The Royal 22^e Régiment is an infantry regiment and the most famous francophone organization of the Canadian Forces. The regiment comprises three regular battalions and two reserve battalions, making it the largest regiment in the army. The ceremonial home of the regiment is La Citadelle in Quebec City, where the regimental museum is housed. The regiment is nicknamed the Van Doos, a corruption of vingt-deux, French for "twenty-two".

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 Division 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 1940, the regiment became the first Francophone Canadian unit to mount the King's Guard in London, and was the first of the three current Regular Force regiments to do so.

In the Second World War the regiment was part of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade and the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and was involved in intense combat in Italy, and later in the Netherlands and northwest Germany.

During the Cold War the regular battalions of the regiment were posted to West Germany 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.

Battle honours

First World War

• Mount Sorrel
• Somme, 1916, including Flers-Courcelette
• Arras, 1917, including Vimy, 1917
• Ypres, 1917, including Passchendaele
• Somme, 1918
• Amiens
• Arras, 1918
• Cambrai, 1918
• France and Flanders, 1915-1918

Second World War

• Sicily, 1943
• Catenanuova
• Italy, 1943-1945
• Casa Berardi
• Hitler Line
• Gothic Line
• Lamone Crossing
• San Fortunato
• Apeldoorn
• North-West Europe, 1945

United Nations Operations

• Korea, 1951-1953

A note on the name

Most units of the Canadian Forces have official names in English and in French, but all armoured, most artillery, and all infantry regiments are exceptions. The English name "Royal 22nd Regiment" is often seen, but strictly speaking is incorrect: only the French form is official.