Brigade

Brigade (pronounced bri-geyd)

(1) In army organisation, a military unit having its own headquarters and consisting of two or more regiments; the army formation immediately larger than a regiment, smaller than a division.

(2) In casual use, sometimes used to describe a large body of troops.

(3) A group of individuals organized for a particular purpose (used sometimes in a derogatory sense).

(4) A historical term for a convoy of canoes, sleds, wagons, or pack animals, especially as used to supply trappers in the eighteenth and nineteenth century Canadian and US fur trade.

(5) To form or unite into a brigade; to group together.

(6) In the slang of Internet trollers, to harass an individual or community online in a coordinated manner.

1630–1640: From the French brigade (body of soldiers) from the Old Italian brigata (troop, crowd, gang) derived from the Old Italian brigare (to fight, brawl) from briga (strife, quarrel), perhaps of Celtic (and related to the Gaelic brigh and Welsh bri (power) or Germanic origin.  The French brigand (foot soldier) which later adopted the meaning “outlaw or bandit” is also related.  Brigade is a noun & verb and brigaded & brigading are verbs; the noun plural is brigade.

The word endures in describing one of the standard (though numerically various) units of army organisation but was used also by the International Brigades as a general description of the volunteer forces which assembled during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1940) to assist the doomed Spanish Republic.  Despite the use of the term, the formations in which members of the International Brigades fought were of varied size and there was no real relationship to the traditional use of "brigade" by armies.  Specialized formations (intelligence corps, medical corps et al) exist in all branches of the military with no rules or consistency in the numbers of their establishment but whereas the structures of navies (squadrons, flotillas, fleets etc) and air forces (flights, squadrons, wings, groups etc) are based on the number of vessels or airframes attached, the army (mostly) defines its organization by the number of personnel allocated, the numbers listed below generally indicative based on historic formations.  

Army Formations: Indicative Size Ranges

Army Group: 400,000-2,000000
Army: 150,000-360,000
Corps: 45,000-90,000
Division: 10,000-30,000
Brigade: 1500-5000
Regiment: 1500-3500
Battalion: 500-1500
Company: 175-250
Platoon: 12-60
Squad: 4-24

Most armies use all or a subset of the above although the numbers vary (greatly).  A division is made up of 3-4 brigades, a corps of 3-4 divisions and so on.  In Western armies, the numbers listed above reflect the big-scale mass formations used during World War II (1939-1945); peacetime armies are a fraction of the size but the organizational framework is retained, most forces actively using only the smaller clusters.  During WWII, US army command groups tended to be up to twice the size of British units though within the same army, divisions often varied in size, an infantry division usually larger than an armored.  A corps can be assembled from the armies of more than one nation, the Australian & New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) being formed in 1915 prior to deployment as part of the Dardanelles Campaign.  Other organizational tags such as squadron also exist but tend now either to be rare or, like battery, applied to specialized units based on function rather than size.  A special case is troop which generally is an alternative word for platoon but there are exceptions.

In twenty-first century wars, entire divisions are rarely committed operationally and brigade level engagements are regarded as large-scale; in the world wars of the twentieth century (uniquely big, multi-theatre affairs), the standard battlefield unit tended to be the division and by 1944 Soviet Union was fielding nearly five-hundred.  The numbers in the world wars were certainly impressive but in a sense could be deceptive, the percentage of those listed on the establishment actually committed to combat sometimes surprisingly low (though this tended to apply less to those of the USSR).  One British prime-minister, pondering this, complained to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (the CIGS one of the country's leading ornithologists) that the army reminded him “…of a peacock; all tail and very little bird”.  Dryly, the field marshal responded by pointing out “the peacock would be a very poorly balanced bird without its tail”.

The military rank brigadier (Brig the standard abbreviation) has had a varied history but in UK and US (where it’s styled as brigadier general) us it sits between colonel and major-general.  The NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) rank code is OF-6 which aligns it in the UK with a Royal Navy (RN) commodore and Royal Air Force (RAF) air commodore.  Historically, brigadier was originally an appointment conferred on colonels (a la the way RN captains were created commodore and captains in the US Navy were upon retirement made rear-admirals) but since 1947 it has been a substantive rank in the British Army.  In the British Army the rank of brigadier-general was abolished in 1921, that rationale being the functional role was that of a senior colonel (ie a field officer) rather than a junior general (ie a staff officer) but such changes are never popular with the officer class and in 1928 the position was gazetted as brigadier.  Curiously, for over a year after the RAF was created in April 1918, there were brigadier-generals until the title air commodore was adopted.  Many other air forces have continued to have generals.

Colonel Andrus announces to the press the suicide of Hermann Göring who used a smuggled potassium cyanide capsule, taken just hours before he was to be hanged.

In civilian life, the most familiar (and probably most valued) brigades are fire brigades and the first municipal brigade is thought to have been established in the Roman Republic by Octavian (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, 63 BC–AD 14; founder of the Roman Empire and first Roman emperor 27 BC-AD 14).  Created in 32 BC, the system was manned (in the Roman way) by slaves and organized along military lines, each of the seven “fire stations” headed by a centurion.  The structure replaced an earlier system set up by a rich individual who paid for the slaves; in gratitude, the Romans elected him a magistrate, a development which didn’t appeal to Octavian.  In the centuries which followed, things tended to be more ad hoc until the Great Fire of London (1666) made insurance companies suffer such losses that quickly it was worked out it was cheaper to fund a competent, standing fire brigade than pay for the consequences of a conflagration.  Fire brigades funded by property insurance companies were soon in operation and the idea spread with the core structure still in use today although the responsibility for funding has been assumed by governments at various levels although in many places with small populations, volunteer fire brigades are common, their physical resources (machinery, communications etc) often provided by the state.  The role of firefighter (the modern, gender-neutral, replacement for the old “fireman”) is much respected but the Nazis still managed to make it a slight.  When held in the cells of Nuremberg’s palace of Justice during the first Nuremberg trial (1945-1946), Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) contemptuously described the jail’s commandant as a “fire brigade colonel”.  Göring, a dashing fighter pilot in World War I (1914-1918) was not impressed by the immaculate uniform and strict discipline imposed by Colonel Burton C Andrus (1892–1977) who, although having served in the regular army since 1917, had never seen combat.  When the colonel in 1969 published his memoirs, of the many slights the prisoners had made of him, the only one about which he seems to have been sensitive was that he might have been a few pounds overweight.

