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Carabinier
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A Carabinier (also sometimes spelled Carabineer or Carbineer) (Carabinero in Spanish, Carabiniere in Italian) was originally a cavalry soldier armed with a carbine (a short version of a musket). The word is derived from the identical French word carabinier.
The carbine was considered a more appropriate firearm for a horseman than a full-length musket, since it was lighter and easier to handle while on horseback.
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Encyclopedia
A Carabinier (also sometimes spelled Carabineer or Carbineer) (Carabinero in Spanish, Carabiniere in Italian) was originally a cavalry soldier armed with a carbine (a short version of a musket). The word is derived from the identical French word carabinier.
The carbine was considered a more appropriate firearm for a horseman than a full-length musket, since it was lighter and easier to handle while on horseback. The term carabinier evolved to include other units such as light infantry and gendarmes.
Today the term is used by some armies, police, and gendarmeries.
Background
Carabiniers saw action during the Napoleonic wars in Europe, including the Battle of Waterloo, and many other conflicts throughout the 19th century. Carabiniers differed from army to army and over time, but typically were medium cavalry, similar in armament and tactical role to Dragoons.
Napoleon inherited two French Carabinier regiments of heavy cavalry (the two most senior cavalry regiments in the army), which gained some prestige in his wars. In 1810 French Carabiniers were equipped like cuirassiers with helmets and breastplates (though these were of brass and brass-skinned iron), and were no longer equipped with carabines. The French army has no carabinier regiments today. The British army raised regiments of carabiniers in the late 17th century. The descendents of one such regiment survived as the 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales's Dragoon Guards) until 1971 when it was amalgamated with the Royal Scots Greys. Accordingly no regiment bears the title today, although the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards are sub-titled "Carabiniers and Greys".
Italy has a famous force of carabiniers, a gendarmerie known by the Italian name Carabinieri. Chile also has a force of gendarme Carabiniers (Spanish: Carabineros) and the Colombian Police has mobile road-based units called Mobile Carabinier Squadrons. The Belgian Army includes a Regiment des Carabiniers, which saw service against the German invaders in August 1914 still dressed in its green 19th century uniform complete with a form of top hat. The Spanish Army formerly maintained a corps of Carabineros who served as frontier guards. This force was however disbanded following the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 and replaced by units of the Civil Guard.
Infantry Carabiniers
The use of carabinier to refer to infantry troops comes from the French light infantry battalions of 1794 where it denoted troops of the elite company known as grenadiers in line infantry.
Other infantry units that named their elite (right flank) Carabinier were:
- In the Imperial Russian Army during the Napoleonic wars, the section on the right flank of the Yeger battalion deployed in line was called Carabinier.
- Quite apart from the elite Yeger platoons, there existed foot Carabinier regiments for a brief time after 12 February 1816 when the six Grenadier-Yeger Regiments were renamed as Carabiniers. These included the oldest regular infantry regiment in the Russian Army, the Yerivan Leib-Grenadier regiment as the former 7th Carabinier Regiment. Foot Carabinier regiments were renamed rifles in 1857 following the Crimean War.
- Bavarian Volunteer Jäger Corps in 1813
- The Belgian Army Chasseurs included an infantry Regiment des Carabiniers, which saw service against the German Army in August 1914 still dressed in its green 19th century uniform complete with a form of top hat. Following a merger in 1992 the unit became the Regiment Carabiniers Prince Baudouin - Grenadiers.
- Waldeck, Lippe-Detmold, Shaumburg-Lippe contingents in the 2nd battalion, 6th Rheinbund Regiment of the Confederation of the Rhine.
- Nassau 2nd Light Infantry Regiment
- Legion Irlandaise (Irish Legion) in French service
- Westphalian voltigeur-carabiniers created by Jérôme Bonaparte, and after 1811 renamed Jäger Carabinier d’Elite
- Papal States Carabinieri indigeni formed from Italian recruits, and Carabinieri esteri formed from foreign recruits
- Kingdom of Italy under Viceroy Eugène de Beauharnais (1805-1814) had Velites Carabiniers of the Guard.
