Alfred Le Chatelier
| Frédéric Alfred Le Chatelier | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 23 November 1855 |
| Died | 9 August 1929 (aged 73) |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Soldier, Ceramicist, Islamologist |
Frédéric Alfred Le Chatelier (23 November 1855 – 9 August 1929) was a French soldier, ceramicist and Islamologist. He spent most of his military career in the French African colonies. After leaving the army he was involved in a project to build a railway in the French Congo. He fought a duel and killed his opponent over mutual accusations of improper conduct concerning the Congo railways. He founded and ran a ceramics workshop for a few years before becoming a professor of Islamic Sociology at the Collège de France from 1902 to 1925. He exerted considerable influence over French policy towards the Muslim subjects of France's colonial empire, arguing for policy based on solidly documented facts, and for tolerance and sympathy to the rapidly changing Muslim societies.
Frédéric Alfred Le Chatelier was born on 12 November 1855 in Paris at 84 rue de Vaugirard in the center of a district of art and ceramic studios. He was one of seven children of the prominent railway engineer Louis Le Chatelier (1815–1873) and Louise Madeleine Élisabeth Durand (1827–1902). His family was wealthy and well-connected. His brother was the future chemist Henry Louis Le Chatelier. Although interested in natural sciences, Alfred chose to join the army and attended the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr He obtained his diploma in 1874 and degree in 1876. He was brilliant, visionary, entrepreneural and domineering, a convinced republican and secularist. He was unable to maintain a long-term friendship.
After leaving Saint-Cyr in 1876 Le Chatelier was an officier des affaires indigénes in Algeria for ten years. In 1880 he was an assistant topographer on the first Flatters expedition. This mission set out on January 1880 to explore a route for a trans-Saharan railway. At Touggourt Le Chatelier advised Paul Flatters not to accept the offer of a muqaddam to accompany the mission, since his religious prestige might undermine the authority of Flatters. This caused a furious response from Flatters, who possibly felt his competence was being questioned. Relations between the French and Arab members of the expedition were uneasy from the start. At Aïn Taïba, eight days south of Ouargla, Le Chatelier tried to retrieve some water skins the cameleers had taken from the French. The Arabs at once cocked their rifles and took position behind a dune, and the French did the same. Flatters temporarily resolved the problem by relieving Le Chatelier of his command. The mission reached Lake Menghough on the fringe of the Tuareg of the Ajjer country, then returned in May 1880. When the second Flatters expedition was being organized later in 1880 Le Chatelier was among the members of the first expedition who asked for other assignments.
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