French Napoleonic Foot Soldiers

of the Imperial Guard

Napoleon organised the majority of his foot soldiers of the Imperial Guard into two types of army groups (Corps), which were Grenadiers and Chasseurs.

The Grenadiers were elite soldier trained in the use of a grenade, a basic type by todays standards, which is how this type of soldier derives it name. In many ways the napoleonic grenadiers are like the paratroopers of today, they are troops trained in a tough specialism which allow them to differ themselves from ordinary troops and be defined as elite.In reality on a battlefield it was unlikely they would get many opportunities to use their specialism, but the military recognised the benefits from their specialist training in character building, morale and fighting ability and use them as elite infantry. The grenade of the napoleonic period was a very unsafe device for the user, requiring training for usuage.Safer grenades for the user were not finally introduced until the First World War.

The Chasseurs were simply a army group of elite light infantry who requirement was to be highly mobile. In Napoleonic times the definition of light infantry didnot necessary mean lighter or less expensive equipment or rifles,or less important troops, or less experienced troops it was used to used to define troops that had to be more mobile and maintain troops at a higher fitness level compared to other troop corps. Consequently the members of light infantry units tended be to more younger in age group than other branches of the military.

Napoleon experimented, developed and organised new specialist troops groups within both the Grenadier and Chasseurs.Within both these type of army groups, troops were split in two main types, soley Grenadiers or Chasseurs, and Fusilier, providing two distinct branch groups the Grenadiers and the Fusilier-Grenadiers, and therefore Chasseurs and Fusiliers-Chasseurs. Furthermore each distinct main type had several levels of light infantry sub-branchs within each.