FRANCE 1808
MAMELUKES
When Napoleon arrived in Egypt, the country was under despotic military
rule? On the return of the young General en Chef to France, he formed a troop drawn from deserters from the service of Ibrahim Pasha and Murad Bey along with sundry Georgians, Armenians and Circassians who were fugitives from slavery. This motley crew made a very suitable escort for the future
conqueror.
Mameluke is a term of Arab origin that means ' slave white '. Well soon yet the lost word
his connoted depreciative to pass to indicate the choice troop that, from the XII century, they served in the army for the king of
Egypt. the theirs components were ex slave greeks, ottomen and Circassian bought by the real official and then enlisted as mercenary. the influence of the mamelukes grew in the XIII century much that from the 1252 to the 1517, they became the reigning dynasty of
Egypt.
They were still enough powerful in the 1798 when they were defeated by Napoleon to the pyramids. The theirs value yet not gone unobserved: the Menou general, been in charge of of the French military life in Egypt, in the 1801 created with a hundred of they and with some syrians the first regiment Mameluke of the republic and,
when the Garde Impériale was set up in July 1804, Napoleon decreed that the Mameluke Troop would be attached to the Chasseurs à
Cheval. It had strength of 124 men, with a French Troop Headquarters.
Between 1806 and 1810, its strength fell to 102 and then rose to 250 by January 1813, when it was reformed as a
squadron., between the 1805 and the 1807 the mamelukes took part in all the more battle important things of Napoleon, from Austerliz to Friedland; then the theirs becoming role always more marginal and in the 1813, shortly before of the abdication of Napoleon, they were now reduced approximately unit from parry that, between the other, a few or nothing kept of
his exotic origin.
The africans and the asiatics were in fact now not more of a dozen, while the big of the troop was compound from albanians, German, Greek, Belgian, Dutch, Italian. Georgians and even
French.
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UNIFORM
The uniform of the mamelukes is inspired to the ancient Egyptian popular customs, of which retakes style and
colours. The Mamelukes wore the tarbush (or fez) with a turban round the
bottom, but changed to the cahouk, a similar but taller headdress in
1807, a workshirt with arabesques on the shoulder and on the cuffs, a hemmed waistcoat of black and wide knickerbockers.
Dealing of a chivalry unit, as footwear was used of the boots from mounts
that, only in the protect, they are possible to be replaced by
slippers.
It is nearly impossible determine exactly the colours of the
uniform, such it was the theirs variety that it is are possible to find many sky-blue workshirt and yellow waistcoat as that of the official up
here, when green workshirt and red waistcoat as that of the young soldiers of the next page. The arms it of the mamelukes was two pistol and a
scimitar. The sheath of this the latest was of black leathers with metal point and handle of gilded brass stand : to support oneself
you/it two tie-rods or red cords with trimmings gilds. |
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The caparison of the horse was green with edging
it gilds: his colour changed the 1810 and sky-blue becoming. The standard of the unit was red living with in highest point to the staff the imperial
eagle.
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