands eventually left French control. French units stayed in Germany after 1945, forming the
French Forces in Germany.
5th Armored Division stayed on in Germany after 1945, while 1st and 3rd Armoured Divisions were established in Germany in 1951. However
NATO-assigned formations were withdrawn to fight in Algeria; 5th Armoured Division arrived in Algeria in April 1956. From 1948 to 1966, many French Army units fell under the integrated
NATO Military Command Structure. Commander-in-Chief
Allied Forces Central Europe was a French Army officer, and many key NATO staff positions were filled by Frenchmen. While an upper limit of 14 French divisions committed to NATO had been set by the Treaty of Paris, the total did not exceed six divisions during the Indochina War, and during the Algerian War the total fell as low as two divisions. The Army created two parachute divisions in 1956, the
10th Parachute Division under the command of General
Jacques Massu and the
25th Parachute Division under the command of General Sauvagnac. After the
Algiers putsch, the two divisions, with the 11th Infantry Division, were merged into a new light intervention division, the 11th Light Intervention Division, on 1 May 1961. During the
Cold War, the French Army, though leaving the
NATO Military Command Structure in 1966, planned for the defence of Western Europe. In 1977 the French Army switched from multi-brigade divisions to smaller divisions of about four to five battalions/regiments each. From the early 1970s,
2nd Army Corps was stationed in South Germany, and effectively formed a reserve for NATO's
Central Army Group. In the 1980s,
3rd Army Corps headquarters was moved to
Lille and planning started for its use in support of NATO's
Northern Army Group. The
Rapid Action Force of five light divisions, including the new 4th Airmobile and
6th Light Armoured Divisions, was also intended as a NATO reinforcement force. In addition, the
152nd Infantry Division was maintained to guard the
S3 intercontinental ballistic missile base on the Plateau d'Albion. In the 1970s–1980s, two light armoured divisions were planned to be formed from school staffs (the 12th and 14th). The 12th Light Armoured Division (12 DLB) was to have its headquarters to be formed on the basis of the staff of the
Armoured and Cavalry Branch Training School at
Saumur. In the late 1970s an attempt was made to form 14 reserve light infantry divisions, but this plan was too ambitious. The planned divisions included the 102nd, the 104th, 107e, 108e, the , 110e, 111e, 112e, 114e, 115th, and 127th Infantry Divisions. From June 1984, the French Army reserve consisted of 22 military divisions, administering all reserve units in a certain area, seven
brigades de zone de défense, 22
régiments interarmées divisionnaires, and the 152nd Infantry Division, defending the ICBM launch sites. The plan was put into action from 1985, and
brigades de zone, such as the 107th Brigade de Zone, were created. But with the putting-in-place of the "Réserves 2000" plan, the brigades de zone were finally disbanded by mid-1993.
1st Army Corps was disbanded on 1 July 1990; 2nd Army Corps in August 1993.
Decolonisation s regiment during the
Algerian War At the end of the
Second World War, France was immediately confronted with the beginnings of the
decolonisation movement. The French army, which had employed indigenous North African
spahis and
tirailleurs in almost all of its campaigns since 1830, was the leading force in opposition to decolonization, which was perceived as a humiliation. In Algeria the Army repressed an extensive rising in and around
Sétif in May 1945 with heavy fire: figures for Algerian deaths vary between 45,000 as claimed by Radio Cairo at the time and the official French figure of 1,020. The Army saw maintaining control of Algeria as a high priority. By this time, one million French settlers had established themselves, alongside an indigenous population of nine million. When it decided that politicians were about to sell them out and give independence to Algeria, the Army engineered a military coup that toppled the civilian government and put General de Gaulle back in power in the
May 1958 crisis. De Gaulle, however, recognized that Algeria was a dead weight and had to be cut free. Four retired generals then launched the
Algiers putsch of 1961 against de Gaulle himself, but it failed. After 400,000 deaths, Algeria finally became independent. Hundreds of thousands of
Harkis, Muslims loyal to Paris, went into exile in France, where they and their children and grandchildren remain in poorly assimilated "
banlieue" suburbs. The Army repressed the
Malagasy Uprising in Madagascar in 1947. French officials estimated the number of Malagasy killed from a low of 11,000 to a French Army estimate of 89,000.
Recent history (1996–present) in camouflage Central-Europe in 2018 In February 1996, President
Jacques Chirac began the transition of the Army to a professional force, and as part of the resulting changes, ten regiments were dissolved in 1997. On 1 July 1997, the specialized support brigades were transferred to various
communes;
Lunéville for signals,
Haguenau for artillery and
Strasbourg for engineers. On 1 September 1997, the
2nd Armoured Division left
Versailles and was installed at
Châlons-en-Champagne in place of the disbanded
10th Armoured Division. On 5 March 1998, in view of the ongoing structural adoptions of the French Army, the
Minister of Defence decided to disband
III Corps, and the dissolution became effective 1 July 1998. The headquarters transitioned to become Headquarters
Commandement de la force d'action terrestre (CFAT) (the Land Forces Action Command). During the professionalisation process, numbers decreased from the 236,000 (132,000 conscripts) in 1996 to around 140,000. By June 1999, the Army's strength was 186,000, including around 70,000 conscripts. 38 of 129 regiments were planned to be stood down from 1997 to 1999. The previous structure's nine 'small' divisions and sundry separate combat and combat support brigades were replaced by nine combat and four combat support brigades. The Rapid Action Force, a corps of five small rapid-intervention divisions formed in 1983, was also disbanded, though several of its divisions were re-subordinated.
Opération Sentinelle is a French military operation with 10,000 soldiers and 4,700 police and gendarmes deployed since the aftermath of the
January 2015 Île-de-France attacks, with the objective of protecting sensitive "points" of the territory from
terrorism. It was reinforced during the
November 2015 Paris attacks, and was part of a
state of emergency in France due to continued terror threats and attacks. ==Organisation==