Colonial Armies in Africa 1850-1918: Organisation, Warfare, Dress and Weapons (Armies of the Nineteenth Century) by Peter Abbott

Author:Peter Abbott [Abbott, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Modern / 19th Century
ISBN: 9781901543377
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2006-11-30T22:00:00+00:00

French Marine and Armée d’Afrique troops. Figure 97: Officer, late 1880s. Figure 98: Tirailleurs Sénégalais, 1882. Figure 99: Tunisian Compagnies Mixtes, 1883. Figure 100: Tirailleurs Sahariens, 1890s. Figure 101: Marine infantryman, 1878.

A French expedition’s escort drawn up for inspection. It is unlikely they would have satisfied a metropolitan officer, but they were hardy and relatively immune to local diseases.

The Spahis continued to wear their traditional red vestes and light blue gilets and serual, even though the 1874 regulations specified the reverse. This was clearly not a misprint, for the same regulations altered the officers’ uniform to a light blue dolman with red trousers (the usual French rule being that officers wore the same colour combination as their men). The Spahis’ vestes and gilets continued to be decorated with elaborate black arabesques and corn heads instead of trefoils, and the veste had light blue cuffs edged with black. Spahis wore a red burnous over a white haik. Their tombeaux were now to be red for the 1er Régiment, white for the 2e, and yellow for the 3e (the 1er Spahis’ change to red was presumably meant to contrast with the new light blue veste, but it is not known when the others were altered from the original colours). The burnous had a bar across the chest in the same colours. French other ranks wore Western-style boots and a white turban wound round the red fez, while Algerian personnel of all ranks wore Arab boots (these were supposed to be black, but in practice were made from red ‘Moroccan’ leather, often elaborately decorated) and an Arab-style head-dress with white headcloth and black band. Although the colours of the troopers’ uniform did not change, French officers did adopt the regulation light blue dolman with red, black-edged cuffs, red trousers with light blue bands, and a red képi with a light blue band and a gold star over crescent badge on the front.

The Tunisian Compagnies Mixtes wore a mixture of Tirailleur and Ligne uniforms. The infantry wore a red fez, light blue veste and gilet with yellow braid and light blue tombeaux, red sash, red line-pattern trousers, and white gaiters (Figure 99). French cavalrymen wore the same dress but with the wide red ‘booted trousers’ of the Chasseurs d’Afrique, while Tunisian cavalrymen wore Spahi uniform with light blue tombeaux and a red burnous. Officers wore a red képi with a light blue band, a light blue tunic with yellow collar and cuffs, and red trousers. From 1883 they had their company number embroidered within a gold ‘sun’ on the képi and collar. The Tunisian-based Zouave, Chasseur d’Afrique, Infanterie Légère, Tirailleur, and Spahi units continued to wear the same dress as their colleagues in Algeria. The tombeaux of the 4e Zouaves’ vestes were dark blue, and those of the 4e Tirailleurs Algériens and 4e Spahis light blue.

In 1882 a white bourgeron (shirt blouse) was authorised for fatigue wear and this rapidly became the standard hot-weather undress and field garment. Two patterns were worn side by

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