MILITARY GEOLOGY: AN AMERICAN TERM WITH GERMAN AND FRENCH ANCESTRY
ABSTRACT The year 2019 marks the 80th anniversary of the start of the Second World War and the 75th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy: respectively the first major conflict in which geologists were deployed professionally in uniform by opposing sides from the start of hostilities, and the first successful major amphibious assault whose planning was significantly influenced by geologists. ‘Military geology’ had become established within major world powers as a discipline relevant to military operations, following its initial development in the First World War. The term in English had entered scientific literature via publications in the USA from 1917 onwards, initially by Joseph Ezekiel Pogue, Jr (1887–1971). This followed use of ‘Militärgeologie’ from 1913 by Walter Kranz (1873–1953) in Germany, a term subsequently used also in Austria-Hungary, although mostly replaced by ‘Kriegsgeologie’ in both nations from 1915 and by ‘Wehrgeologie’ from about 1935. However, ‘géologie militaire’ was in French use even earlier, notably in the sub-titles of books by an infantry officer, Joseph-Charles-Auguste Clerc (1840–1910), on the French Alps in 1882 and the Jura mountains in 1888. This term complemented use of ‘géographie militaire’, a name in use since 1836 for a subject whose study was given impetus in France by defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. In recent years ‘military geoscience’ has come into more popular use, reuniting military geology with geography and embracing associated disciplines.