A History of French Military Signals from 1867 to the Present Day

« The history of military signals is a fascinating story. Above all, it is a human adventure », writes General Jacques Eyharts, the "father of the Signals branch", in his preface. It is this adventure that this work — the first of its kind — recounts, in which the authors show how, from a simple army telegraph service, the French Signals Corps became an indispensable component of the armed forces in seizing and maintaining the informational advantage over the enemy.

A highly topical subject — as demonstrated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the advent of the digital age and its impact on the conduct of war. The military strategy adopted by General Burkhard, "win the war before the war", offers a field of action as vast as it is timeless for the French military signals, extending to the control of conventional weapons and electronic warfare, in a context of hybrid warfare.

Drawing on private archives such as those of General René Marty, Director of Signals (1953–1958), and key testimonies such as that of General Patrick Bazin, head of the Joint Directorate for Defence Infrastructure Networks and Information Systems (DIRISI) from 2010 to 2014, this comprehensive work presents — as Olivier Forcade underlines in his postface — the best current state of knowledge on the subject.