Franc Tireur - Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War

Francs-tireurs were an outgrowth of rifle clubs or unofficial military societies formed in the east of France at the time of the Luxembourg crisis of 1867 (see History of Luxembourg). The members were chiefly concerned with the practice of rifle-shooting. In case of war, they were expected to act as militia or light troops. They wore no uniforms, but they armed themselves with the best existing rifles, and elected their own officers.

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica described them as "at once a valuable asset to the armed strength of France and a possible menace to internal order under military discipline." The societies strenuously and effectively resisted all efforts to bring them under normal military discipline. The Germans executed captured francs-tireurs as irregular, armed non-combatants, essentially what also came to be called guerrillas.

In July 1870, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, the French Minister of War assumed control over the societies to organize them for field service. It was not until November 4, by which time the levée en masse (universal conscription) was in force, that the militias were placed under the orders of the generals in the field. They were sometimes organized in large bodies and incorporated in the mass of the armies, but more usually they continued to work in small bands, blowing up culverts on the invaders' lines of communication, cutting off small reconnaissance parties, surprising small posts, etc.

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica describes it as "now acknowledged, even by the Germans", that the francs-tireurs, by these relatively unconventional tactics, "paralysed large detachments of the enemy, contested every step of his advance (as in the Loire campaign), and prevented him from gaining information, and that their soldierly qualities improved with experience."

Francs-tireurs blew up the Moselle railway bridge at Fontenoy, January 22, 1871. The defense of Châteaudun (October 18, 1870) was conducted by francs-tireurs of Cannes and Nantes, along with Lipowski's Paris corps.

The German armies and popular press vilified the francs-tireurs as murderers and highwaymen; the insurgents seemed to have a sense of the most vulnerable parts of the German armies in France. The Germans reacted to ambush by francs-tireurs with harsh reprisals against the nearest village or town, where they killed civilians. Whole regiments or divisions often took part in "pacifying actions" in areas with significant franc-tireur activity; this created a lasting enmity and hatred between the occupying German soldiers and French civilians.