André-Joseph Lafitte-Clavé, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetAndré-Joseph Lafitte-Clavé
French Army officer
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Moncrabeau, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
About André-Joseph Lafitte-Clavé
- 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.
- The mission, from 1783, was sent to the Ottoman Empire to train the Turks in naval warfare and fortification building.
- 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.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.
- Mostly French textbooks were used on mathematics, astronomy, engineering, weapons, war techniques and navigation.The French experts had to leave in 1788, as a condition of the peace treaty between Russia and Turkey.
- Some returned to Constantinople, but eventually all instructors had to leave with the end of the Franco-Ottoman alliance in 1798.
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