The battle of Valmy, 20 September 1792, by Horace Vernet.
National defence" is a concept that seems to speak for itself... and therefore goes without saying! But this is not the case. While every country now has its own Ministry of Defence, it is far from always the Ministry of "National Defence". The United Kingdom has a Ministry of Defence (MOD), while the United States has a Department of Defense (DOD). Since the creation of these ministries at the end of the Second World War, the qualifier "national" has never been added to the name "defence", unlike in France. This is despite the fact that the ministry is now the Ministry of the Armed Forces, a name that was revived in May 2017, but which had only been used in the days of General de Gaulle for the most part. So there is indeed a French specificity, which is also a complexity.
As a starting point for our reflections on their genesis, I would like to take you back to what the then Prime Minister said to your predecessors on 18 October 2019, in this same Foch amphitheatre. Édouard Philippe evoked the singularity of the concept of national defence in his own way, opening his speech with a quotation from Maurice Genevoix's seminal work, Ceux de 1914. He then went on to comment at length on this quote, moving on from the Great War to the armies of the First Republic, from Verdun to Valmy. It is a definition of national defence that he gives, conceived as the founding and fundamental gesture of the citizen who defends his homeland.
Édouard Philippe began by taking up Genevoix's evocation of the victorious poilus:
"They all had grimy faces, hollow cheeks overgrown with beards [...]; rough patches marked their clothes at the knees and elbows; hardened, dirty hands protruded from their grated sleeves [...]. Yet they were the ones who had just fought with more than human energy [...]; they were the victors!
AT THE BATTLE OF VALMY (1792), "THE MOTHER OF ALL THE ARMIES OF THE REPUBLIC".
And the Prime Minister continued:
"Never before in our history has the French army [...] merged so closely with the nation. This army of 14 was that of the shepherd, the butcher, the cobbler, the clerk, the sailor, the student and the family man. And this army was in no way inferior to that of Valmy. "To those great fraternal legions - in the words of Jules Michelet - that sprang from the earth [...]; those heroes of patience, soldiers of the Rhine, of Sambre-et-Meuse, who knew only duty". The army of Valmy would remain for many years "the mother of all the armies of the Republic".
Valmy marked the symbolic shift from the professional army to the citizen army. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was present on 20 September 1792, alongside the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and immediately felt the radical newness of the French Revolution. Some twenty years later, evoking this memory in his French CampaignFrom today and from this place dates a new era in the history of the world".
"From its very beginnings", continued Édouard Philippe, "our Republic was conceived as a 'nation in arms' where, to quote Michelet again, 'all swore to defend all'. A Republic which, from the outset, has had to fight for its ideal of freedom and equality. And the mythical figure of the citizen who defends his country lies at the foundation of our history". The beginnings of the Republic therefore constitute a decisive moment in the crystallisation of the notion of national defence, in the literal sense of the term.
THE BATTLE OF BOUVINES (1214), THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS NATIONAL DEFENCE
It was the culmination of a process that can be traced back to the famous "Bouvines Sunday" on 27 July 1214, described by Georges Duby in a classic work published in the early 1970s. On that day, the royal forces of Philip II Augustus, supported by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, triumphed over a coalition of French princes and lords led by John Lackland, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Normandy and King of England, and backed by Otto IV, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. The French success was due in particular to the cooperation of the knighthood and the communal militias, which enabled historians of the XIXth century to draw up a plan of action for the French army.e In the 19th century, this battle was seen as the emergence of the nation and national sentiment.
Prior to Valmy, the militia system introduced in 1688 by Louvois, Louis XIV's principal minister, provided the first form of military service until the end of the Ancien Régime, complementing the system of maritime registration for seafarers introduced in 1668 by Colbert, Louvois's predecessor. This dual organisation supplemented the usual recruitment of the royal forces and gave them a new national dimension. It heralded the turning point of the Revolution, which, beyond the symbolic episode of Valmy, manifested itself in the mass draft of Year II (September 1793 - September 1794), followed by the Jourdan Law of 1798. Instituting "universal and compulsory conscription" for all French people aged between 20 and 25, it laid the foundations for an organisation that would last for two centuries. In the truest sense of the word, it established national defence, the principle of which was summed up in the famous phrase: "Every Frenchman is a soldier and owes it to himself to defend his country".
