Pierre Auguste Roques

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Pierre Auguste Roques
Portrait from L'Illustration during World War I.

Pierre Auguste Roques (born 28 December 1856 in Marseillan (Hérault); died 1920 in Saint-Cloud) was a French general and creator of the French air force.

Born to a modest family, his lively intelligence earned him a study grant that allowed him to prepare for the entrance examinations to the École Polytechnique, where he became a friend of Joseph Joffre. Having chosen the military engineering branch of the army and commissioned as an officer in 1879, (at that time, more engineering than military) he created during his colonial campaigns a vast number of structures (railways, bridges, roads) in Tonkin, Algeria and, above all, in Madagascar. According to historians, this island owes a large part of its infrastructure to Roques. By 1906, Roques had been promoted to the rank of général de brigade.

As Director of Engineering, he was preoccupied from 1906 with the management of the new air service. He was the creator and organiser of French military aviation. The 1911 aeroplane contest in Reims - the world's first - was intended to allow the French military to evaluate and buy 'scientifically' its first aeroplanes. Roques decided that the «établissements d'aéronautique» (aeronautical establishments) should be called «escadrilles» (squadrons) and that the «aéroplanes» should henceforth be called «avions», after the name chosen by Clément Ader for his own aircraft and in homage to this visionary engineer with whom he corresponded regularly. It was also Roques who initiated the «carnet de vol» (pilot's log book) still in use today. The names introduced by Roques came to be generally accepted and very quickly became part of French vocabulary.

At the outbreak of World War One, he was the commanding general of the 12th Corps. By January 1915 he had become the commander of the First Army, and then became the Minister of War from January to December 1916, following Gallieni and preceding Lyautey. Subsequently, he served briefly as the commander of the Fourth Army and then as the Inspector General of Works and Organization for the French Army until February 1919.

He died at Saint-Cloud in 1920. Buried initially in his native Marseillan, his remains were transferred to the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris.