From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
Depot de la Guerre
was France's military archive and cartography department, set up in 1688 under
Louis XIV
and expanded during the
French Revolutionary Wars
and the
Napoleonic Wars
.
History
[
edit
]
Established by
Francois Michel Le Tellier de Louvois
, it was put in charge of gathering, conserving, engraving and publishing historical archives, military memoirs, maps and plans and all topographic activity. In the 18th century lieutenant-general Vault played a notable part in the Depot's work.
Effectively dissolved during the early years of the
French Revolution
thanks to a decision by the
Constituent Assembly
to suppress the military geographical-engineers corps,
[1]
it was reestablished by
Etienne Nicolas de Calon
between April 1793 and May 1797,
[2]
under the new name
Depot general de la Guerre et de la Geographie
(in full,
Depot general de la Guerre de terre et de mer et de la Geographie
) - this underlined the military importance of creating maps and keeping them up to date. However, the staff provided for it were insufficient for its initial ambitions - a large part of its personnel shifted to the
Bureau des longitudes
and the
Service hydrologique de la Marine
.
[1]
Pierre Dupont de l'Etang
was briefly put in charge of the Depot from May to September 1797, followed by
Jean Ernouf
from September 1797 to October 1798 and
Hugues Alexandre Joseph Meunier
until December 1799.
[3]
Under the
First French Empire
it was headed by
Henri Jacques Guillaume Clarke
from December 1799 to September 1800,
Antoine Francois Andreossy
from August 1802 to May 1803,
Nicolas Antoine Sanson
from June 1803 to June 1805.
[4]
It flourished during this period, employing 90 geographical engineers and a huge archive of documents, mapping the
Cisalpine Republic
,
Liguria
and the newly-annexed
Cisrhenian Republic
among others. The corps of engineer geographers was definitively recreated in January 1909.
[1]
The Depot was restructured in 1814, and again in 1823. In 1887, it was split into two separate organisations:
The Depot's archives can be consulted at the SHD site at the
Chateau de Vincennes
.
[5]
References
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- (in French)
Patrice Ract,
Les ingenieurs geographes des camps et armees du roi, de la guerre de Sept Ans a la Revolution (1756-1791) : etude institutionnelle, prosopographique et sociale
(these de l'
Ecole des chartes
soutenue en 2002)
[1]
- Fulton, Robert (April 2017). "Crafting a Site of State Information Management: The French Case of the Depot de la Guerre".
French Historical Studies
.
40
(2): 215?240.
doi
:
10.1215/00161071-3761595
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|