La Brigade de cuisine

Portrait of Auguste Escoffier.  The decoration is the Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur (National Order of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to both civilians and the military.  It was established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815)).  It’s a wholly appropriate honor for a French chef.

The Brigade de cuisine (kitchen brigade) was a hierarchical organizational chart for commercial kitchens, codified from earlier practices by French chef, Georges-Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935) who, following his service in the French army, had refined and codified the the kitchen structure which had existed since the fourteenth century.  The military-type chain-of-command became formalized but what was novel was what he dubbed the chef de partie system, an organizational model based on sections which were both geographically and functionally defined.  His design was intended to avoid duplication of effort and facilitate communication.  The economic realities of technological innovation, out-sourcing to external supply chains and the changing ratio of labour costs to revenue have meant even the largest modern kitchens now use a truncated version of the Escoffien system although the sectional chef de partie structure remains.  In the pre-modern era, Escoffier’s idealized structure was adopted only in the largest of exclusive establishments or the grandest of cruise liners and, like the Edwardian household, is a footnote in sociological, organizational and economic history.  The positions were:

Chef de cuisine or Executive Chef: The culinary and administrative head of the kitchen.

Sous-chef de cuisine:  The Executive Chef’s deputy.

Saucier or sauté cook: Prepares sauces and warm hors d'oeuvres, completes meat dishes, and in smaller restaurants, may work on fish dishes and prepare sautéed items.  One of the most technically demanding positions in the brigade.

Chef de partie: The senior chef of a particular section.

Demi Chef: An experienced chef working under a chef de partie.

Chen:  A chef allocated to particular dishes (essentially a specialist demi chef).

Cuisinier:  A generalist chef working in one or more sections.  This tends now to be a role undertaken by many commis and demi chefs rather than a stand-alone position.

Commis Chef: A junior chef, working under supervision and often responsible for maintaining the tools and fittings of the section.  The modern commis chef now often undertakes a much wider range of duties than was the traditional role.

Apprentice: Trainee or student chefs gaining theoretical and practical training while performing preparatory and cleaning work; duties become more complex as experience builds and some of the training is now often undertaken in dedicated culinary schools or other institutions.

Plongeur: Dishwasher or kitchen porter who cleans dishes and utensils, and may be entrusted with basic preparatory jobs otherwise done by apprentices.  In modern use, the role is now described usually as "kitchen hand".

Joining La Brigade de cuisine: Lindsay Lohan as sous-chef de cuisine on celebrity cooking shows. 

Marmiton: A pot and pan washer, sometimes also known as kitchen porter; again, the term "kitchen hand" has prevailed.

Rôtisseur: The roast cook who manages the team which roasts, broils, and deep fries dishes.

Charcutier: A chef who prepares pork products such as pâté, pâté en croûte, rillettes, hams, sausages and any cured meats; may coordinate with the garde manger and deliver cured meats.

Grillardin: The grill cook who, in larger kitchens, prepares grilled foods instead of the rôtisseur.

Friturier: The fry cook who, in larger kitchens, prepares fried foods instead of the rôtisseur.

Poissonnier: The fish cook who prepares fish and seafood dishes.

Entremetier: The entrée preparer who prepares soups and other dishes not involving meat or fish, including vegetable and egg dishes.

Potager: The soup cook who, in larger kitchens, reports to the entremetier and prepares the soups, often also assisting the saucier.

Legumier: The vegetable cook who, in larger kitchens, also reports to the entremetier and prepares the vegetable dishes.

Garde manger: The pantry supervisor responsible for preparation of cold hors d'oeuvres, pâtés, terrines and aspics; prepares salads; organizes large buffet displays; and prepares charcuterie items.

Tournant: The spare hand or rounds man, a utility position which exists to move about the kitchen as required, assisting as needed.  In military terms, the reserve.

Pâtissier: The pastry cook who prepares desserts and other meal-end sweets, and for locations without a boulanger, also prepares breads and other baked items; may also prepare pasta.

Confiseur: In larger kitchens, prepares candies and petit fours instead of the pâtissier.

Glacier: In larger kitchens, prepares frozen and cold desserts instead of the pâtissier.

Kitchen Brigade in the New Kitchen, Café Riche, Paris, 1865 (unknown artist).

Décorateur: In larger kitchens, prepares show pieces and specialty cakes instead of the pâtissier.

Boulanger: The baker who, in larger kitchens, prepares bread, cakes, and breakfast pastries instead of the pâtissier.

Boucher: The butcher who butchers meats, poultry, and sometimes fish; often also in charge of breading meat and fish items.

Aboyeur: The announcer or expediter who takes orders from the dining room and distributes them to the various stations; this role may also be performed by a senior chef.

Communard: Prepares the meal served to the restaurant staff.

Garçon de cuisine: The “kitchen boy", a junior position who performs preparatory and auxiliary work, sometimes as a prelude to a formal apprenticeship.