Study Day. "WAR VIOLENCE & MILITARY CASUALTIES IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA"."

The Indochina War, between 1946 and 1954, offers an exceptional opportunity to understand the impact that losses (whether in combat or not) can have on a military organisation, in this case the French Expeditionary Corps in the Far East (CEFEO). The French troops, of diverse origins (Europe, Asia and Africa), had to cope with the difficulties inherent in a theatre of operations that was both remote from the mainland and faced specific environmental conditions, marked by a predominantly tropical climate and major health challenges, in a vast, stretched-out territory with limited and vulnerable infrastructure. Moreover, as the conflict was not a priority, soldier resources remained limited until the French defeat and the withdrawal of troops from the peninsula. Finally, it provides an opportunity to examine the relationship between the system of war casualties and a specific form of conflict (between counter-guerrilla warfare in an asymmetric context and conventional warfare). In what way, then, were casualties a decisive issue in the Indochina War? Did their management impose particular operational constraints? What were the medical and military responses to the accumulation of casualties? Who were the main players in the care sector, and how did they establish categories specific to this war? Is the conflict leading to the definition of a new system of losses, or even an economy of injury and illness in a tropical context?

Organising committee: Benoît Pouget (Mesopolhis), Paul Lenormand (SHD), Ivan Cadeau (SHD)

Scientific Committee: Benoît Pouget (Mesopolhis), Erica Charters (Oxford University), Ivan Cadeau (SHD), Paul Lenormand (SHD), Walter Bruyère-Ostells (SHD - Mesopolhis), Claire Miot (SHD), Elisabeth Anstett (ADES), Pierre Guyomach’ (CICR - ADES), Taline Garibian (UNIGE), Roderick Bailey (Oxford University), Sophie Gueudet (York University).