Illustrated documents

In the armed forces, for centuries visual descriptions have fulfilled two main functions:

- they provide or add to information required for the movement of troops, for navigation, for flight missions and for military operations (offensive, assaults on fortified positions, bombing raids, fire support, artillery fire, etc.), or for helping to choose or build equipment;

- they allow military operations, events and official functions of units to be followed in order to be logged and communicated to the institution concerned.

The SHD has been able to add to the illustrations produced by the armed forces with images collected from individuals showing another angle of operations that they have witnessed or may have been involved in, or pictures showing the daily life of the armed forces in peace as well as at war.

A wide variety of collections

Having inherited the library of records founded under the reign of Louis XIV in order to preserve the records of war and navy secretary of state, the Defence Historical Service has housed illustrated documents right from the start and has since been working to add to these collections.

Maps signed by Vauban; drawings, water or oil paintings for the war records by geographical engineers, some of whom specialised in reproducing battle scenes; prints illustrating old books from library collections; drawings depicting plants or "natural life" observed during discovery expeditions; photographs and plans of warships; photographic records of the journalist, Victor Forbin, who travelled to all four corners of the globe with his work from 1900 to 1930; the list goes on... All types of illustrations may be found and they number in their tens, or even hundreds of thousands: charts, maps, drawings, engravings, paintings, prints, but also glass plates, films and photographs, post cards, etc.

Find out more

Online : request for a copy of a document