Carabinier
The carbine was considered a more appropriate firearm for a horseman than a full-length musket, since it was shorter in length, weighed less, and was easier to manipulate on horseback.
In Italy and Spain, carbines were considered suitable equipment for soldiers with policing roles, so the term carabinier evolved to sometimes denote gendarmes and border guards.
In 1810, French Carabiniers were equipped like cuirassiers, with helmets and cuirasses (though these were of brass and brass-skinned iron), and they were no longer issued carbines.
The descendants of one such regiment survived as the 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales's Dragoon Guards) until 1971, when it was amalgamated with the Royal Scots Greys.
Accordingly, no regiment bears the title today, although the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards are sub-titled "Carabiniers and Greys".
The Belgian Land Component includes a Regiment des Carabiniers, which saw service against the German invaders in August 1914 still dressed in its 19th century uniform complete with a form of top hat.
The regiment, along with the cavalry of the Spanish Royal Guard, was reformed at Valladolid by General Gregorio García de la Cuesta by which time they were numbered scarcely more than a squadron, and were given the pick of some 5,000 volunteers.
[17] Although their original role was that of a mounted police similar to the Gendarmes, as combat troops they first took the form of separate companies within each cavalry regiments on 29 October 1691 under Louis XIV.
They were also distinguished by Napoleon with a brass overlay on the iron cuirasses[26] after suffering heavy casualties in the 1809 campaign, but were no longer equipped with carbines.
[33] The 1-11e Régiment de Cuirassiers of the modern French Army can accordingly trace its origin, in part, to the 19th Century Carabiniers.
[38] Known in the British Army as "The Carbs", the regiment survived as the 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales's Dragoon Guards) until 1971 when it was amalgamated with the Royal Scots Greys[38] during the Palace of Holyrood House parade in July 1971.
[43] The Dutch mounted karabiniers date back to 2nd (Heavy) Cavalry regiment raised in the 1680s, however they briefly ceased to exist during the period of the Batavian Republic.
[45] The Allied order of battle at the Battle of Waterloo included the Netherlands Cavalry Division (Divisie Cavalerie) commanded by Lieutenant-Generaal Jean Alphonse Baron de Collaert, which, in turn, included a brigade of three Karabinier regiments newly raised from the cuirassiers of the Dutch contribution to the Napoleonic La Grande Armée: All three regiments along with the dragoons of the Guard became dragoons in 1849.
However, Emperor Paul I, who intensely disliked any reminder of his mother’s reign, renamed six into dragoons and the remainder into cuirassiers.
The short-lived Westphalian army of 1807–14 created by Napoleon as an allied force for service with the Grande Armée, included a unit of the Royal Guard designated as the Jäger Carabiniers Battalion.
The Natal Carbineers saw service in a counter-insurgency capacity in northern Namibia (South West Africa) for three months from August 1976, and thereafter in numerous modular deployments over the next decade until 1989.
The Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC) were a short-lived, multinational mounted infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in South Africa during the Second Boer War.
[58] Both a military and a police corps, the Carabinieri have fought in every conflict in which Italy has been involved in since 1871, suffering heavy losses and being awarded many decorations for gallantry.
[clarification needed] In recent years, Carabinieri units have been dispatched on peacekeeping missions, including Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
This para-military force was created in the 19th century under the Spanish monarchy, performing the role of frontier guards especially in the Pyrenees.
After the war the victorious Nationalist Government disbanded the Carabineros and replaced them for frontier duties with units of the Civil Guard.
[61] Carabineros de Chile are the uniformed Chilean national military police force The first policing organization with the name "Carabiniers" was the Corps of Carabiniers, in Spanish Cuerpo de Carabineros, formed in 1903 to bring law and order to the historic Araucanía region of Southern Chile.
[63] The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moldova maintains a gendarmerie-type force affiliated with the Moldovan National Army known as the Trupele de Carabinieri, which is the Romanian language name for Carabiniers.
