ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Extraction in Revolution: Mining, Metallurgy and Chemistry in the French Revolutionary Wars

• In Event: Histories of Chemistry

English Abstract

The revolutionary wars of the eighteenth century greatly altered the commodity chains of several states. Demand for raw materials increased as the war effort demanded an ever-increasing supply of materials and energy. In this shifting economic and military landscape, the work of scientists became especially prized. Metallurgists, chemists, mining engineers — many were asked to urgently apply their craft to revolutionary efforts. Investigating the case of the French revolutionary wars, this paper shows how revolutions transformed the practices of extractive science. From creating dedicated scientific institutions, to the requisition of foundries and execution of mine owners, the science of supplying ressources worked in concert and sometimes in conflict with revolutionary politics.
My presentation focuses on the dwindling supply of copper and lead to the French state, two metals viewed as critically important to war efforts for their use in canons, bullets and naval vessels. A diverse group of practitioners were ordered to increase supply by way of recycling, metallurgical research, and the acquisition of technical knowledge. Working in both metropole and colonies, composed of men and women, free and coerced, politicians and emigrated workers, those who engaged with revolutionary extractive sciences held a variety of motivations. But all were subject to the contradictory pressures of nationalist mercantilism and the need to arm the new republic as fast as possible. With striking parallels to other revolutionary instances and to modern realities of military conflicts driving extraction, this presentation extends current work into the political nature of extractivism to the early modern period.

Author

• Armel Cornu, Uppsala University