Francs-tireurs

Francs-tireurs (fʁɑ̃.ti.ʁœʁ, French for "free shooters") were irregular military formations deployed by France during the early stages of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). The term was revived and used by partisans to name two major French Resistance movements set up to fight against the Nazi Germans during World War II. The term is sometimes used to refer more generally to guerrilla fighters who operate outside the laws of war. During the wars of the French Revolution, a franc-tireur was a member of a corps of light infantry organized separately from the regular army. The Spanish word francotirador, the Portuguese word franco-atirador and the Italian word franco tiratore, meaning sharpshooter or sniper, are derived from the word franc-tireur. Francs-tireurs were an outgrowth of rifle-shooting clubs or unofficial military societies formed in the east of France at the time of the Luxembourg crisis of 1867. The members were chiefly concerned with the practise 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. 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 4 November, 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.