They were not Turks. The name came out of the Crimea, where Algerian infantry in the French expeditionary force fought alongside Turkish allies at Sevastopol and the Russians facing them could not tell the two apart. Turcos stuck. Sixty years later it was still on the regiment. There is a second explanation as well: that the earliest recruits into these regiments had themselves been soldiers of the Ottoman Empire before the French arrived, in which case the name was less a mistake than an observation. Either way, the men in this set went to France in 1914 under a name somebody else had given them.

The set is posed identically to the Zouaves — the same eight figures, the same officer with his revolver up, the same standard reading Honneur et Patrie. What changes is the colour. The Zouave jacket is dark blue with red braid; the Tirailleur's is sky blue with yellow. Same cut, same chéchia, same serouel — a different regiment for a different kind of man. Stand the two sets together in a diorama and the 1842 decision is legible from across the room. Behind them, the French infantry of the line. And in April 1915 these regiments were holding the ground north of Ypres alongside the Belgian army — which is where the war changed.

Tradition of London model 807. 54mm, white metal, hand-painted in gloss enamel. Eight-figure set — an officer, a standard-bearer, a trumpeter and five Tirailleurs, 1914. Supplied in the Tradition Classic Red Box. Allow 2–3 weeks delivery.