- One of the three light infantry battalions of the reorganised Royal Spanish Army in 1812 was called Carabiniers.
Mounted Carabiniers
Royal Spanish carabineros
Although the Spanish Crown was the first to raise carbine armed cavalry regiments, the Spanish Army is not known for its cavalry carabiniers. The la Brigada de Carabineros Reales, though dressed as hussars, did however participate in several of Spanish wars, including the Napoleonic Wars where they distinguished themselves at the Sepúlveda on 28 November 1808 along with the Alcántara and Montesa cavalry regiments against Lasalle's French 10th Chasseurs a Cheval and 9th Dragoons. One notable officer serving with the brigade was Carlos María de Alvear. The regiment, along with the cavalry of the Spanish Royal Guard, were reformed at Valladolid by General García de la Cuesta by which time they were numbered scarcely more then a squadron, and were given the pick of some 5,000 volunteers. The Spanish Army formerly maintained a corps of Carabineros who served as frontier guards. They later participated in the Carlist Wars, notably at Bilbao.
French mounted Carabiniers
The carabiniers are first mentioned at the battle of Neerwinden in 1693 commanded by Prince de Conti. although the original role was that of a mounted police similar to the Gendarmes, as combat troops they were created companies within the cavalry regiments on 29 October 1691 by Louis XIV, and only later as an independent regiment or cavalerie de reserve in 1693 under the command of Duc du Maine. However at that time all French cavalry other than the gendarmes were called light cavalry, and their first name was Corps royal des carabiniers, organised by brigading of four squadrons commanded by a lieutenant-colonel. The Corps was enlarged to ten squadrons by the start of the Seven Years' War, and their depot was, and remained for a century in Strasbourg. On the 13 May 1758 the Corps was renamed Royal carabiniers de monseur le Comte de Provence. By 1762 the Corps was enlarged to five brigades of thirty squadrons, but reduced to two regiments in 1788. However, the events of the French Revolution affected all of the French Army and the cavalry Arm in particular, and the carabiniers were reduced to two regiments of four squadrons each, later serving in the Army of the Rhine. The regiments retained their distinctive bearskin headwear until 1810 when it was replaced by even more distinctive helmets with scarlet combs. They were also distinguished by Napoleon with a brass overlay on the iron cuirasses after suffering heavy casualties in the 1809 campaign, but were no longer equipped with carabines. The Carabiniers, brigaded under command of General of Cavalry d'Espagne saw action during the Napoleonic wars in Europe, including in the Battle of Austerlitz, Battle of Friedland, Battle of Wagram, Battle of Borodino (commanded by General of Cavalry Defrance, Battle of Leipzig, Battle of Laon and Battle of Waterloo where it was "ignominiously routed by two regiments of British light dragoons". and restored as a single regiment de Monsieur after the second Bourbon restoration. Carabiniers were again raised to two regiments by 1824, wit their distinctive style of helmet being temporarily adopted by the cuirassiers also. The Carabiniers were present in Paris in June 1848 for the creation of the Republic when nine regiments were brought in to maintain peace, the first time in 200 years that carabiniers were again serving as military police. From 1852 the Carabiniers were a part of the Army of the Second French Empire, but did not serve in Crimea, seeing service again in 1870 as a single regiment, but now a part of the Imperial Guard. However, this did not last, and following the disasters of the Franco-Prussian War the Carabiniers were amalgamated with the 11th Cuirassier regiment on the 4 February 1871. The Carabiniers of the French army today trace their history through the 1-11e Regiment de Cuirassiers which by fate is stationed in Carpiagne within Provence, once the domain of their former commander.
