Senegalese Tirailleurs

The Senegalese Tirailleurs were a corps of colonial infantry in the French Army. They were initially recruited from Saint-Louis, Senegal, the initial colonial capital city of French West Africa and subsequently throughout Western, Central and Eastern Africa: the main sub-Saharan regions of the French colonial empire. The noun tirailleur, which translates variously as 'skirmisher', 'rifleman', or 'sharpshooter', was a designation given by the French Army to indigenous infantry recruited in the various colonies and overseas possessions of the French Empire during the 19th and 20th centuries.