With this list, the French Foreign Legion, we complete the full suite of army lists for use with Chain of Command:Abyssinia. The Légion Étrangère (Foreign Legion) are perhaps the most well-known French infantry formation. The Thirties had seen them relegated...
The French had been using camel-mounted troops in North Africa for some time. With typical patrol areas equivalent to travelling from London to Naples and back (2,500 miles), they had proven ideal for ‘flying the flag’ in the remote desert...
The mounted counterpart of the Zouaves and Colonial Infantry formations, the Chasseurs were formed from settler conscripts and career French volunteers and officers. While the intention was that at some future point the units would be mechanised cavalry, complete with...
The role of cavalry in French doctrine was that of reconnaissance and maintaining security of the flank and rear of the infantry. Infantry divisions in France each had a groupe de reconnaissance de division d’infanterie (GRDI) and terminology aside these were simply...
French organisation and tactics had progressed little from those of the Great War, other than to incorporate the use of motor vehicles and armoured fighting vehicles, such as they were at that time. While this might sound somewhat conservative to...
6th Battalion Royal Tank Corps was created by amalgamating, two of the RTC’s independent armoured car companies in 1934. ‘Armoured car company’ was a misnomer as only one unit actually had armoured cars, which were subsequently surrendered for re-deployment. The...
In 1935 the 8th Hussars were selected to be one of the three cavalry regiments in Egypt to be mechanised. They dutifully surrendered their horses to the remount depot following their last mounted parade on Armistice Day (11th November) 1935....
The British empire, and the very nature of the conflict in The Abyssinian Crisis, brought forth troops acclimated and best able to handle the conditions in Ethiopia. This involved the Askari forces of the empire, be they from British Somaliland,...
The British army in The Abyssinian Crisis is next. Taking a close look at the interwar army of Britain you will most certainly find a different beast to what you think. Neither the army of the Great War nor the one...
The Ethiopian Imperial Guard, Kebur Zabanga, was formed by a Belgian Military Mission in 1928 at Emperor Haile Selassie’s request. This was as much to secure his grip on power as it was to modernise his army. A subsequent Swedish military...
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