Guides

Guides, in military affairs, are usually persons drawn from the country in which an army is operating, one or more being sent with every detachment of troops. A guide should be intelligent, quick of eye, experienced in the topography of the country, and, above all, faithful. As, however, guides must on many occasions be drawn from a hostile population, and have probably only a pecuniary interest in serving well, their conduct is always watched with the utmost jealousy, death being awarded as the punishment for the least departure from trustworthiness, since treason or incompetence might involve the most disastrous consequences to the whole expedition. In the French army a considerable corps of cavalry and infantry bear the name, but the name only, of 'guides.' They were first formed in 1744 as a small company of messengers on active service. The number was gradually increased until the time of Napoleon I., who formed them into a guard 10,000 strong. In the British Indian army the corps of guides of the Punjab Frontier Force (six troops of cavalry and eight companies of infantry) have acquired the name in a similar manner.