The French Armed Forces are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander-in-chief of the French military. France has the ninth largest defence budget in the world and the third largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. As of 2021, the total active personnel of the French Armed Forces is 270,000. While the reserve personnel is 63,700, for a total of 333,000 personnel. If we include the active personnel of the National Gendarmerie, the total men power of all the French Armed Forces combined is 435,000 strong. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military.
The French Foreign Legion is an elite corps of the French Army that consists of several specialties: infantry, cavalry, engineers, and airborne troops. It was created in 1831 to allow foreign nationals into the French Army. It formed part of the Armée d’Afrique, the French Army's units associated with France's colonial project in North Africa, until the end of the Algerian War in 1962.
A militia is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional or part-time soldiers; citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of regular, full-time military personnel; or, historically, to members of a warrior-nobility class. When acting independently, militias are generally unable to hold ground against regular forces; militias commonly support regular troops by skirmishing, holding fortifications, or conducting irregular warfare, instead of undertaking offensive campaigns by themselves. Local civilian laws often limit militias to serve only in their home region, and to serve only for a limited time; this further reduces their use in long military campaigns. Militias may also, however, serve as a pool of available manpower for regular forces to draw from, particularly in emergencies.
Foreign Legion most often refers to:
The Jewish Legion was a series of battalions of Jewish soldiers who served in the British Army during World War I. Some participated in the British conquest of Palestine from the Ottomans.
The Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion or Mac-Paps were a battalion of Canadians who fought as part of the XV International Brigade on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. Except for France, no other country had a greater proportion of its population volunteer in Spain as did Canada. The XV International Brigade, made up also of volunteer battalions from the United States and Britain, was involved in the Battle of Jarama, in which nine Canadians are known to have been killed.
Irish Brigade may refer to:
Auxiliaries are support personnel that assist the military or police but are organised differently from regular forces. Auxiliary may be military volunteers undertaking support functions or performing certain duties such as garrison troops, usually on a part-time basis. Unlike a military reserve force, an auxiliary force does not necessarily have the same degree of training or ranking structure as regular soldiers, and it may or may not be integrated into a fighting force. Some auxiliaries, however, are militias composed of former active duty military personnel and actually have better training and combat experience than their regular counterparts.
Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense.
The Irish military diaspora refers to the many people of either Irish birth or extraction who have served in overseas military forces, regardless of rank, duration of service, or success.
The Foreign Legion has had a long and unique history amongst the units of the French Army. It was historically formed of expatriate enlisted personnel led by French officers. Founded by a royal ordinance issued by King Louis Philippe of France on March 9, 1831, with the aim of bolstering the strength of the French Army while also finding a use for the influx of refugees inundating France at the time. The Foreign Legion subsequently found a permanent home in the ranks of the French military. The Foreign Legion's history spans across the Conquest of Algeria, the Franco-Prussian War, numerous colonial exploits, both World Wars, the First Indochina War, and the Algerian War.
The international response to the Spanish Civil War included many non-Spaniards participating in combat and advisory positions. The governments of Italy, Germany and, to a lesser extent, Portugal contributed money, munitions, manpower and support to the Nationalist forces, led by Francisco Franco. Some nations that declared neutrality favored the nationalists indirectly. The governments of the Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, Mexico, aided the Republicans, also called Loyalists, of the Second Spanish Republic. The aid came even after all the European powers had signed a Non-Intervention Agreement in 1936. Although individual sympathy for the plight of the Spanish Republic was widespread in the liberal democracies, pacifism and the fear of a second world war prevented them from selling or giving arms. However, Nationalist pleas were answered within days by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Tens of thousands of individual foreign volunteers travelled to Spain to fight, the majority for the Republican side.
The red beret is a military beret worn by many military police, paramilitary, commando, and police forces and should not be confused with the maroon beret worn by airborne troops all around the world.
The Papal Zouaves were an infantry battalion, later regiment, dedicated to defending the Papal States. Named after the French zouave regiments, the Zuavi Pontifici were mainly young men, unmarried and Catholic, who volunteered to assist Pope Pius IX in his struggle against the Italian unificationist Risorgimento.
2nd Regiment may refer to:
5th Regiment or 5th Infantry Regiment may refer to:
German Legion may refer to:
