GRENADIER, originally a soldier whose special duty it was to throw hand-grenades. The latter were in use for a considerable time before any special organization was given to the troops who were to use them.
The grenadier companies were formed always of the most powerful men in the regiment and, when the grenade ceased to be used, they maintained their existence as the "crack" com panies of their battalions, taking the right of the line on parade and wearing the distinctive grenadier headdress. This system was almost universal, and the typical infantry regiment of the 18th and early 19th century had a grenadier and a light company be sides its "line" companies. In the British and other armies these elite companies were frequently taken from their regiments and combined in grenadier and light infantry battalions for special serv ice, and Napoleon carried this practice still further in the French army by organizing brigades and divisions of grenadiers (and cor respondingly of voltigeurs). Indeed the companies thus detached from the line practically never returned to it, and this was at tended with serious evils, for the battalion at the outbreak of war lost perhaps a quarter of its best men, the average men only remaining with the line. This special organization of grenadiers and light companies lasted in the British army until about 1858. In the Prussian service the grenadiers became permanent and independent battalions about 1740, and the gradual adoption of the four-company battalion by Prussia and other nations tended still further to place the grenadiers by themselves and apart from the line. Thus in various continental armies the title of "grena diers" is borne by line regiments, indistinguishable, except for details of uniform and as a corps d'elite, from the rest. In the British Army the title survives in the Grenadier Guards. (See GUARDS.) The title "grenadier" was, however, revived in its original sense during the World War, when every infantry bat talion had sub-units composed of men trained in and primarily used for throwing or firing grenades.