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1 History

The ancestor of the regiment was formed in the early days of the First World War, when volunteers from all over Canada were being massed for training at Valcartier, Quebec, just outside of Quebec City. The volunteers were grouped into numbered battalions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, based on their region of origin. For reasons of linguistic efficiency, most French-speakers (mostly Quebecers) were assigned to a single battalion, 22nd (French Canadian) Infantry Battalion, CEF. The 22nd went to France as part of the 5th Canadian Brigade and the 2nd Canadian DivisionThe Canadian Corps 2nd Canadian Division World War I The formation of the 2nd Canadian Division began in May of 1915 in Britain following the arrival of a large contingent of soldiers from Canada. The Division remained in Great Britain only a short time b in September 1915, and fought with distinction in every major Canadian engagement until the end of the war.

After the war, the 22nd Battalion was disbanded on May 20, 1919, sharing the fate of the other numbered battalions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. However, in the post-war reorganizations of the army it was realized that a permanent French-language infantry unit was desirable, and accordingly a new regiment was created, perpetuating the 22nd Batallion, on April 1, 1921. Initially the regiment was simply the 22nd Regiment, but in June King George V approved renaming it The Royal 22nd Regiment. In 1928 the anomaly of a French-language unit with an English name was resolved, and the regiment became the Royal 22^e Régiment.

In the Second World War the regiment was part of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade and the 1st Canadian Infantry DivisionList of military divisions — List of Canadian divisions in WWII The Canadian 1st Infantry Division was formed at the outbreak of World War I in August 1914. The division was sent to fight on the Western Front in France in February 1915. During World War I and was involved in intense combat in Italy, and later in the Netherlands and northwest Germany.

During the Cold WarThe Cold War (c. 1945- 1991) was the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between groups of nations practicing different ideologies and political systems. On one side was the Soviet Union and its allies, often referred to as the E the regular battalions of the regiment were posted to West GermanyWest Germany was the informal but almost universally used name for the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 until 1990, during which years the Federal Republic did not yet include the eastern part of Germany. Since the German reunification of 1990, the F several times.

In the 1950s, the Canadian Army promoted a scheme of ceremonially associating each reserve infantry regiment with a regular one. Although this project did not make much progress in most of the army, three reserve regiments did join the Van Doos, becoming battalions of the Royal 22^e Régiment:

In the case of Les Fusiliers du Saint-Laurent , the battalion designation was in a subsidiary title, and thus for ceremonial purposes they remained a distinct regiment. In 1968 the regiment dropped the subsidiary title, ending the official association with the R22^eR.