Vial, Philippe <br/><br/>
1932–1961. Unifying defense 

 -  2012.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 44 
<br/><br/> From the seventeenth century to the early days of the Fifth Republic, there has been more than one government minister responsible for organizing military matters (combining functional, environment-based, and geographical logics) in France. The War Department deals primarily with the first, but the priorities are reversed in the Marine Department and in that for the Air Force. In February 1932, a Minister of Defense was appointed for the first time, marking a clear break from the past, and functional logic seemed to be the winner. However, it took nearly three decades of non-stop reforms—the “trente tumultueuses” or “tumultuous thirty years”—before the new approach finally took hold. On April 5, 1961, a volley of twenty-two orders broke the old organizational arrangements in the ministries dealing with the armed forces. It is revealing that the unification of governmental supervision in the military field came between the end of the Third Republic and the early days of the Fifth, just when republican institutions were experiencing upheavals of an extent unprecedented since 1870. This coincidence was not at all fortuitous, given that politico-military developments symbolized the maturity of the democratic system.