The war of 1870 marked a second important stage in the crystallisation of the notion of national defence. On 2 September, at the end of a series of defeats in which the heroism of the troops could not compensate for the all too frequent mediocrity of the high command, Napoleon III capitulated at Sedan and was taken prisoner. The announcement of this disaster on 4 September led to the fall of the imperial regime and the proclamation of the Third Reich.e Republic. A salvation government was formed, officially known as the "national defence" government, because in the truest sense of the word, it was about defending the nation, as the fierce fighting of the following months would prove.
1870: THE CONCEPT OF "NATIONAL DEFENCE" ENTERS THE OFFICIAL VOCABULARY
For the first time, the notion of "national defence" made its official appearance in the political and administrative vocabulary. However, there was as yet no Minister of Defence, only the usual military ministers, the Minister of War on the one hand and the Minister of the Navy and the Colonies on the other. However, the Minister of the Interior, Léon Gambetta, was to play a specific role, which in many respects made him a de facto Minister of Defence.
The results of this "government of national defence" were paradoxical: undeniable voluntarism and heroism, but a clear failure on the military front. Despite the sacrifices made, France had to resign itself to the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt (loss of Alsace and part of Lorraine, compensation of 5 billion gold francs). The new Republic would nevertheless remain structurally marked by this original desire for a political and military upsurge, giving rise to a veritable mystique of "national defence".
The years that followed saw the erection of numerous monuments dedicated to him throughout France, starting with Paris. Located in the XIVe arrondissement, the Lion of Belfort symbolises the victorious resistance of the besieged town (3 November 1870 - 18 February 1871), under the command of Colonel Denfert-Rochereau, after whom the square is named. Inaugurated in 1880, this statue by Bartholdi is a one-third copy of the monumental work erected in the town in the Franche-Comté region. It is also distinguished by the inscription on its base: "To National Defence".
Bartholdi is also the creator of the Monument to the aeronautsinaugurated in 1906. Installed at Porte des Ternes in Paris, this statuary group is a tribute to the heroes of the air links that enabled the capital, under siege from the Prussian army, to communicate with the rest of France. Unfortunately, it was melted down in 1941 by decision of the Vichy regime.
AT THE ORIGIN OF THE LA DÉFENSE BUSINESS DISTRICT
However, you can still admire the statuary group in Puteaux, to the west of the capital. "The defence of Paris, even if it is now somewhat lost on the esplanade of La Défense. Designed by Louis-Ernest Barrias, it was inaugurated in 1883 on what was then the "Courbevoie crossroads". It was here that the troops on their way to Buzenval passed through in what was the last unsuccessful attempt to break the siege of Paris (19 January 1871). As a result, the crossroads was renamed the "rond-point de la Défense", which is the origin of the name of today's business district.
Finally, just behind the École Militaire, on Place de Fontenoy, is the little-known "Monument de la Défense nationale", by sculptor Jules Hallais, erected by national subscription in 1889. This modest granite obelisk, whose truncated column may represent a broken sword, is of a simplicity that contrasts singularly with its raison d'être. As the inscription on one of its sides indicates, it honours "the memory of the French officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the land and sea armies who fell in the field of honour in the defence of the homeland", a total of around 140,000 dead, including those killed in action and through illness. The contrast is all the more striking when you consider that this monument was erected at the same time as the Eiffel Tower on the other side of the École Militaire and the Champ de Mars. These Parisian monuments should not obscure the fact that many others were erected in the provinces, dedicated to national defence, particularly in garrison towns. Examples include those that still exist in Saint-Maixent and Soissons.
