The French Infantry Division (french: 1e Division d'Infanterie, 1e DI) was one of the oldest divisions of the

French army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed For ...

History

1800 - 1940

It fought in almost all French campaigns of the 19th and 20th century. The First Division was led in 1805 by

Pierre Dupont de l'Étang Pierre-Antoine, comte Dupont de l'Étang (4 July 1765 – 9 March 1840) was a French general of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, as well as a political figure of the Bourbon Restoration. Life Revolutionary Wars Born in Chabanais, ...

and participated in the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

, including the

Russian campaign The French invasion of Russia, also known as the Russian campaign, the Second Polish War, the Army of Twenty nations, and the Patriotic War of 1812 was launched by Napoleon Bonaparte to force the Russian Empire back into the continental block ...

and the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

. Between 1859-1862 it was under command of

Élie Frédéric Forey Élie Frédéric Forey (10 January 180420 June 1872) was a Marshal of France. Biography Elie Frédéric Forey was born in Paris. He studied at the French military academy Saint-Cyr and was commissioned a lieutenant in the 2nd Light Infantry Regi ...

and fought in the

Second Italian War of Independence The Second Italian War of Independence, also called the Franco-Austrian War, the Austro-Sardinian War or Italian War of 1859 ( it, Seconda guerra d'indipendenza italiana; french: Campagne d'Italie), was fought by the Second French Empire and t ...

.
At the start of the Franco-Prussian War, the Division was led by

Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot (24 February 1817 – 16 August 1882) was a French general. Ducrot served in the Crimean War, Algeria, the Italian campaign of 1859, and as a division commander in the Franco-Prussian War. At the outbreak of the Franco- ...

and suffered a defeat at the

Battle of Wissembourg (1870) The Battle of Wissembourg or Battle of Weissenburg,, german: Schlacht bei Weißenburg the first of the Franco-Prussian War, was joined when three German army corps surprised the small French garrison at Wissembourg on 4 August 1870. T ...

. At the beginning of the First World War, it was mobilised in the 1st Military Region and formed part of the 1st Army Corps from August 1914 to November 1918. In 1935, it was reformed into the 1st Motorised Infantry Division (1st DIM) and fought as such in the

Battle of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...

, after which it was disbanded on 10 June 1940. It had been rename 1st Light Infantry Division 5 days earlier.

Recreation in 1944-45

From November 1944, the division was reconstituted in

Bourges Bourges () is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre. It is the capital of the department of Cher, and also was the capital city of the former province of Berry. History The name of the commune derives either from the Bituriges, t ...

(France) from former elements of the

French forces of the interior The French Forces of the Interior (french: Forces françaises de l'Intérieur) were French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II. Charles de Gaulle used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation ...

(FFI) from the Lille region.
Its commander was Jean Callies.
The ex-FFI battalions were renamed : *1st infantry regiment, *43rd infantry regiment, *110th infantry regiment, *15th artillery regiment, *12th mounted chasseurs regiment. The infantry and artillery regiments voluntarily took the same name as the units of the 1st DIM of 1940. The division was initially equipped with ex-German equipment, former French army equipment (such as Hotchkiss H35 tanks and H39 to the 12th Chasseurs) and British equipment, in particular that supplied to the FFI units engaged in the Siege of Dunkirk. It was only partially re-equipped by the Americans, following political friction between de Gaulle and US President Truman. It only reached its theoretical strength of 16,150 men in September 1945. In April 1945, it was placed at the disposal of the 1st French Army and was engaged at the end of April and the beginning of May in the region of

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

.
Later it operated on the left bank of the Danube, to clear the rear of the 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division. In July 1945, the division moved to French-occupied

Saarland The Saarland (, ; french: Sarre ) is a state of Germany in the south west of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and ...

. It was dissolved in April 1946.

Sources

* This article is translated from French Wikipedia {{French Army Divisions Infantry divisions of France Military units and formations established in 1944 Military units and formations disestablished in 1940 Military units and formations disestablished in 1946

History

1800 - 1940

Recreation in 1944-45

See also

Sources