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ABSTRACT
The navy in France, like several other leading countries in the late nineteenth century, opened a school of higher learning for education of naval officers aspiring to command and staff positions. The School of Advanced Studies came out of a struggle between the ministers and officers supporting the Jeune École and those of a more conventional frame of mind within the naval establishment. The school’s background and rationale, as well as a list of naval officers who attended as students in those early years provide a foundation for further comparative research.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Sondhaus, Navies of Europe, 124.
2 Préneuf and Vial, La marine française, 63; Geistdoerfer, ‘La formation des officiers de marine’: 5–6.
3 Madsen, ‘Rear Admiral Henry John May’: 299; Harley, ‘War course attendance’: 472–474; Dickinson, Wisdom and war, 91–93.
4 Motte and Préneuf, ‘L’écriture de l’histoire navale française’: 27–28.
5 Hood, Royal republicans, 45.
6 Monaque, L’école de guerre navale, 127–131.
7 Journal officiel de la République française 25, 26 January 1882, 457; Walser, France’s search, 31; ‘Naval reforms in France’, Portsmouth Evening News, 11 November 1882.
8 Røksund, Jeune École, 20–23; Charmes, Les torpillieurs autonomes, 141–43.
9 Commandant Z. (Fontin) and H. Montéchant (Vignot), Essai de stratégie navale, 71–81; Grandhomme, ‘Du pompon à la plume’: 46; Ministère des Armées, Service historique de la défense, Vincennes (SHD), Lieutenant de vaisseau Degouy, ‘Conférences sur la Marine’, 4 parts, 1890–91. Service de santé des Armées library, Paris, École supérieure de guerre, ‘Cours de tactique navale’, 1894–95. Certain military historians attributed uneven performance amongst French generals at the outset of the First World War to past radical control of French governments and the military resulting in weaker officer education, which runs counter to the constant demands made by progressive politicians to first have and then improve advanced instruction for officers in the army and the navy. Prete, ‘Preparation of the French Army’, 247–48.
10 Morning Post, 27 June 1895; ‘The naval power of France’, Belfast News-letter, 27 June 1895.
11 Jordan and Caresse, French armoured cruisers, 14–22.
12 Marc Landry, ‘L’école supérieure de marine’, Journal de la Marine, Le Yacht, 926, 7 December 1895, 561–62.
13 Translation from original French. Journal officiel de la République française, 353, 29 December 1895, 7338. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica (BNF), Lieutenant de vaisseau Raymond Fenard, ‘Evolution de l’Enseignement à l’École Supérieure de Marine de 1895–1921’, 1922, 6–7; Army and Navy Gazette, 11 January 1896; Motte, Une education géostratégique, 379–80.
14 Monaque, L’école de guerre navale, 128.
15 Journal officiel de la République française, 355, 31 December 1895, 7418.
16 Fournier, La flotte necessaire, 115–17; V.G., ‘La flotte necessaire’, Journal de la Marine, Le Yacht, 929, 28 December 1895, 597–98.
17 Annuaire de la Marine,1896, 930–31; V.G., ‘L’école supérieure de guerre de la flotte’, Journal de la Marine, Le Yacht, 931, 11 January 1896, 13–14; Roberts, French warships, 226.
18 Marc Landry, ‘L’école supérieure de marine’, Journal de la Marine, Le Yacht, 944, 11 April 1896, 169–70.
19 Lockroy, Six mois rue Royale, 48–49; ‘Notice of books: La Marine de Guerre: Six Months in the Rue Royale by Edouard Lockroy’, RUSI Journal, 61, 1897, 548–55. H.W. Wilson, ‘The truth about the French Navy’, Pall Mall Gazette, 16 December 1896.
20 Tritten and Donolo, Doctrine reader, 57. In the politically charged debate, conventional minded naval officers were branded reactionaries and traditionalists. Halpern, ‘French Navy’, 40.
21 ‘A naval utopia’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 159, June 1896, 795–808. Padfield, Battleship era, 147–53. Fournier’s booklet contained numerous mathematical equations and numbers to advance his basic argument.
22 Brière, Le Vice-amiral E. Fournier, 143–45. Promotion effectively meant Fournier became too senior to stay director of the school and Jeune École disciples could hardly complain about advancement of one of their own. ‘French Naval Instruction’, Morning News, 9 September 1896; Røksund, Jeune École, 111.
23 Ropp, Development of a modern navy, 294–95.
24 Translation from original French. Recueil Général des Lois, Décret et Arrêtés, 26 (1896): 342; Brassey’s Naval Annual (1897): 18–19.