As if to mark the failure of the government whose raison d'être it was, the notion of national defence was absent from the constitutional laws of the Third Republic.e Republic, promulgated in February 1875. Similarly, successive governments did not appoint a minister responsible for this area. Military matters remained divided between a ministry that was primarily functional in nature, the Ministry of War, which was responsible for war on land, and a ministry that was part of a wider environment, the Ministry of the Navy and the Colonies, which was responsible for the maritime and overseas worlds in all their diverse forms. Neither naval troops nor the war fleet were the sole raison d'être of this ministry, which was also responsible for other navies (fishing, trade, etc.). Nevertheless, at the end of the XIXe In the 19th century, the need to take account of the joint dimension became apparent. Especially as the institutional situation had become even more complicated since 1884, when the Colonies formed a separate ministry, to the detriment of the expected efficiency.
THE "PARTICULARIST SPIRIT OF THE SERVICES", THE GREAT ENEMY OF DEFENCE
Let's listen to what Édouard Lockroy, Minister of the Navy on two occasions (1895-1896 and 1898-1899), had to say about it in Naval defencepublished the year after his last visit to the rue Royale:
" One of the great enemies of defence is still the particularistic spirit of the services, the ignorance in which they live of each other, the muted hostility that drives them against each other. The interests of the department, the management and sometimes the office often take precedence over the general interest. The Colonies have an undisguised antipathy for the Navy. The Navy completely ignores the War and the War does not know, or does not want to know, what the Navy is. It willingly regards the Navy as a mere transport company. Everyone stubbornly keeps to their own speciality. No one tries to make contact with their neighbours. Rivalries are everywhere, bitter and violent. everyone should be working towards the same goal. "
This observation helps to explain why, during the 1890s, the notion of national defence emerged, this time in a lasting way, primarily in its joint dimension. Saint-Cyrien and staff officer, former collaborator of Gambetta at the time of National Defence, then chief of staff to General Boulanger, Minister of War, in 1890, Major General Henri Jung was the first to envisage a unified general staff in his book Strategy, tactics and politics :
"Scientifically, there are no two territories, just as there are no two defences. The national territory is everywhere where the tricolour flag flies. Consequently, from a scientific point of view, there should only be one general staff.
He goes on to detail its composition: "It would comprise four sections: the first, for land army operations; the second, for territorial defence, the government of places, etc.; the third, for fleet operations; and the fourth, for the colonies and protectorates.
IN 1890, "THE NEED FOR A CIVILIAN MINISTER OF NATIONAL DEFENCE".
As you can see, the General's proposals are very brief. They are not further detailed in The Republic and the Armypublished two years later. But this new book takes the problem to the political level, proposing for the first time the institution of a single military minister :
"I have always believed with Gambetta", wrote Jung, "and I still believe in the possibility and necessity of a civilian Minister of National Defence, with two specialists under his high command, one for War, the other for the Navy, with a single land and sea staff [...]".
A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and an artilleryman, Captain Gaston Moch put on his kepi in 1894, the year in which he published National defence and coastal defence. His thinking is part of a different dynamic, firstly military and specialised before becoming political and general. National defence is not one and the same," he observed, "because it is made up of the army and the fleet. Yet the two "differ from each other in nature and mode of action, but no more than the cavalry, for example, differs from the corps of balloonists". This denial of the specific nature of the maritime environment enabled the author to justify the creation of "a single ministry, the Ministry of National Defence", whose structures would juxtapose those of the Departments of War and the Navy.
This is the first time that the principles of how the new ministry should be organised have been set out. since Jung had not gone into this detail. Moch, on the other hand, simply repeated his vision of what a unified general staff would look like. Here again, for the first time, an overall organisational scheme is proposed, which the author emphasises would be a source of greater efficiency, particularly in budgetary terms.
At the turn of the century, three crises took the debate to a new level. The first was Fachoda [diplomatic incident in Sudan between France and the United Kingdom, editor's noteIn 1898, it humiliatingly revealed the consequences of the absence of a global defence policy. Secondly, it led to the resolution of the long-standing debate on naval troops, which had been dragging on since the creation of the Ministry of Colonies: the law of 7 July 1900 confirmed their attachment to the War Department. Finally, the outcome of the Dreyfus affair clarified the terms of the relationship between the gown and the arms in republican France. The political authorities were keen to put their reaffirmed pre-eminence into practice.
