These Chasseurs were applied in the Austrian service as
light troops, and so great was their efficiency against the Prussians
that Frederick the Great was compelled, in his turn, to organize a
battalion of Chasseur sharp-shooters. France followed suit, in the
course of the eighteenth century, and called into existence various
corps of the same description, under different names. These, however,
were but short-lived, although some of them, for instance, the Grassin
Legion, acquired quite a reputation.
Finally came the French Revolution. The troops of the Republic were
more remarkable for courage and enthusiasm than for tactics and drill.
They usually attacked as skirmishers,--a system which may be employed
successfully by even the most regularly disciplined armies, but which
is sometimes more especially useful to raw troops, because it
gives the private soldier an opportunity to compensate by personal
intelligence for the lack of thorough instruction. Struck by the
aptitude of the French recruits for that kind of fighting, the
Convention, in reorganizing the army, decreed the formation of some
half-brigades of light infantry. The picked men were to be armed with
the new weapon, and received the name of _Carabiniers_.
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