The International Commission of Military History (ICMH), founded in 1938, is a no profit and non-governmental International Organization affiliated to the International Committee of Historical Sciences.

«The aim of the ICMH is to foster and co-ordinate studies and researches in the field of military history in the broadest sense, in a spirit of international friendship, so that scholars can become better acquainted with each other, co-operate and share the results of their work» (Statute, art. 2a).

ICMH promotes military history research, publication and education on a global basis. The intellectual focus of the ICMH is military history in the broadest sense: the history of warfare, of military campaigns, of the armed forces, of military thinking, diplomatic aspects of conflicts, causes and effects of wars, defence economics, civil-military relations, military technology, military leadership, and demographics of military forces.

ICMH is based on the Governing Bodies, the National Commissions and the Specialized Committees (Archives, Bibliographic, Educational). Each National Commission is self-governing and also sponsors military history activities within its own nation. In some countries National Commissions are expression of the local Ministry of Defence, in others are private organizations of scholars. In both cases, National Commissions foster the collaboration between civilians and military.

The main ICMH regular activities are:

·         Annual International Congresses and publication of their Acta.

·         Publication of the International Journal of Military History and Historiography (since 1978), with Brill Publishers since 2012.

·         Publication of the International Review of Military History (since 1939), each issue of which is entrusted by the ICMH Board to a National Commission.  

·         The André Corvisier Prize for PhD theses on military history (started in 2017).

·         A Newsletter (started in 2003) published twice a year.

For all these activities I invite you to search the appropriate page in this website.

The ICMH Board aims to increase the number of National Commissions (41 at the moment, over 4 continents) and thus to extend the organization’s outreach; in this respect please see Section III of our Statute. We also welcome keeping in contact with individual scholars, who may ask to be included in our mailing list.

Thank you for showing interest in the International Commission of Military History! 

Massimo de Leonardis
Professor, President of the International Commission of Military History