1906: THE HIGHER COUNCIL FOR NATIONAL DEFENCE, A HYBRID BODY
It is therefore not surprising to see the theme of institutionalising national defence taking on new importance in the public debate, leading to the institution of the first major politico-military body, the Conseil supérieur de la défense nationale (CSDN), in April 1906. This new body is at the origin of the current National Defence and Security Council. After a 35-year hiatus, the concept of "national defence" is making a comeback in the political and administrative vocabulary. And, this time, it's going to be a permanent fixture. The new body was created by Eugène Étienne, the Minister for War, who was also close to Gambetta, but also owes a great deal to Adolphe Messimy. A former Dreyfus officer who had become a radical-socialist MP, he had in particular alerted the British government to the creation in 1902 of the Committee of Imperial Defencewhich the CSDN will draw on.
The decree setting up the new body was published on 4 April, just as the first Moroccan crisis [...diplomatic incident between France and Germany, editor's note]. How can we fail to see a causal link here? After Fachoda, this new major international crisis has once again highlighted the government organisation's shortcomings in terms of strategic direction.
Chaired by the Head of State when he wished, and by the President of the Council the rest of the time, the new Council brought together for the first time all the ministers with an interest in defence issues (War, Navy, Colonies), including those with no military powers (Foreign Affairs, Finance). The General Chiefs of Staff for War and the Navy, as well as the General Chairman of the Colonial Defence Advisory Committee were also involved, but in an advisory capacity only. This precaution is coupled with another, as the Council is not a decision-making body. It was therefore similar to the Higher Army Councils created at the end of the nineteenth century, but differed in that it was inter-army and inter-ministerial, combined with the double predominance that numbers and status conferred on politicians. It is a hybrid body, a new type in which Foreign Affairs and the military ministerial departments have a specific role.
However, the new body struggled to find its place and met infrequently. The reforms introduced on the eve of 1914 by Messimy, who became Minister for War, improved the situation, but without any decisive effect. The absence of a permanent secretariat was undeniably a factor of weakness. In fact, from the start of the conflict, the CSDN ceased to meet and would not do so again until peace was restored... And, despite the undeniable progress that its institution represented, there was no corollary creation of a ministry and/or a national defence staff, even though these prospects were being debated on the eve of the conflict.
FIRST WORLD WAR: NO UNIFIED JOINT COMMAND
There would be no unified joint command throughout the war, despite the fact that it was the first "total" war: it was once again marked by a two-headedness between the Army (land) and the Navy. Politically, there was only one de facto exception, with the Georges Clemenceau government formed in mid-November 1917. Taking up the unprecedented choice that Paul Painlevé, his predecessor, had briefly implemented from mid-September, the Tiger chose to take over the War portfolio when he was appointed President of the Council (of Ministers). He was thus a quasi-minister of defence and his military chief of staff at the Hôtel de Brienne, Major General Henri Mordacq, was responsible for the day-to-day running of the ministry, effectively acting as deputy minister.
At the end of hostilities, the need to learn the lessons of this conflict on an unprecedented scale led to the rapid reactivation of the CSDN, which was given the task of preparing a major framework law on the organisation of the nation in wartime. In this context, the CSDN has a permanent general secretariatThe first incumbent was Major General Bernard Serrigny, a close associate of Marshal Pétain. This SG-CSDN became SGDN at the end of the 1920s and, after many changes, was renamed SGDSN in 2008..
A new milestone was reached in the middle of the inter-war years with the institution in February 1932, for the first time, of a "Minister of National Defence".in the last Tardieu government. François Piétri, an Inspector General of Finance who became a member of parliament and joined the left-wing Republicans, was the first to hold this title. After forty years of debate, this was a historic break. This break with the past was made possible by the gradual reduction in the powers of the Rue Royale, which was ratified in 1927. As a result, in early 1931 it officially became the headquarters of the "Ministry of the Navy". There was no longer any reason why it should not have been merged with the Ministry of War, as the two departments were now part of the same functional structure.
