GRENADIER

This article appears in Volume V12, Page 579 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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GRENADIER , originally a soldier whose

special

SPECIAL

duty it was to throw hand-grenades. The latter were in use fora considerable time before any

special

SPECIAL

organization was given to the troops who were to use them. In 1667 four men per company in the French Regiment du Roi were trained with grenades (siege of

Lille

LILLE

), and in 1668167o grenadier companies were formed in this regiment and in about thirty others of the French line.

Evelyn

EVELYN, JOHN (1620-1706)

, in his Diary, tells us that on the 29th of June 1678 he saw at

Hounslow

HOUNSLOW

" a new sort of soldiers called granadiers, who were dexterous in flinging hand-granades." As in the case of the fusiliers, the French practice was therefore quickly copied in England. Eventually each English battalion had a grenadier company (see for illustrations Archaeological Journal, xxiii. 222, and xlvii. 321-324). Besides their grenades and the firelock, grenadiers carried axes which, with the grenades, were employed in the assault of fortresses, as we are told in the celebrated song, " The British Grenadiers."
The grenadier companies were formed always of the most powerful men in the regiment and, when the grenade ceased to be used, they maintained their existence as the " crack " companies of their battalions, taking the right of the line on parade and wearing the distinctive grenadier headdress. This system was almost universal, and the typical infantry regiment of the 18th and early loth century had a grenadier and a light company besides its " line " companies. In the British and other armies these elite companies were frequently taken from their regiments and combined in grenadier and light infantry battalions for special service, and

Napoleon

NAPOLEON

carried this practice still further in the French army by organizing brigades and divisions of grenadiers (and correspondingly of voltigeurs). Indeed -the companies thus detached from t he line practically never returned to it, and this was attended with serious evils, for the battalion at the outbreak of war lost perhaps a quarter of its best men, the

average

AVERAGE

men only remaining with the line. This specialorganization of grenadiers and light companies lasted in the British army until about 1858. In the Prussian service the grenadiers became permanent and independent battalions about 1740, and the

gradual

GRADUAL (Med. Lat. gradualis, of or belonging to steps or degrees; gradus, step)

adoption of the four-company battalion by Prussia and other nations tended still further to place the grenadiers by themselves and apart from the line. Thus at the present day in Germany, Russia and other countries, the title of "grenadiers" is borne by line regiments, indistinguishable, except for details of uniform and often the esprit de corps inherited from the old elite companies, from the rest. In the British service the only grenadiers remaining are the Grenadier Guards, originally the 1st regiment of Foot Guards, which was formed in 166o on the nucleus of a regiment of English royalists which followed the fortunes of Charles II. in

exile

EXILE (Lat. exsilium or exilium, from exsul or exul, which is derived from ex, out of, and the root sal, to go, seen in salire, to leap,
consul
- CONSUL
- CONSUL (in Gr. generally ihraros,ashortened form of errpavgybs 8hraeos, i.e. praetor maximus)
, &c.; the connexion with solum, soil, country is now generally considered wrong)

. In Russia a whole army corps (headquarters Moscow), inclusive of its artillery units, bears the title.
The special headdress of the grenadier was a pointed cap, with

peak

PEAK, THE

and flaps, of embroidered cloth, or a loose fur cap of similar' shape; both these were light field service caps. The fur cap has in the course of time developed into the tall " bearskin " worn by British guards and various corps of other armies; the embroidered field cap survives, transformed, however, into a heavy brass headdress, in the uniform of the 1st Prussian Foot Guards, the 1st Prussian Guard Grenadiers and the Russian Paul (Pavlovsky) Grenadier Guards.
579

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