British Carabiniers
The Carabiniers (6th Dragoon Guards) was a cavalry regiment of the British Army. The regiment was descended from the Ninth Horse regiment, raised in response to the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion in 1685, the first year of the reign of King James II. Colonelcy of the Ninth Horse was given to Richard, 2nd Viscount Lumley of Waterford. In accordance with tradition of the time, the regiment became known as Lord Lumley's Horse. In 1691, during King William's Irish Campaign, the regiment distinguished itself, as a result of which it was posted to London and re-named The King's Carabiniers. However, in 1741 the regiment became knownas the 3rd Regiment of Horse, and in 1756 became the 3rd Horse. Through the Napoleonic Wars period the regiment was called the 6th Dragoon Guards, becoming 3rd Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers) in 1826. In 1920 the regiment briefly became known as The Carabiniers (6th Dragoon Guards) again before being amalgamated in 1922. Although the regiment's first battle honour is for the Battle of Blenheim, it did not take a notable part in any major battle of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars, but did serve in the Crimean War. The regiment also served in the Boer Wars, although by far most of its battle honours come from the First World War. Known in the British Army as "The Carbs", the regiment survived as the 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales's Dragoon Guards) until 1971 when it was amalgamated with the Royal Scots Greys on the Palace of Holyrood House parade in July 1971 in attendance of Her majesty The Queen, who is the regimental Colonel-in-Chief. At the same time the role of the regiment changed from cavalry to mechanised infantry. As a result of the amalgamation no regiment bears the title of Carabiniers in the British Army today, although the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards are sub-titled "Carabiniers and Greys".
There also existed the Hampshire Carabiniers as a Yeomanry cavalry regiment that was formed during the French Revolutionary Wars, and remained known as the Carabiniers late in the Victorian era. The regiment served in the Boer Wars, and the First World War after which the Hampshire Yeomanry was re roled as an Artillery Regiment and they amalgamated with the Hampshire Royal Horse Artillery to become the 95th (Hampshire Yeomanry) Field Brigade, Royal Artillery.
Saxon Carabiniers
The Saxon Carabiniers were formed after the reorganisation of the Royal Saxon Army in 1765, and survived in the Imperial German Army until 1918. The regiment was known to have used lances in its pre-First World War service.
Prussian carabiniers
- Life Carabinier Regiment
- von der Marwitzsches Volunteer Corps 1807, Carabiniers of the Uhlan Squadron
Netherlands karabiniers
The Dutch mounted karabiniers date back to 2nd (Heavy) Cavalry regiment raised in the 1680s, however they briefly ceased to exist during the period of the Batavian Republic.
The Allied order of battle at the Battle of Waterloo included the Netherlands Cavalry Division (Divisie Cavalerie) commanded by Luitenant-Generaal Jean Alphonse Baron de Collaert which in turn included a brigade of three Karabinier regiments newly raised from the cuirassiers of the Dutch contribution to the Napoleonic La Grande Armée:
- 1st Carabiniers (Regiment karabiniers No. 1) Luitenant-Kolonel L. P. Coenegracht
- 2nd Carabiniers (Regiment karabiniers No. 2) Kolonel J. B. de Bruijn
- 3rd Carabiniers (Regiment karabiniers No. 3) Luitenant-Kolonel C. M. Lechleitner
All three regiments along with the dragoons of the Guard became dragoons in 1849.
Russian Karabinery
Carabiniers first appeared in the Russian Army during the rein of Catherine II in 1763, and eventually numbered sixteen regiments. However, Emperor Paul I, who intently disliked any reminder of his grandmother, renamed six into dragoons and the remaining into cuirassiers. The carabiniers did return to the Russian cavalry after 1803 as the four select marksmen called flankers in each platoon armed with carbines in all cavalry regiments.
Swedish Carabiniers
Swedish Kungliga Skånska Karabinierregementet ("Cavallerie de Scanie") were created in 1791 before the Napoleonic Wars by renaming the Skånska Kavalleriregementet and numbered eight squadrons of about 1,000 officers and troopers organised in two battalions serving in the 4th Swedish Division of the Walmoden Corps for the 1813-1814 campaign. The regiment was renamed into the Skånska Hussars by 1914.