At work since the end of the XIXe In the 19th century, the need for administrative rationalisation, to ensure greater efficiency, prevailed. The creation of a Ministry of Air in 1928, which heralded the creation of the corresponding army in 1934, further complicated the organisation of the military ministries. Faced with this centrifugal dynamic, unification was essential.
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1932, A MINISTRY COATED THE THREE ARMIES... FOR 3 AND A HALF MONTHS
It was part of a drive to modernise state structures and strengthen executive power, which André Tardieu, a right-winger who had worked closely with Clemenceau at the end of the war, had made his hobbyhorse. However, this historic reform fizzled out. Ministerial instability swept away the Tardieu cabinet in June 1932, leaving no time for the reform to take hold, and in particular for it to be implemented within new ministerial structures. This was all the more necessary given that centuries of political and administrative history could not easily be swept away. At the end of the first half of 1932, it was back to the status quo ante.
Nevertheless, the breach had been made and the need - at the very least - for coordination between the military ministries was now recognised. At the beginning of 1934, a new institutional combination emerged, which sees this coordination mission officially entrusted to the oldest and most important of the three army ministers. Between the end of January and the end of February 1934, Jean Fabry, and then Joseph Paul-Boncour, were involved, "Minister of National Defence and War. The formula was taken up by the Popular Front government at the beginning of June 1936, in favour of Édouard Daladier.
At the same time, a "Standing Committee on National Defence" (SCND) was set up.It was based on the High Military Committee (HCM) set up by the Tardieu government in 1932. Chaired by the Minister of Defence and made up of the military vice-chairman of each army's superior council and its chief of general staff, the HCM was designed to be an executive committee of the new Ministry of Defence. The HCM was designed to act as an executive committee of the new Ministry of Defence, thus making up for the shortcomings of the CSDN, whose membership had grown to the point of ineffectiveness.
With the reform of June 1936, ministers whose participation might be useful were now admitted to the HCM, which became the CPDN, as were the Minister and the Chief of the Colonial General Staff from May 1938. This expansion was accompanied by a strengthening of the committee's capacity for action, as it could now rely on the SGDN. Over the years, this body acquired real decision-making powers, which were crystallised in the major law of 11 July 1938 on the "general organisation of the nation for wartime", which had been in preparation since the aftermath of the war.
1936: CREATION OF THE COLLÈGE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES DE DÉFENSE NATIONALE, THE FUTURE IHEDN
You can see it, The 1930s saw an unprecedented institutionalisation of the concept of "national defence", which accelerated sharply in the second half of the decade, as perils mounted. The humiliation of the Rhineland crisis in early 1936 [Editor's note: on 7 March, on the orders of Führer Adolf Hitler, German troops invaded the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland], the shock it represented, were a key factor. A few weeks later, the Front Populaire government played a major role in this unprecedented recognition of the concept of national defence. For example the creation in the summer of 1936 of the Collège des hautes études de défense nationale (CHEDN), of which the IHEDN is the direct heir.
Entrusted to Vice-Admiral Raoul Castex, the great French strategic thinker of the inter-war period, the creation of this entirely new type of establishment has its earliest known origin - as far as we know - in a note from Battalion Chief Charles de Gaulle dated 20 April 1931. Written on the initiative of its author, it was sent from Beirut, where he was posted at the time, to Marshal Pétain, whose "pen" he had been in the middle of the previous decade, and who then passed it on to the SGDN, Major General Louis Colson.
De Gaulle proposed the "creation of a course on the conduct of war".and advocates "a new teaching orderto "synthesise the constant data on the problem of warfare to provoke and guide everyone's thoughts on the subject " :
"In this way, we will lay the foundations for a national defence doctrine among those who, by virtue of their functions or destinations outside or within the army, are likely to disseminate it or have to apply it. "
As much as its purpose, it was the target audience that made De Gaulle's proposal a novel one, since it was envisaged that civilian civil servants would be included in the training.
