Caring in times of guerrilla warfare: the medical care of wounded French soldiers in the Iberian Peninsula (1808-1814) | Thomas Ramonda's thesis defence

Thomas Ramonda's thesis defence, 04 June 2024 at 2pm

The defence will take place on 4 June 2024 from 2pm to 5.30pmat Sciences Po Aix.
Registration mandatory To complete this form online to attend the viva (in person or via distance learning), which will be followed by a drink. All information (venue, access) will be sent after registration.

Composition of the jury

• Walter BRUYERE-OSTELLS, Science Po Aix, Thesis supervisor
• Claire FREDJ, University of Paris Ouest-Nanterre La Défense, Rapporteur
• Mr Pedro RÚJULA LÓPEZ, Universidad de Zaragoza, reporter
• Mr Jacques-Olivier BOUDON, Sorbonne University, Chairman
• Mr Benoît POUGET, Science Po Aix, examiner

Summary

The aim of this thesis is to study the uniqueness and evolution of medical care for French soldiers during the war in the Iberian Peninsula (1808-1814) and in the years that followed.
Napoleon's occupation of Spain is a special subject of study, at the crossroads of British, Portuguese, French and Spanish historiography, and a veritable matrix of transformations in the practices of insurrection and counter-insurrection, the maintenance of law and order, and medicine in times of occupation. The aim is to study how military choices, political decisions, administrative efforts and medical knowledge evolved in response to the successive difficulties encountered by the French army in the peninsula: climate, popular uprising, militias practising small-scale warfare, isolation of the troops, British presence on the coast. All these factors combined to give rise to the modern meaning of the concept of guerrilla warfare. As the conquest of the peninsula drew to a close, the Empire sought to establish a lasting occupation in the face of persistent forms of resistance, ranging from the most violent to the most diffuse.
By looking at health care, we can examine the empire's ability to force a wide variety of individuals from different cultural backgrounds - working classes and local Spanish elites, soldiers, army administrators and health officers, religious personnel and civilian carers - to embrace a common project: the establishment and operation of an imperial health network, an essential infrastructure for the military and administrative occupation of a conquered territory.
As a space for interaction between occupants and occupied, the hospital is also a setting for the configuration and reversal of power relationships, with the dominant players weakened and dependent on local resources. In this way, it serves as a privileged observatory of the forms of collaboration and resistance that are intertwined within the various relationships between the members of this healthcare network. This protean resistance, coupled with the military efforts of the guerrillas, the regular armies and the logistical difficulties of an empire projecting and administering a military power far from its centre of gravity, fuelled a process of reflection by the French public and military authorities on the health of soldiers and their medical care, both in Spain and in France.

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Key words : Guerra de la IndependenciaNapoleonic empire, army health service, military medicine, guerrilla warfare, insurrection and counter-insurrection, war wounded and invalids.