Zouave

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The Zouaves (French pronunciation: [zwav] ) were a class of light infantry regiments of the French Army and other units modelled on it, which served between 1830 and 1962, mainly in French North Africa. The zouaves were among the most decorated units of the French Army. The Zouave corps was created during the conquest of Algeria in 1830 by recruiting men from the local population. However, faced with the patchy results of indigenous recruitment in battle and frequent desertions, the French Army opted for ethnically mixed units the following year; the corps thus began to integrate both Frenchmen and locals. From 1842 onwards, the men recruited to serve in the Zouave units were exclusively French or people of French descent born in French Algeria (pieds-noirs), a policy which continued until the dissolution of all Zouave regiments after the Algerian War. The name of the Zouave corps is inspired by the Zwawa group of tribes in Algeria ("Zwawa" being the origin of the French term zouave) who...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Paul Louis Narcisse Grolleron; cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:35, 26 July 2018 (UTC), Public domain