André Corvisier

André Corvisier (born September 18, 1918 in Chartres , Eure-et-Loir , † June 5, 2014 in Illiers-l'Évêque , Eure ) was a French historian . He was Professor at the Sorbonne in Paris and Honorary President of the International Commission on Military History . He is considered the " doyen " (also " Nestor ") of the more recent, socio-historically oriented French military history research .

Life

Corvisier attended the Lycée Marceau in Chartres, southwest of Paris. After studying history and geography, he taught for several years at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris. He later became a professor at the Sorbonne University . There he was a member of the Center Roland Mousnier at the Center national de la recherche scientifique . One of his students in Paris was the German military historian Bernhard R. Kroener , who was strongly influenced by him scientifically.

From 1970 to 1975 he was President of the Comité Français des Sciences Historiques . He was Vice-President from 1975 to 1980 and President of the Commission Internationale d'Histoire Militaire from 1980 to 1990 . He then became its honorary president. The ICMH André Corvisier Prize for PhD theses on Military History was awarded for 2017.

Corvisier was also a lecturer at the École du génie (EG) military technical school in Angers (until 1990) and Colonel of the Reserve with the Pioneers of the French Army (until 1990).

He died at the age of 95 in a nursing home in Illiers-l'Évêque in the Eure department, leaving behind his wife, children and grandchildren.

Act

Alongside the younger Jean-Paul Bertaud, Corvisier is considered to be the most important military historian in France with a focus on social history.

His most important research contribution in military history is in the Ancien Régime . He put u. a. a highly regarded biography (1983) on the French Minister of War François Michel Le Tellier de Louvois , who served under King Louis XIV , and the series Histoire militaire de la France . In his investigations from the 1970s and 1980s on the social history of the French military, he was the first to deal with the garrison and its significance for urban and economic development. He coined the term “military society” (French: société militaire ). He also pointed out that the presence of military families made the military a real society in the 18th century.

In the 1980s, Corvisier was one of the first French scientists to increasingly focus on historical Clausewitz research. He also published u. a. the standard work A Dictionary of Military History (and the Art of War) (together with John Childs ; French edition, 1988) and a relevant study (1997) on the battle of Malplaquet .

Awards

• 1983: Prix Broquette-Gonin of the Académie française (for "Louvois")
• Knight of the Legion of Honor

Fonts (selection)

• L'armée française de la fin du XVIIe siècle au ministère de Choiseul Le soldat . Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1964.
• Précis d'histoire moderne . Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1971.
• Armies and Societies in Europe, 1494–1789 . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1979, ISBN 0-253-12985-0 . (French edition, 1976)
• Louvois . A. Fayard, Paris 1983, ISBN 2-213-01217-2 .
• Les hommes, la guerre et la mort . Economica, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-717-80968-6 .
• Les hussards et la France . Complexe, Brussels u. a. 1993, ISBN 2-870-27500-5 .
• with John Childs (Ed.): A Dictionary of Military History and the Art of War . Blackwell, Oxford 1994, ISBN 0-631-16848-6 . (French edition, 1988)
• La bataille de Malplaquet 1709. l'effondrement de la France évité . Economica, Paris 1997, ISBN 2-7178-6445-8 .
• with Hervé Coutau-Bégarie: La guerre. Essais historiques . Perrin, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-262-02333-6 .
• Les saints militaires (= Bibliothèque d'histoire moderne et contemporaine ). H. Champion, Paris 2006, ISBN 978-2-7453-1328-7 .

literature

• Pierre Chaunu (Ed.): Le Soldat, la stratégie, la mort. Mélanges André Corvisier . Economica, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-7178-1757-3 .

