are a New Model regiment, and were originally called the Lord
General’s (Monk’s) regiment of Foot Guards. Their popular
title, which became their official designation in 1670, is derived
from the fact that the army with which Monk restored the
monarchy crossed the Tweed into England at the village of
Coldstream, and that his troops (which were afterwards, except
the two units of horse and foot of which Monk himself was
colonel, disbanded) were called the Coldstreamers. The two
battalions of Scots Foot Guards, which regiment was separately
raised and maintained in Scotland after the Restoration, marched
to London in 1686 and 1688 and were brought on to the English
Establishment in 1707. In George III.’s reign they were known
as the Third Guards, and from 1831 to 1877 (when the present
title was adopted) as the Scots Fusilier Guards.
The Irish Guards (one battalion) were formed in 1902, after the South African War, as a mark of Queen Victoria’s appreciation of the services rendered by the various Irish regiments of the line.[1] The dress of the Foot Guards is generally similar in all four regiments, scarlet tunic with blue collars, cuffs and shoulder-straps, blue trousers and high, rounded bearskin cap. The regimental distinctions most easily noticed are these. The Grenadiers wear a small white plume in the bearskin, the Coldstreams a similar red one, the Scots none, the Irish a blue-green one. The buttons on the tunic are spaced evenly for the Grenadiers, by twos for the Coldstreams, by threes for the Scots and by fours for the Irish. The band of the modern cap is red for the Grenadiers, white for the Coldstreams, “diced” red and white (chequers) for the Scots and green for the Irish. Former privileges of foot guard regiments, such as higher brevet rank in the army for their regimental officers, are now abolished, but Guards are still subject exclusively to the command of their own officers, and the officers of the Foot Guards, like those of the Household Cavalry, have special duties at court. Neither the cavalry nor the infantry guards serve abroad in peace time as a rule, but in 1907 a battalion of the Guards, which it was at that time proposed to disband, was sent to Egypt. “Guards’ Brigades” served in the Napoleonic Wars, in the Crimea, in Egypt at various times from 1887 to 1898 and in South Africa 1899–1902. The last employment of the Household Cavalry as a brigade in war was at Waterloo, but composite regiments made up from officers and men of the Life Guards and Blues were employed in Egypt and in S. Africa.
The sovereigns of France had guards in their service in Merovingian times, and their household forces appear from time to time in the history of medieval wars. Louis XI. was, however, the first to regularize their somewhat loose organization, and he did so to such good purpose that Francis I. had no less than 8000 guardsmen organized, subdivided and permanently under arms. The senior unit of the Gardes du Corps was the famous company of Scottish archers (Compagnie écossaise de la Garde du Corps du Roi), which was originally formed (1418) from the Scottish contingents that assisted the French in the Hundred Years’ War. Scott’s Quentin Durward gives a picture of life in the corps as it was under Louis XI. In the following century, however, its regimental history becomes somewhat confused. Two French companies were added by Louis XI. and Francis I. and the Gardes du Corps came to consist exclusively of cavalry. About 1634 nearly all the Scots then serving went into the “regiment d’Hébron” and thence later into the British regular army (see Hepburn, Sir John). Thereafter, though the titles, distinctions and privileges of the original Archer Guard were continued, it was recruited from native Frenchmen, preference being (at any rate at first) given to those of Scottish descent. At its disbandment in 1791 along with the rest of the Gardes du Corps, it contained few, if any, native Scots. There was also, for a short time (1643–1660), an infantry regiment of Gardes écossaises.
In 1671 the title of Maison Militaire du Roi was applied to that portion of the household that was distinctively military. It came to consist of 4 companies of the Gardes du Corps, 2 companies of Mousquetaires (cavalry) (formed 1622 and 1660), 1 company of Chevaux légers (1570), 1 of Gendarmes de la Maison Rouge, and 1 of Grenadiers à Cheval (1676), with 1 company of Gardes de la Porte and one called the Cent-Suisses, the last two being semi-military. This large establishment, which did not include all the guard regiments, was considerably reduced by the Count of St Germain’s reforms in 1775, all except the Gardes du Corps and the Cent-Suisses being disbanded. The whole of the Maison du Roi, with the exception of the semi-military bodies referred to, was cavalry.
