France was a key part of the alliance against Russia, keen to see Russian interests kept in check and the balance of power in Europe maintained. As such, a significant force of around 300,000 French troops would be sent to the Crimea, where they found themselves fighting alongside their traditional foe - the British!

The backbone of the French contribution to the war was of course the line infantry. Clad in their blue tunics and the red trousers that would come to epitomise French troops for the next sixty years, they mostly used older smoothbore muskets converted to use percussion caps, but generally wielded these to good effect.