Raoul Victor Patrice Castex (27 October 1878,

Saint-Omer Saint-Omer (; ; Picard: ''Saint-Onmé'') is a commune and sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department in France. It is west-northwest of Lille on the railway to Calais, and is located in the Artois province. The town is named after Sa ...

– 10 January 1968,

Villeneuve-de-Rivière Villeneuve-de-Rivière (; ) is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France. Population See also *Communes of the Haute-Garonne department The following is a list of the 586 communes in the French department of Hau ...

) was a French Navy admiral and a military theorist.

Naval career

Castex joined the Navy in 1896, becoming the best student of his promotion at the

École Navale École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

. He became professor at the École de Guerre Navale. In 1919, he was tasked with reorganising the historical services of the

French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...

, and in 1928, he was promoted to contre-amiral. On 2 July 1936, he was made a grand officer of the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

. The same year, he founded the Institut des hautes études de la défense nationale, which he headed until 1939. He rose to vice-amiral in 1937 and finished his career heading the naval forces of the Northern fleet.

Institut des Hautes Études de la Défense Nationale

One of his main achievements was the creation of the Institut des Hautes Études de la Défense Nationale (IHEDN, Institute of Higher Studies of National Defence), which aimed to reduce the intellectual gap between civilian and military officials.

Theories

Between 1929 and 1939, Castex wrote ''Théories stratégiques'', which analysed the link between land and naval warfare and argued for a national "gravity centre", which, in the case of France, would be situated outside Europe. He argued that the "gravity centre" should have been displaced to Northern Africa before 1939, with installation of main armament factories and government centres. In 1939, Castex suggested granting independence to

French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China), officially known as the Indochinese Union and after 1941 as the Indochinese Federation, was a group of French dependent territories in Southeast Asia from 1887 to 1954. It was initial ...

, which he deemed indefensible against the

Japanese Empire The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From 1910 to ...

, and to Syria and Lebanon, which were then under French mandate, to make allies out of them. In 1955, Castex published an article in the ''Revue de la défense nationale'' ("Review of National Defence"), ''La Russie, rempart de l'Occident'' ("Russia, Wall of the West"). There, he seemed to predict the rise of China and its upcoming rivalry with the West, including Russia.

Works

* ''Strategic Theories'' (Naval Institute Press, 2017), Eugenia Kiesling translates and summarizes Castex's original five volume study, ''Théories stratégiques'' * ''Le Grand État-major naval, question militaire d'actualité'' (1909) * ''Les Idées militaires de la marine du XVIIIe. De Ruyter à Suffren'' (1911) * ''L'Envers de la guerre de course. La vérité sur l'enlèvement du convoi de St-Eustache par Lamotte-Picquet (avril-mai 1781)'' (1912) * ''Synthèse de la guerre sous-marine. De Pontchartrain à Tirpitz'' (1920) * ''Questions d'état-major. Principes. Organisation. Fonctionnement'' (1923–1924) * ''Théories stratégiques'' (5 vol 1929 ; 1935). Reedited in 1995 by Economica. * ''De Gengis-Khan à Staline ou les Vicissitudes d'une manœuvre stratégique, 1205-1935'' (1935)

Bibliography

* Amiral Douguet, le Contre-Amiral Duval et le Général Guillebon, ''Hommage à l'amiral Raoul Castex'', Académie de Marine, Paris, 1968 * Hervé Coutau-Bégarie, ''Castex, le stratège inconnu'', Economica 1985 1878 births 1968 deaths People from Saint-Omer French naval historians French male non-fiction writers {{France-historian-stub