The Gardes françaises, formed in 1563, did not form part of the Maison. They were an infantry regiment, as were the famous Gardes suisses, originally a Swiss mercenary regiment in the Wars of Religion, which was, for good conduct at the combat of Arques, incorporated in the permanent establishment by Henry IV. in 1589 and in the guards in 1615. At the Revolution, contrary to expectation, the French Guards sided openly with the Constitutional movement and were disbanded. The Swiss Guards, however, being foreigners, and therefore unaffected by civil troubles, retained their exact discipline and devotion to the court to the day on which they were sacrificed by their master to the bullets of the Marseillais and the pikes of the mob (August 10, 1792). Their tragic fate is commemorated by the well-known monument called the “Lion of Lucerne,” the work of Thorvaldsen, erected near Lucerne in 1821. The “Constitutional,” “Revolutionary” and other guards that were created after the abolition of the Maison and the slaughter of the Swiss are unimportant, but through the “Directory Guards” they form a nominal link between the household troops of the monarchy and the corps which is perhaps the most famous “Guard” in history. The Imperial Guard of Napoleon had its beginnings in an escort squadron called the Corps of Guides, which accompanied him in the Italian campaign of 1796–1797 and in Egypt. On becoming First Consul in 1799 he built up out of this and of the guard of the Directory a small corps of horse and foot, called the Consular Guard, and this, which was more of a fighting unit than a personal bodyguard, took part in the battle of Marengo. The Imperial Guard, into which it was converted on the establishment of the Empire, was at first of about the strength of a division. As such it took part in the Austerlitz and Jena campaigns, but after the conquest of Prussia Napoleon augmented it, and divided it into the “Old Guard” and the “Young Guard.” Subsequently the “Middle Guard” was created, and by successive augmentations the corps of the guard had grown to be 57,000 strong in 1811–1812 and 81,000 in 1813. It preserved its general character as a corps d’élite of veterans to the last, but from about 1813 the “Young Guard” was recruited directly from the best of the annual conscript contingent. The officers held a higher rank in the army than their regimental rank in the Guards. At the first Restoration an attempt was made to revive the Maison du Roi, but in the constitutional régime of the second Restoration this semi-medieval form of bodyguard was given up and replaced by the Garde Royale, a selected fighting corps. This took part in the short war with Spain and a portion of it fought in Algeria, but it was disbanded at the July Revolution. Louis Philippe had no real guard troops, but the memories of the Imperial Guard were revived by Napoleon III., who formed a large guard corps in 1853–1854. This, however, was open to an even greater degree than Napoleon I.’s guard to the objection that it took away the best soldiers from the line. Since the fall of the Empire in 1870 there have been no guard troops in France. The duty of watching over the safety of the president is taken in the ordinary roster of duty by the troops stationed in the capital. The “Republican Guard” is the Paris gendarmerie, recruited from old soldiers and armed and trained as a military body.
In Austria-Hungary there are only small bodies of household troops (Archer Body Guard, Trabant Guard, Hungarian Crown Guards, &c.) analogous to the British Gentlemen at Arms or Yeomen of the Guard. Similar forces, the “Noble Guard” and the “Swiss Guard,” are maintained in the Vatican. The court troops of Spain are called “halberdiers” and armed with the halbert.
In Russia the Guard is organized as an army corps. It possesses special privileges, particularly as regards officers’ advancement.
In Germany the distinction between armed retainers and “Guards” is well marked. The army is for practical purposes a unit under imperial control, while household troops (“castle-guards” as they are usually called) belong individually to the various sovereigns within the empire. The “Guards,” as a combatant force in the army are those of the king of Prussia and constitute a strong army corps. This has grown gradually from a bodyguard of archers, and, as in Great Britain, the functions of the heavy cavalry regiments of the Guard preserve to some extent the name and character of a body guard (Gardes du Corps). The senior foot guard regiment is also personally connected with the royal family. The conversion of a palace-guard to a combatant force is due chiefly to Frederick William I., to whom drill was a ruling passion, and who substituted effective regiments for the ornamental “Trabant Guards” of his father. A further move was made by Frederick the Great in substituting for Frederick William’s expensive “giant” regiment of guards a larger number of ordinary soldiers, whom he subjected to the same rigorous training and made a corps d’élite. Frederick the Great also formed the Body Guard alluded to above. Nevertheless in 1806 the Guard still consisted only of two cavalry regiments and four infantry regiments, and it was the example of Napoleon’s imperial guard which converted this force into a corps of all arms. In 1813 its strength was that of a weak division, but in 1860 by slight but frequent augmentations it had come to consist of an army corps, complete with all auxiliary services. A few guard
- ↑ The “Irish Guards” of the Stuarts took the side of James II., fought against William III. in Ireland and lost their regimental identity in the French service to which the officers and soldiers transferred themselves on the abandonment of the struggle.
