HUI, XII, 2021, 41-57
Historia Universitatis Iassiensis 12, 41–57
Abstract. In this study, I aimed at presenting some elements in the history of military educational institutions, beginning with the establishment of military schools, their organizational form, and the role of the military teachers in that mechanism. Another objective was to rebuild the biography of six military teachers, allowing me to highlight their teaching performance. For that end, I employed mainly archive sources from the Military Archives in Pitești, as well as the military newspaper Monitorul Oastei (Army Gazette).
The training of those military teachers meant graduation from military schools as well as the Higher Warfare School. The knowledge acquired in those schools helped them become competent teachers. They succeeded in fostering well-trained military staff – graduates of military schools, a fact which impacted the way many military decisions were taken during the conflicts in which the Romanian army took part, as well as the combat conduct of the Romanian army.
When during the run-up to the entry of our country in the First World War, the training period of the students in the military schools decreased, and the military teachers obtained not-so-well-trained graduates, which negatively impacted the outcome of certain battles fought by the Romanian army. Another conclusion would be that the military teachers contributed to a continuous improvement of the educational process, mainly by drawing-up courses.
If we are to refer to the civil teaching staff, who taught in the military educational institutions, we may say that some of them are renowned personalities in the field, authors of schoolbooks, courses, or scientific works, who also acted as professors in the university environment, for instance, Octav Onicescu, Tiberiu Ionescu, and Cezar Coșniță. To the same class belong also Gheorghe Zapan, Gheorghe Dumitrescu, Mihail Demetrescu, Valeriu Grecu, Ion Niculiță, Eustațiu Mărculescu, Emilian Topa, Ion Manta, Petre Popescu, Aurel Bobescu, Zeno Vrancea, and Ion Vasilescu, as they contributed to maintaining a relatively good level of the military educational system.
