Tag Archives: Régiment de Tirailleurs Sénégalais du Tchad

Au Revoir Tchad

Posted on by Leave a comment

The Republic of Chad, a French colony from 1900 with the defeat of Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr at the one-sided Battle of Kousssri (4,500 Sudanese casualties to 103 French), to 1960 when it gained independence, was long key to the Republic’s control of Equatorial and North Africa.

On 26 August 1940, just two months after the fall of metropolitan France to the Axis, Chad was the first French territory in Africa to break with the Vichy government and join De Gaulle’s Free French movement.

Its local garrison, the Senegalese infantry regiment of Chad (Régiment de Tirailleurs Sénégalais du Tchad, RTST), formed the hard kernel that would become Leclerc’s 2e DB division that he would take to Paris and Germany in 1944 and 1945 and is still part of the French Army today, albeit based in Alsace, and led the annual Bastille Day parade in Paris just a couple of years ago.

Free French infantryman, native of the Chad colony, who was awarded the Croix de Guerre, in 1942. Note the tribal face scars. (NARA)

In all, some 15,000 Chadian troops would serve De Gaulle in the push for Liberation.

The Republic remembered, too, and, still patrolling the desert post-WWII, the new nation became a hub for the French Foreign Legion post-1962 after it withdrew from Algeria.

Then, after 1969 when Mummar Qaddafi/Gaddafi overthrew the Libyan king and started getting close to the Soviets, this only increased.

June 10-20, 1978 – Chad. A legionnaire from the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (REC) in his Jeep before setting off on patrol on the Ati track. Ref.: F 78-337 L51A © Roland Pellegrino/ECPAD/Defense

June 10-20, 1978 – Chad A patrol from the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (REC) changes the wheel of an AML 90 near the Chadian village of Alifen. Ref.: F 78-338 LC109 © Roland Pellegrino/ECPAD/Defense

When Libyan troops pushed over the line into the country from the North in 1979, the French supported Chad’s president, Hissene Habre, and over the next decade, with the help of upwards of 3,000 French troops, forced the Libyan army off Chadian soil in the Toyota Wars and Jaguar Diplomacy that followed.

Between 17 February and 26 March 1986 – N’Djamena (Chad) An F1 Mirage armed from the 5th Wing. Réf. : 1 986 072 12 06 © Patrice George/ECPAD/Defense

August 31 – September 7, 1983 – Chad Portrait of a legionnaire from the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (REC) at the Biltine campRéf. F 83-382 LC308 Photo by Bernard Sidler/ECPAD/Défense

Libyan tanks stand abandoned in the desert after being captured by FANT (Forces Armees Nationales Chadiennes), the Chadian National Army, as troops reconquered the Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti region of Chad. The Chadian Army recaptured Faya-Largeau and Wadi Doum airport, where the retreating Libyan army abandoned many dead and a great deal of military equipment, most of it of Soviet manufacture. Libyan planes made a bombing raid on the same day in an attempt to destroy material that had fallen into Chadian hands. Between April 6 and April 10, 1987, Wadi Doum, Chad

Even with Gaddafi gone for more than a decade, the continued instability in Libya to the North, the fight against Boko Haram to the South, and the tension along the 1,400 km border with Sudan to the East, meant a continued– and even welcome– French presence in Chad. 

13 November 2014 – Chad. Caracal EC-725 helicopter in parking, as part of a jump by soldiers of the 3rd Marine Infantry Parachutist Regiment (3rd RPIMa). Ref. : 2014TMLI004_038_080 © Didier Blanchet/ECPAD/Defense. Groupement Tactique Désert Est (GTDE) a embarqué à bord d’un C130 (Hercule) en vue d’effectuer un saut au dessus du TCHAD. 3 sticks ont été formé, le C130 a ainsi effectué 3 largages sur les terres arides du TCHAD.

Now, following the election of Gen. Mahamat Idriss Déby, son of the late strongman Gen. Idriss Déby Itno (who served as Chad’s president from 1991 to 2021), apparently, the good times are over and the country is moving to “fully assert its sovereignty” and is demanding the departure of the 1,000 French troops left in the country, as it leans closer to Russia.

Chad earlier this year sent a 70-member U.S. Army SF det home from a training mission in the country, although talks were apparently looking good a few months ago to send them back. Maybe not after this. 

Notably, the French have been kicked out of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso in recent months, signaling a much smaller role for the traditional “Gendarme of Africa.”

Happy Bastille Day

Posted on by 2 comments

14 July 1910. Béni Ounif, Bechar, Algeria. Parade of Senegalese Tirailleurs on the occasion of the Bastille Day celebrations there:

Réf. : D0388-121-003-0639 Jules Imbert/ECPAD/Défense

As detailed previously, Senegal– a traditional French ally who provided the Republic the use of the famed Tirailleurs Sénégalais for twin World Wars (where 200,000 served in the first and 140,000 in the second) as well as Algeria and Vietnam Indochina– produced some of the most reliable of French colonial troops for generations.

1940 uniform of Régiment de Tirailleurs Sénégalais du Tchad, via the Musee d’la Armee

These hardy Senegalese riflemen were stationed throughout France, Asia, and Africa, where their descendants often endure in their own unique enclaves.