The CHEDN project takes up these two requirements. With the prospect of a new all-out war, the aim was to provide the country's future leaders with a common training programme designed to give them the means to act together effectively. As proof of the urgency of the situation, CHEDN opened its doors in the autumn of 1936. Revealingly, the second speaker to be invited was Colonel de Gaulle, who had been assigned to the SGDN for five years, and who came to present "the draft law on the organisation of the nation for wartime".
ADMIRAL RAOUL CASTEX: "ONLY THE WHOLE INTERESTS ME".
A year later, opening the 2e At the CHEDN meeting on 3 November 1937, Admiral Castex summed up the ultimate ambition of the institution he founded in striking terms that have lost none of their relevance today: the failure of national defence.
"Personally, when I came here I stopped thinking of myself exclusively as a sailor. I stripped off my old shell. I've lost my sex, if I dare say so. The navy seems to me to be no more or less important than the other branches. I am interested in the whole".
"Only the whole interests me" could be a motto for the national session of the IHEDN!
Édouard Daladier played a major role in the reforms that accompanied the governmental beginnings of the Popular Front and gave a new place to the notion of national defence. When he became President of the Council in mid-January 1938, he chose to keep his portfolio. For the first time since Clemenceau, the head of government was also the Minister of War, and now also of National Defence... At the same time, Daladier made Major General Maurice Gamelin Chief of the General Staff of the [Land] Army, the first "Chief of the National Defence Staff", a mirror image of the minister to whom it reports.
On 11 July 1938, the law "on the general organisation of the nation for wartime" was finally passed. Its adoption marked a major step forward. For the first time, the organisation of national defence is being considered globally before the outbreak of war. As proof of this success, whole sections of this law are still included in the Defence Code.
A new historic milestone has been reached. But the apparent coherence of the new organisation should not be misled. The notion of "national defence" may now have institutional legitimacy, but it does not yet correspond to realities that are truly effective in organisational terms. In particular, the reforms that had been introduced were too recent to have had time to take root and really have an impact. The new war was to be the merciless revelation of this reality, which the disaster of 1940 was to sanction. It marked the failure of national defence.
That's the end of part one, and we'll be back shortly with the second and final part.
Philippe Vial is a lecturer in contemporary history at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, specialising in political and military affairs. On secondment to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, he works for the Directorate of Higher Military Education, where he is academic adviser to the director, academic adviser and professor of history at the Centre des Hautes Études Militaires and head of the history course at the École de Guerre.
TO FIND OUT MORE
Philippe Vial, "National defence before 1914: an institutional utopia?, Review of maritime historyn° 20, 2015/1, "La Marine et la Première Guerre mondiale, une histoire à redécouvrir", p. 269-293.
A shorter version of this study was published under the same title in National Defence ReviewNo. 778, 2015/3, "Balard 2015: Defence together", p. 72-79.
Guillaume Denglos and Philippe Vial, "The SGDSN, more than a century of history : summary initially produced on the occasion of the symposium "Le SGDSN, 110 ans au service de la défense et la sécurité de la France", 22 December 2016, Maison de la Chimie; Paris.
Philippe Vial, " 1932-1961. Unifying defence"., Inflections, no. 21, 2012/3, "Perpetual reform", pp. 11-22.
Philippe Vial, "How the Hexagon took shape, Armies of todayBalard, n° 397, 2015, "Balard opens its doors to you", p. 46-48.
Philippe Vial, "Combining armies: an old battle horseinterview with Nathalie Guibert, Le Monde, 13 October 2015.
TO find out more
Philippe Vial and Guillaume Denglos, History of IHEDN. Thinking about Defence, Paris, Tallandier, 2021, 208 p.
Guillaume Denglos and Philippe Vial, A History of the General Secretariat for Defence and National Security (XIXth-XXIst centuries), Paris, Nouveau Monde éditions, 2023, 450 p.
