André-Joseph Lafitte-Clavé

The Imperial School of Engineering Muhendishane, in Tableau des nouveaux reglemens de l'Empire Ottoman by Mahmoud Rayf Efendi, Constantinople, 1789

André-Joseph Lafitte-Clavé, also André-Joseph de Lafitte (1740 in Clavé (a mansion of Moncrabeau) – 1794 in Perpignan) was a French Army engineering officer. He became Colonel on 1 April 1791, and Maréchal de Camp on 25 October 1792. He was a graduate of the Ecole royale du génie de Mézières engineering school.

He is especially known for his participation to a French mission in the Ottoman Empire under Louis XVI from 1784 to 1788.[1] The mission, from 1783, was sent to the Ottoman Empire to train the Turks in naval warfare and fortification building.[2] Up to the French revolution in 1789, about 300 French artillery officers and engineers were active in the Ottoman Empire to modernize and train artillery units.[3]

From 1784, André-Joseph Lafitte-Clavé and Joseph-Monnier de Courtois instructed engineering drawings and techniques in the new Turkish engineering school Mühendishâne-i Hümâyûn established by the Grand-Vizier Halil Hamid Pasha.[4] Mostly French textbooks were used on mathematics, astronomy, engineering, weapons, war techniques and navigation.[4]

The French experts had to leave in 1788, as a condition of the peace treaty between Russia and Turkey.[1] Some returned to Constantinople, but eventually all instructors had to leave with the end of the Franco-Ottoman alliance in 1798.[1][4]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Imperialism and science: social impact and interaction by George Vlahakis p.92
  2. ↑ From Louis XIV to Napoleon Jeremy Black p.144
  3. ↑ Ottoman wars 1700-1870: an empire besieged by Virginia H. Aksan p.202
  4. 1 2 3 Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire by Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters p.395
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