| Other Name: | André-Joseph de Lafitte |
| Birth Date: | 1740 |
| Birth Place: | Clavé, Moncrabeau |
| Death Date: | 1794 |
| Death Place: | Perpignan |
| Alma Mater: | Ecole royale du génie de Mézières |
| Rank: | Maréchal de Camp |
| Known For: | French training mission in Ottoman Empire |
| Branch: | French Army |
| Allegiance: | France |
André-Joseph Lafitte-Clavé, also André-Joseph de Lafitte (1740 in Clavé, a mansion of Moncrabeau – 1794 in Perpignan) was a French Army engineering officer. He became Colonel on 1 April 1791, and Maréchal de Camp on 25 October 1792. He was a graduate of the Ecole royale du génie de Mézières (English: Royal engineering school of Mézières).
He is especially known for his participation to a French mission in the Ottoman Empire under Louis XVI from 1784 to 1788.[1] The mission, from 1783, was sent to the Ottoman Empire to train the Turks in naval warfare and fortification building.[2] Up to the French Revolution in 1789, about 300 French artillery officers and engineers were active in the Ottoman Empire to modernize and train artillery units.[3]
From 1784, André-Joseph Lafitte-Clavé and Joseph-Monnier de Courtois instructed engineering drawings and techniques in the new Turkish engineering school Mühendishâne-i Hümâyûn established by the Grand-Vizier Halil Hamid Pasha.[4] Mostly French textbooks were used on mathematics, astronomy, engineering, weapons, war techniques and navigation.[4]
The French experts had to leave in 1788, as a condition of the peace treaty between Russia and Turkey.[1] Some returned to Constantinople, but eventually all instructors had to leave with the end of the Franco-Ottoman alliance in 1798.[1] [4]