Senegalese Tirailleurs from a March 1913, newspaper colour supplement

The first Senegalese Tirailleurs were recruited in 1857 while the last had their contracts expire in the French Army in 1965, six years after the independence of Senegal and the French Soudan. At their peak in 1917, they formed no less than 89 battalions.

As for Béni Ounif, today it is a desert border town on the Algeria–Morocco border and is probably best known for the brutal 1999 massacre by guerillas who stopped a bus at a fake roadblock, slashed 23 throats, then reportedly faded back into the Moroccan interior.

Odds are a company of Tirailleurs would have put a quick halt to that. Just saying. 

Bon 14 juillet à tous! (With Echos to 1941)

Posted on by One comment

Of interest to military history buffs, the 4,400-strong French military parade down les champs Élysée to celebrate the 232nd anniversary of Bastille Day yesterday was led by a 232-member company of the famed “Les marsouins de Leclerc” of the Régiment de Marche du Tchad or RMT.

Régiment de marche du Tchad leading the parade. Respect aux anciens, et vive la France!

The full, 2 hour parade: 

As discussed before here, today’s RMT shares the lineage of the old Senegalese colonial infantry regiment of Chad (Régiment de Tirailleurs Sénégalais du Tchad, RTST), from which a young Major Philippe Hauteclocque (under the nom de guerre, Leclerc) handpicked a column of 400 to strike out from that rare Free French colony against the key oasis of Koufra in Italian Libya in January 1941. They went on to win other honors fighting alongside the Allies at Fezzan (1942), Tunisia (1943) Alençon (1944), Paris (1944), and Strasbourg (1944).

Les marsouins de Leclerc is also the name of a popular French military graphic novel series covering the regiment’s history, from “Koufra to Kabul.”

Those who are students of military history will also appreciate the irony that the RMT is carrying France’s new infantry rifle, the Heckler und Koch HK416. Seen here in rehearsals last week: 

Also note they wear the fouled anchor badge of the Troupes de Marine on their kepi, although they are a mechanized infantry regiment in the French Army, another throwback to the old colonial days. Their unit patch is the old Free French Lorraine Cross. 

Vale, Idriss Déby, Emir of the Toyota Wars

Posted on by 3 comments

The Chadian government last week reported that recently reelected six-time president (!) Idriss Déby, 68, died of injuries following clashes with rebels in the north of the country at the weekend. Deby’s son, leader of the Presidental Guard, has been installed as the country’s leader.

The Deby government came to power in 1990 as part of a military coup while he was head of the military. Although we aren’t in the habit of celebrating African authoritarian strongmen, it should be noted that Deby was a legend of asymmetric warfare.

He was the head of the Chadian National Armed Forces (FANT) during the Toyota Wars of the 1980s.

Trained in a series of French officer schools to include the prestigious École de Guerre, Deby’s Mad Max-style troopers pulled off a French-funded Deserts Rats-esque campaign against Gaddafi’s set-piece Libyan armored columns in Chad’s northern deserts, pitting 400 Milan- and machine gun-armed technicals against T-54s– and coming out on top. 

Since literally taking office 30 years ago, Deby has remained a big friend to Paris in backing up the old colonizer’s fight against Islamists on the Continent and setting up Chad as the model of stability in the region. 

With that, there should be no surprise that France– who has long looked the other way on Chad’s intermittent border clashes with Nigeria– is supporting the Chadian military’s seizure of power following Deby’s death on the battlefield.

Speaking of which…

Chad and France have a unique bond that goes back to WWII.

On 26 August 1940, just two months after the fall of metropolitan France to the Axis, Chad was the first French territory in Africa to break with the Vichy government and join De Gaulle’s Free French movement.

With the blessing of colonial governor Felix Ebouse and Lt. Col Pierre Marchand, commander of the Senegalese infantry regiment of Chad (Régiment de Tirailleurs Sénégalais du Tchad, RTST), the local unit, DeGaulle sent a young Major Philippe Hauteclocque (under the nom de guerre, Leclerc) who handpicked a column of 400 to strike out from the colony against the key oasis of Koufra in Italian Libya in January 1941 to aid the British push in the Western Desert.

1940 uniform of Régiment de Tirailleurs Sénégalais du Tchad, via the Musee d’la Armee

Free French infantryman, a native of the Chad colony, who was awarded the Croix de Guerre, 1942 for combat in North Africa. Note the tribal face scars, British helmet, and fouled anchor insignia common to French colonial troops (NARA)

Leclerc’s truck-borne unit, augmented by some old armored cars and a couple of 75mm guns, kicked the Italian Sahariana di Cufra around the desert for two months and, upon victory, which was hugely symbolic to the Free French, Leclerc and his men (some 3/4ths were Africans from Chad), took the so-called “Koufra Oath,” promising not to lay down their arms until the Free French flag flew from the Strasbourg Cathedral.

Fast forward to 23 November 1944 and Leclerc, then general in charge of his own armored division of Sherman tanks and on his way to becoming a Marshal of France, liberated Strasbourg.

The Régiment de Marche du Tchad still exists in the modern French Army today, based in Meyenheim in Alsace, as a mechanized infantry unit of some 1,200 soldiers. 

Keeping that in mind, the odds of the French ever quitting Chad are somewhat lower than zero.