Italeri 6043 French Infantry

France was closely watching the war between the nascent United States and Great Britain which broke out in 1775. The then king of France, Louis XVI of the Bourbon dynasty saw in this war a great opportunity to take a rematch on Albion for the defeat of his country during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). This motif probably prevailed in 1778, when France supported the US militarily and politically in the War of Independence, and the first clashes - initially between the navies of both countries - took place in the summer of the same year. It is worth adding here that the French infantry underwent a series of reforms after the defeats of the Seven Years' War. First of all, training was standardized in all regiments, with a lot of emphasis on shooting training, infantry rifles were also modernized and uniforms were even more uniform. From 1776, efforts were also made to unify the structure of the French infantry regiments, aiming at each of them to have two battalions, and a single battalion to have 963 officers and soldiers in a line. In total, along with the staff and services, the French infantry regiment numbered about 1990 people. The reformed French infantry played a significant role in the American Revolutionary War, and the French contributed greatly to the American victories at Savannah (1777) or - especially - at Yorktown (1781), where they constituted almost half of the forces fighting the British.