Marching regiment

A regiment de marche (roughly 'marching regiment' in English) is a French temporary (provisional not permanent), regiment created for a specific campaign or other military purpose. Clayton describes a "batallion de marche" as comprising the 'fit trained personnel' of all the battalions from a two to three battalion regiment. This creation of a provisional unit may be undertaken because of manpower shortages on mobilisation if new drafts of conscripts and volunteers had not yet arrived. As a terminology, this is similar to the "(Service) Battalion" designation in use in the British Army in 1914-15 onwards. Such battalions were for war service only, having a temporary nature, like that of the :fr:Bataillon de marche concept of the French Army. Marching battalions may also be created from: units which have become disorganized, by drafting soldiers from depots, garrisons or discharged from hospitals; or from contingents of new recruits not yet formed into regular units or from reservists; foreign contingents and Troupes coloniales. Other designations used are marching battalions (Bataillons de Marche) or Marching Squadrons (Escadrons de Marche), or marching brigades comprising several regiments. The concept of marching units was used throughout the 19th and 20th centuries in the French Army and its associated military systems. Under the First French Empire, the designation of Provisional Regiment was used to identify a regiment created by levies from different regular units, or from garrison troops. In the 20th century however only the term regiment de marche continued to be used. The first marching regiments appeared during the Napoleonic Wars. The Spanish War (guerre d'Espagne) saw heavy casualties amongst the regular French units involved and in 1808 Napoleon I authorised the creation of marching regiments to replace these losses. Napoleon I designated "provisional regiments" for specific assignments as well as "marching regiments" intended for deployment outside France. These ad hoc units might also be used to bring metropolitan garrisons up to strength.