For several centuries, strategies for defending and attacking bastions during wars have always necessitated the intervention of engineers, either to study and put up fortifications or to destroy them.
Such was already the practice during the Gallo-Roman wars as well as in the Middle Ages when palisades and ramparts were erected to protect cities.
Meanwhile, man has equally been busy destroying them using all sorts of war devices such as battering rams for breaking doors, mobile siege-towers, ramps and terraces for crossing ramparts, ballista and catapults for launching heavy projectiles.
It was in 1692, during the reign of Louis XIV that Vauban, the king’s engineer and a warrior, created the first specialized corps within the artillery, composed of sappers and mine-laying soldiers.
Sebastien Le Prestre
de Vauban
Vauban, using the technique of strengthened fortifications, constructed about 300 fortresses. The Royal Engineering Corps, which saw the light of day in 1758, had over 400 men.
Early XIX century, the Engineering corps became a new structure; not only a service, but a full arm as well. In addition to its fortification-related function, it had to be in charge of opening roads to troops, collaborating with various moving units so as to put up temporary defence structures for them, and even participating in the drawing up of campaign plans. During the 1st Empire, Engineers sappers distinguished themselves in several feats of arms, in Prussia , Spain and Russia , where hundreds of them lost their life while crossing the river Berezina .
Troops of the Engineers again distinguished themselves in the middle of the XIX century during the Crimean War, and in the XX century during the mine-warfare of the First World War and also during the Indochina and Algerian wars.
The evolution of the Engineers arm has been as to respond to the exigencies of modern combat. Within this arm are units in charge of works, which manage the real estate holding of the Army and the Air Force, and combat units endowed with special equipment and devices.
Le 25e régiment du génie de l'air - Tracteurs portant des bétonnières
Devise:"Entreprendre pour aboutir" - 14 juillet 2007 -
Champs Elysées - Paris -
Collection PC FNCV
Engineers units number about ten regiments among which is the 17th RGP, a parachutist regiment stationed at Montauban. The performance of some of these units within the framework of overseas campaigns has been highly laudable, especially when it comes to the highly risky tasks of clearing landmines and providing first aid to civilian victims of mines, munitions and explosives, abandoned during armed conflicts or resulting from terrorist acts.
Engins de terrassement polyvalents du 6e Régiment du Génie
Devise: "Ouvrir la route" - 14 juillet 2007 -
Champs Elysées - Paris -
Collection PC FNCV
Engineers troops are trained in ESGM, Versailles. There is also a practice school (ESAG) in Angers. The 1st Engineers Regiment, based in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, has at least fifty military commendations to its credit.
Military Engineering training school, EBLE quarters, Angers.
"Captain Poisson’s " Batch (April 1992) receiving their epaulettes.
Source : Second Lieutenant Ludovic Cerutti.
Prise d'armes au 17e RGP - source: s/lt Ludovic Cerutti
17th Parachutists Engineers Regiment.
The 11th Company marching in the streets of Montauban.
Source : Second Lieutenant Ludovic Cerutti.