5e Régiment Chasseurs à Cheval

Many French regiments, infantry or cavalry, manage to find some tenuous link back to regiments of the ancien regime. The 5e Chasseurs à Cheval  is no exception tracing their lineage  back as far as 1675 from a number of Gascon irregular units. Over the next one hundred and eleven years it served as dragoons named after ten different colonel patrons. In 1788 it was converted to Chasseurs à Cheval as the Chasseurs du Hainaut. Renamed the 5e Chasseurs à Cheval it served in the Revolutionary Wars, earning honours at Valmy, Zurich and Hohenlinden. Under  Napoleon it fought at Austerlitz and Friedland. It served in Spain from  1808-1813, returning to serve with the Emperor again at Leipzig and in the 1814 campaign.

After the Hundred Days it was renamed the Régiment Chasseurs du Cantal, before regaining its name as the 5e Régiment and serving in Spanish expedition of 1823. A brief period of service in Algeria followed in the late 1840s, but it saw no service in the campaigns of the Second Empire until 1870 where it was lightly engaged at Saarbrücken and Spicheren. The regiment took part in the counter-charge at Rezonville that repelled von Bredow's charge, and it recovered the standard of the 93e Régiment that Bredow's uhlans had taken during the charge.

Not engaged again until 1914 it earned honours at l'Ourcq in 1914 and l'Avre and la Marne in 1918.

Colonel Gombaud de Séréville

Commanding the regiment in 1870 was 48 year old Colonel Gombaud de Séréville. A graduate of St Cyr he served in the cavalry during his entire career, commencing as a lieutenant in the 8e Chasseurs à Cheval in 1844, then transferring to the prestigious Carabiniers four years later. With the rank of major he served with the 11e Chasseurs à Cheval before promotion to chef d'escadrons in the 1er Hussars in 1865, with whom he served in North Africa and was wounded twice in the Combat at Ben Attab, in Oran Provence. As lieutenant colonel he served in quick succession in the 6e cuirassiers and then back with the 1er Hussars before taking another prestigious post with the Empress Dragoons in 1868. Made colonel in 1869 he took command of the 5e Chasseurs à Cheval for the 1870 campaign in which he was awarded the lègion d'honneur. Captured at Metz he returned to his regiment from internment in Lubeck at the conclusion of the war and participated in the suppression of the Commune in Lyon in 1871. Made general de brigade in 1875 he retired from the army in 1881 and died in 1892.

For my 5e Chasseurs à Cheval I had to convert the headgear again to give them  the talpac instead of the kepi. They also wear the green jacket instead of the light blue 1868 jacket. 

The completion of this regiment finishes Valbrégue's Brigade and marks the end of work on the French cavalry until the dragoons and Cuirassiers are released.