France
In the French Army, under the Ancien régime, the officer in charge of all the regiments of a particular branch of service (i. e. infantry, cavalry, dragoons, Swiss troops, etc.) was known as the colonel general. This was not a rank, but an office of the Crown.
Read more about this topic: Colonel General
Famous quotes containing the word france:
“Springtime for Hitler and Germany,
Winter for France and Poland.”
—Mel Brooks (b. 1926)
“But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“The bugle-call to arms again sounded in my war-trained ear, the bayonets gleamed, the sabres clashed, and the Prussian helmets and the eagles of France stood face to face on the borders of the Rhine.... I remembered our own armies, my own war-stricken country and its dead, its widows and orphans, and it nerved me to action for which the physical strength had long ceased to exist, and on the borrowed force of love and memory, I strove with might and main.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)