Westphalian Carabiniers
The Westphalian Elite Jäger Carabinier regiment served in the Grande Armee after 1807, although the regiment dated from the previous century.
Piedmont-Savoy Carabinieri
The Carabinieri corps was created by King Victor Emmanuel I of Savoy, with the aim of providing Piedmont with a police corps similar to the French Gendarmerie, which was both a combat regiment and a mounted military police force.
After French soldiers had occupied Turin at the end of the 18th century and later abandoned it to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Savoy, the corps of Carabinieri Reali (Royal Carabiniers) was instituted under the Regie Patenti (Royal Patents) of July 13, 1814 within the Kingdom of Sardinia Guard.
Naples Carabiniers
The Carabiniers of the Kingdom of Naples were a cavalry regiment formed in the early 1820s.
South African Carabiniers
Originating from the 1st and 2nd Royal Natal Carabiniers, the South African Carabiniers served during the Boer Wars as mounted infantry, and infantry during the First World War's German South West Africa campaign, and later the as the 1st Royal Natal Carbineers in the Second World War, notably participating with the 8th Army at the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942 as part of the Commonwealth Union Defence Force contingent's 1st South African Division and later in the Italian Campaign. The Natal Carbineers saw service in a counter-insurgency capacity in northern Namibia (South West Africa) for three months from August 1976, and thereafter in numerous modular deployments over the next decade until 1989.
Policing carabiniers
Italian Carabinieri
The Arma dei Carabinieri (literally Arm of Carabinieri) was formerly called the Corpo dei Carabinieri as a branch of the Italian Army, but is usually known simply as the Carabinieri performing gendarmerie role. It originates from the amalgamation of the Piedmont-Savoy and Naples Carabinieri corps after unification of Italy, and although they remained a combat cavalry regiment, they were not numbered with the Cavalleria di Linea (Cavalry of the Line) after 1871.
Both a military and a police corps, the Carabinieri have fought in every conflict in which Italy has been involved in since 1871, suffering heavy losses and being awarded many decorations for gallantry.
The Carabinieri is currently a branch of armed forces (alongside the Army, Navy and Air Force), thus ending their long standing role as the Prima Arma dell'Esercito (First Corps of the Army). It is likely that antonomasia by which the Carabinieri will continue to be referred will remain the Arma.
In recent years Carabinieri units have been dispatched on peacekeeping missions, including Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In 2003 twelve Carabinieri were killed in a suicide bomb attack on their base in Nasiriyah, near Basra, in southern Iraq, in the largest Italian military loss of life in a single action since the Second World War (see 2003 Nasiriyah bombing).
Spanish Republic Carabineros
This para-military force was created in the 19th century under the Spanish monarchy, performing the role of frontier guards especially in the Pyrenees. Under the Spanish Republic the Carabineros force were subordinated to the finance department of the Home Ministry, and consisted of customs and excise officials numbering some 15,000 by the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. About 8,750 of these remained loyal to the Republican Government, providing a core of trained manpower. After the war this force was replaced by units of the Civil Guard.
Chilean carabineros
Carabineros de Chile are the uniformed Chilean national police force and gendarmery. The first policing organization with the name "Carabiniers" was the Corps of Carabiniers, in Spanish Cuerpo de Carabineros, formed in 1903 to bring law and order to the Araucanía Region of Southern Chile (then much larger than is geographically denoted today). In 1908 the Carabiniers' School (Escuela de Carabineros, currently located in Providencia) was created. On April 27, 1927, President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo merged the Fiscal Police (Policía Fiscal), the Rural Police (Policia Rural), and the Cuerpo de Carabineros into the Carabiniers of Chile, one unified institution under the direction of the national government. The organization still carries the name given to it by Ibáñez, who became the Carabiniers' first Director General.
In 1973 the Carabiniers, headed by General Cesar Mendoza Duran, later appointed Director General, joined the Chilean coup of 1973 under the lead of the Army, Navy and Air Forces leaders, that overthrew President Salvador Allende. As such, the Carabiniers' commander was a formal member of the Military Government Junta (1973-1990).