Web links

• Literature by and about André Corvisier in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Markus Meumann: Civilians, the French Army and Military Justice during the Reign of Louis XIV, circa 1640-1715 . In: Erica Charters, Eve Rosenhaft, Hannah Smith (Eds.): Civilians and War in Europe, 1618–1815 . Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2012, ISBN 978-1-84631-711-8 , p. 100, here: p. 111.
2. ↑ Jan Kixmüller: “The new wars are the old ones” (interview with Bernhard R. Kroener). In: Potsdam Latest News , March 6, 2013.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Information on André Corvisier in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France , accessed on June 1, 2014.
4. ↑ Membres historiques ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Center Roland Mousnier, accessed June 26, 2014. 
5. ^ Dimităr Minčev: Acta 2012. Technology and warfare. 38th ICMH Congress Proceedings, Sofia, Bulgaria, 25 August – 1 September 2012 . Edited by the International Commission on Military History , Sofia University Press, Sofia 2013, ISBN 978-954-07-3533-7 , p. 3.
6. ^ Sébastien Couratin: L'historien Chartrain André Corvisier s'est éteint à l'âge de 95 ans . lechorepublicain.fr, June 10, 2014.
7. ^ Emmet Kennedy: Jacques Godechot (1907-1989) . In: Philip Daileader, Philip Whalen (Eds.): French Historians 1900-2000. New Historical Writing in Twentieth-Century France . Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2010, ISBN 978-1-4051-9867-7 , p. 306 ff., Here: p. 308.
8. ↑ Stephen Brumwell: Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755-1763 . Cambridge University Press, New York a. a. 2002, ISBN 978-0-521-80783-8 , pp.
9. ↑ Janis Langins: Conserving the Enlightenment: French Military Engineering from Vauban to the Revolution . MIT Press, Cambridge 2004, ISBN 0-262-12258-8 , p. 63.
10. ^ Guy Rowlands: The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV. Royal Service and Private Interest 1661–1701 (= Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History ). Cambridge University Press, New York a. a. 2002, ISBN 0-521-64124-1 , p. 19.
11. ^ Bernhard R. Kroener : The military in society. Aspects of a new military history of the early modern period . In: Thomas Kühne, Benjamin Ziemann (ed.): What is military history? (= War in History , Volume 6). Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2000, ISBN 3-506-74475-5 , p. 283 ff., Here: p. 285.
12. ^ Jutta Nowosadtko: Soldiers as Day-Laborers, Tinkers and Competitors. Trade Activities in the Garrisons of the Eighteenth Century Using the Example of Prince-Bishopric of Münster . In: Thomas Buchner, Philip R. Hoffmann-Rehnitz (Eds.): Shadow economies and irregular work in urban Europe. 16th to early 20th centuries . Lit, Vienna a. a. 2011, ISBN 978-3-8258-0688-0 , p. 165, here: p. 168.
13. ^ Bernhard R. Kroener : The military in society. Aspects of a new military history of the early modern period . In: Thomas Kühne, Benjamin Ziemann (ed.): What is military history? (= War in History , Volume 6). Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2000, ISBN 3-506-74475-5 , p. 283 ff., Here: p. 291.
14. ↑ Thomas Kühne, Benjamin Ziemann: Military history in the expansion. Business cycles, interpretations, concepts . In: Thomas Kühne, Benjamin Ziemann (ed.): Soldiers' women in Prussia. A structural analysis of garrison society in the late 17th and 18th centuries (= War in History , Volume 6). Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2000, p. 9 ff., Here: p. 16.
15. ↑ Hervé Coutau-Bégarie: XXIst Century's Clausewitz in France . In: Reiner Pommerin (Ed.): Clausewitz goes global. Carl von Clausewitz in the 21st century. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Clausewitz Society . Hartmann, Miles-Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-937885-41-4 , p. 107 ff., Here: p. 110.
16. ^ Charles Messenger (Ed.): Reader's Guide to Military History . Routledge, New York et al. a. 2013, ISBN 1-57958-241-9 , p. 358.
17. ^ André Corvisier , Académie française, accessed on June 2, 2014.
18. ^ Obituary in Le Figaro from June 11, 2014.