25 Émile Duboc, ‘L’école des hautes études de la marine’, Journal de la Marine, Le Yacht, 972, 24 October 1896, 505–06.
26 Translation from original French. Pandectes français: Recueil mensuel de jurisprudence et de legislation, 1897, part 3, 45–46.
27 SHD, Germain Albert Roustan personnel file. Salkin-Laparra, Marins et diplomats, 396–402; Taillemite, Dictionnaire des marins français, 470; ‘Foreign Notes’, Army and Navy Gazette, 24 October 1896.
28 Army and Navy Gazette, 13 Feb. 1896. Commandant Chassériad, ‘Marine de guerre et puissance nationale: L’école supérieure de marine’, La Nouvelle revue, 105 (1897): 771–87.
29 Taillemite, Dictionnaire des marins français, 130; Røksund, Jeune École, 121–27.
30 SHD, Conférences ‘Histoire maritime de la France’, 3 parts, 1897–99. Duruy was dismissed from the Polytechnical School for his published views during the Dreyfus affair. Duruy, Pour la Justice et pour l’Armée, 273–99. Lacour-Gayet, like Duruy, emphasised the glory and grandness of French maritime history, despite the losses and many disappointments. He generally left strategy (unlike his British counterpart Julian Corbett) to naval professionals like Degouy who used considerable historical illustration in their own lectures. Settled strategy confounded Jeune École and battlefleet proponents, the latter gaining ground after Capitaine de vaisseau Émile Boisse translated Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History into French in 1899. Corbett was little read and his Some principles of maritime strategy was not translated inside the French Navy until 1932. Coutau-Bégarie, ‘Corbett and Richmond in France’, 284.
31 Émile Duboc, ‘La réorganisation de l’école des hautes études’, Journal de la Marine, Le Yacht, 1063, 23 July 1898, 349–50.
32 Translation from original French. Journal officiel de la République française, 200, 26 July 1898, 4617.
33 Annuaire de la Marine, 1899, 822; ‘L’École supérieure de Marine’, Armée et marine, 2, 26 February 1899, 26–28. Bienaimé stayed at the school until 1900, when he was promoted to vice-admiral and subsequently served as chief of the naval staff. Taillemite, Dictionnaire des marins français, 45. He left the top post at odds with Minister of Marine Jean-Marie de Lanessan, and then later entered politics as an elected nationalist delegate. Walser, France’s search, 134–35.
34 Journal officiel de la République française, 285, 20 October 1898, 6458.
35 Clayton, Three republics, one navy, 29.
36 Translation from original French. Berryer, École supérieure de marine, 431.
37 Masson, ‘La pensée navale française’: 45–46; Hood, ‘French naval officer corps’, 15.
38 Revue de cercle militaire, 29:6, 22 February 1899, 167.
39 ‘L’École supérieure de Marine sur les côtes de la Manche’, Armée et marine, 18, 18 June 1899, 285–86.
40 L’Oust-Ėclair, 62, 2 October 1899; Monaque, L’école de guerre navale, 28; Jules de Cuverville, ‘L’École supérieure de la Marine’, Armée et marine, 26, 20 August 1899, 413–14.
41 La Fronde, 28 November 1899; Revue du cercle militaire, 29:48, 2 December 1899, 591–92; Jules de Cuverville, ‘Les tribulations de l’École supérieure de la Marine’, Armée et marine, 42, 10 December 1899, 661.
42 Journal officiel de la République française, 331, 6 December 1899, 7878; Madsen, ‘Attendance at the École Supérieure de Marine’: 234; ‘L’École supérieure de marine: le passé, le present, l’avenir’, Armée et marine, 7, 14 February 1904, 152.
43 Conventional practice is that French military personnel files, if available, can be requested 120 years after an individual’s birthdate.
44 Jackson, ‘Naval policy and national strategy in France’, 131-133.
45 Hood, ‘French Navy and parliament’: 400–02.
46 Canuel, ‘Prestige fleet to the Jeune École’: 111.
47 Fournier, La politique navale et la flotte française, 36–38. Roustan, on the other hand, died in February 1903 while maritime prefect in Brest. ‘La mort du vice-amiral Roustan’, Armée et marine, 211, 8 March 1903, 159. The British and French navies turned from competitors to conditional allies, to build a relationship together. Keiger, ‘Perfidious Albion?’: 38; Sheldon-Duplaix, ‘Franco-British relations’: 81–82.
48 SHD, Centenaire de la création de l’École supérieure de guerre navale, 1895–1995 (1996).