Cuirassier
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Cuirassiers were mounted cavalry soldiers equipped with armor and firearms, first appearing in late 15th-century Europe. They were the successors of the medieval armored knights. The term is derived from cuirass, the breastplate armor which they wore.
The first cuirassiers did not appear very different from the medieval knights; they wore full-body armor, and the only items of equipment which differentiated them from knights were leather riding boots and the use of wheel-lock pistols, in addition to lances and swords.
Cuirassiers wore armour long after it had become superfluous in the face of the ever-increasing use of firearms. However, the extent of the armor worn was gradually decreased so that, by the end of the 17th century, it was comprised only of a breastplate (the cuirass or plastron), the backplate (carapace), and the helmet.
The first recorded cuirassiers were formed as 100-man strong regiments of Austrian kyrissers recruited from Croatia in 1484 to serve the future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian. They fought the Swedes and their allies in 1632 in Lũtzen and killed the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf. The French introduced their own cuirassiers in 1666. By 1705, the Holy Roman Emperor's personal forces in Austria included twenty cuirassier regiments. Imperial Russia formed its own cuirassier regiments in 1732, including a Leib Guards regiment. The Russian cuirassier units took part in the Russo-Turkish War.
Cuirassiers played a prominent role in the armies of Frederick the Great of Prussia and of Napoleon I of France. The latter increased the number of French cuirassier regiments to 14 by the end of his reign.
Cuirassiers were generally the senior branch of the mounted arm retaining their status as heavy cavalry - "Big men on big horses". While their value as a heavy striking force in Napoleon's campaigns ensured the continued use of a number of cuirassier regiments in the French and Prussian armies during the nineteenth century, the expense and inflexiblity of this arm limited their existence in other countries to Guard units.
In 1914 there were still cuirassiers in the German army (10 regiments including the Gardes du Corps and the Garde-Kurassiers); the French (12 regiments) and the Russian (three regiments, all of the Imperial Guard). The German and Russian cuirassiers had by the end of the nineteenth century come to retain their breastplates only as part of their peacetime parade dress but the French regiments wore the cuirass (with a cloth cover) and plumed helmet on active service during the first weeks of World War I. The three Household Cavalry regiments of the British Army (1st and 2nd Life Guards and Royal Horse Guards)had adopted cuirasses after the Napoleonic Wars as part of their full dress but never had occasion to wear this armour in battle.
The Russian and German cuirassiers ceased to exist with the overthrow of the Imperial regimes in both countries (February 1917 and November 1918 respectively). The French cuirassiers continued in existence after World War I but with their numbers reduced to six regiments. These were amongst the first mounted cavalry in the French Army to be mechanised during the 1930s. One cuirassier regiment still forms part of the French Army - the 1er-11e regiment de cuirassiers based at Carpiagre.
A few present-day mounted cavalry units continue to use cuirasses as part of their parade equipment on formal occasions. None however retain the actual title of "cuirassiers". These are the Life Guards and Blues and Royals of the British Household Cavalry; the Lanceros del Rey of the Spanish Royal Guard (raised in 1987); and the Italian Corazzieri, the honour guard of the President of the Italian Republic.
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