The uniform is North African and by 1914 the men inside it were not. The Zouaves were raised in Algeria in 1831 from the Zouaoua, a Berber tribe of the Jurjura mountains who had previously soldiered for the deys of Algiers — hence the name, the chéchia, the sash and the baggy serouel trousers. Then in 1842 the French split the recruitment. Muslim Algerians went to the Tirailleurs; the Zouave regiments were filled instead with European and Jewish settlers born in Algeria. So the four regiments that mobilised in August 1914 were pieds-noirs in Berber dress — wearing the borrowed clothes of men who by then were serving in a different regiment.

Eight pieces: five Zouaves with rifles, a trumpeter, the standard-bearer with Honneur et Patrie on the tricolour, and the officer — who is not dressed like any of them. He wears the dark blue tunic, red kepi and red trousers of the metropolitan French army, standing among men in Berber clothing. In a diorama the set belongs beside the Tirailleurs, who took the other half of the 1842 split, and the French infantry of the line. The German infantry of 1914 are what all of them walked into.

Tradition of London model 805. 54mm, white metal, hand-painted in gloss enamel. Eight-figure set — an officer, a standard-bearer, a trumpeter and five Zouaves, 1914. Supplied in the Tradition Classic Red Box. Allow 2–3 weeks delivery.