Colombian carabineros
Colombian Police has mobile road-based units called Mobile Carabinier Squadrons or Escuadrones Móviles de Carabineros in Spanish (EMCAR). These are specialised units of the Colombian National Police, part of its Operative Directorate. The mission of these mobile squadrons is to provide highway security, control traffic and prevent accidents. Among their objectives is to interact and socialize with civilians to create neighborhood watch and collaboration.
See also
Sources
- Andreyev, A.P., A present for a soldier on the 250th anniversary of the 13 Leib-Grenadier Yerevan (former Butyrsk) Regiment 1642-1892, StPetersburg, 1892
- Bolloten, Burnett, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution, UNC Press, 1991
- Bukhari, Emir, Napoleon's cuirassiers and carabiniers, Osprey Publishing Ltd., London, 1981
- Chant, Christopher, The Handbook of British Regiments, Routledge, London, 1988 ISBN 0415002419
- d'Alméras, Henri, La femme amoureuse dans la vie et dans la littérature, A. Michel, Paris, 1920
- De La Calle, Dolores Bastida, La Campaña Carlista (1872-1876) en Le Monde Hlustré: Los dibujos de Daniel Vierge, Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie Vil, Historia del Arte, t. 3, Le Monde lllustré, 1990
- Dempsey, Guy C., Napoleon's Mercenaries: Foreign units in the French Army under the Consulate and Empire, 1799 to 1814, Greenhill Books, London, 2002
- Detaille, Edouard, Richard, Jules, (ed.), Carlson Reinertsen, Maureen, (trans.) L'Armee Francaise: An illustrated history of the French Army, 1790-1885, Wextel & Hasenauer, New York, 1992
- Fernández, Jorge Sánchez, Valladolid durante la Guerra de la Independencia Española (1808-1814), Universidad de Valladolid, 2002
- Funcken, Liliane and Fred, Arms and uniforms: Napoleonic Wars, Part 2, Ward Lock Ltd., London, 1984
- Jasinski, René, A travers le XVIIe siècle, A.G. Nizet, Paris, 1981
- Johnson, David, The French cavalry 1792-1815, Belmont Publishing, London, 1989
- Knotel, Richard, Knotel, Herbert, & Sieg Herbert, Uniforms of the World: A compendium of Army, Navy and Air Force uniforms 1700-1937, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1980
- Le Bas, M.Ph., L'Univers: histoire et description de tous les peuples, Dictionnaire Encyclopedique de la France, Vol.3, Firmin Didot Freres, Paris, 1841
- Nafziger, George, The Russian Army 1800-1815, Rafm Co. Inc., Cambridge Ontario, 1983
- Olofsson, Magnus, The Army of Kingdom of Sweden during Napoleonic Wars,
- Paterson, Ian A., Regiments That Served With The 7th Armoured Division,
- Peirats, José, Los anarquistas en la crisis política española (1869-1939), Utopía Libertaria, Libros de Anarres, Buenos Aires, 2006 ISBN 987-22440-4-9
- Schou, Henrik, Danish military in the Napoleonic Wars, Order of Battle Corps Walmoden September 1813,
- Stein, Markus, The Infantry of the Bavarian Army 1812 - 1813: the Uniform Plates of Johann Cantler,
- Torres, Carlos Canales, Breve historia de la Guerra de Independencia Espanola, Ediciones Nowtilus S.L., 2006
- van Uythoven, Geert, The Army of the Netherlands in 1815, after the Belgian and Dutch forces had been united on 21 April 1815,
Further reading
- Carman, W.Y., Uniforms of the British Army - the Cavalry Regiments, ISBN 0-906671-13-2
- Wrigley Wilson, Herbert, With the Flag to Pretoria: A history of the Boer War of 1899-1900, 3 volumes, Harmsworth, London, 1900-1902
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