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Updated: June 7, 2025
The French tirailleurs, who were posted in clouds in La Haye Sainte, and the sheltered spots near it, picked off the artillerymen of the English batteries near them: and taking advantage of the disabled state of the English guns, the French brought some field-pieces up to La Haye Sainte, and commenced firing grape from them on the infantry of the Allies, at a distance of not more than a hundred paces.
In 1916 there was an attempted jail delivery of political prisoners in Saigon, but the plot was discovered before it could be put into execution, the ring-leaders arrested, and thirty-eight of them condemned to death. They were executed in batches of four, kneeling, blind-folded, lashed to stakes. The firing party consisted of a platoon of Annamite tirailleurs.
They carried the batteries, and at day break the heights were to be seen covered with their battalions, before whom were thrown out a considerable body of tirailleurs, or riflemen.
A morass or small lagoon cut the fortification off in rear from the mainland. It was a position which could not easily have been carried by assault, but was indefensible against cannon. The Senegalese Tirailleurs forming the garrison were paraded for their inspection. There appeared to be about 120 of them, all stalwart, soldierly fellows, beside whom the Frenchmen looked shrunken and diminutive.
These brave fellows were rescued by the 44th, who, throwing in a withering volley, fixed bayonets and charged. Meanwhile the 95th had won and lost the wood, which, now in the possession of the French tirailleurs, threatened to turn the left of our position. It was at this time that a body of cavalry were seen standing to the left of the Enghien road, as if in observation.
Others advised and encouraged them, forgetting that they were out of reach of hearing. Several volleys of smoke, ascending from amidst the black mass of horses, prolonged the uncertainty. Some cried out, that it was our men firing, and still defending themselves, and that they were not yet beat. In fact, a Russian commanding officer had just been killed by the officer commanding these tirailleurs.
General Vachet, with a corps of 'tirailleurs', marched on his right, ready to advance to the Place Victoire. General Brune marched to the Perron, and planted two howitzers at the upper end of the Rue Vivienne. General Duvigier, with his column of six hundred men, and two twelve-pounders, advanced to the streets of St. Roch and Montmartre.
"You are poetic, mon General," said Claude de Chanrellon; "but you are true. We are a furnace in which Blackguardism is burned into Dare-devilry, and turned out as Heroism. A fine manufacture that, and one at which France has no equal." "But our manufactures keep the original hall mark, and show that the devil made them if the drill have molded them!" urged a Colonel of Tirailleurs Indigenes.
On approaching we discovered a detachment of Tirailleurs from Algiers, sitting in groups, and the "poppies" were the red fezes of the men a gorgeous blending of crimson and gold. We threw a large box of cigarettes to them and were greeted with shouts of joy and thanks. The Tirailleurs are the enfants terribles of the French Army.
A low brushwood covered the ground in certain places; and here I perceived but few of the cavalry had penetrated, while the infantry were all tirailleurs of the Russian Guard, bayoneted by our advancing columns. As I approached the lake the ground became more rugged and uneven; and I was about to turn back, when my eye caught the faint glimmering of a light reflected in the water.
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