The first descriptions of post-traumatic psychic disorders date back to antiquity. Even though descriptions of a military medical organization have existed since the reign of the Roman emperor Trojan, it was not until the Renaissance in France that surgeons were systematically present on the battlefield. The first medical reports of war-induced mental disorders were, therefore, made by doctors and surgeons. This is how the syndrome of “le vent du boulet” or the nostalgia of imminent danger of the soldiers in battle is described in France by the surgeons of Napoleon's army. With the industrial disasters associated with railway accidents, the term traumatic neurosis appeared for the first time at the end of the 19th century. The publications of the société Médico-Psychologique created in 1847 by Jules Baillarger reflect the evolution of this new diagnostic category. In this article, we invite the reader on a historical journey through five periods beginning with the birth of the concept and its first clinical descriptions, up until the explosion of observations during the First World War. We see how the concept gradually acquired its autonomy both clinically: the association of recurrent memories of the event and the modification of the victim's personality rather than the decompensation of a previous pathology and sign of vulnerability or even moral weakness and on the etiological level: the progressive recognition of the preponderant role of emotion instead of concussion or confusion. Following the Second World War, the pathology of the deportees provides a new description of the concept. At that point, the recognition of the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder within the DSM 3 due to the difficulties that Vietnam veterans experienced in re-entering society promoted the dissemination of the concept and its recognition within civil society. In France, the RER attacks of 1995 were the beginning of a real awareness on the part of public authorities of the need to deal with psychological injuries. Military psychiatrists then took the initiative and participated in the establishment of medico-psychological emergency cells following the model of the earlier “psychiatrie de l’avant”. They also argued for conducting immediate post-trauma debriefings by specialized interlocutors whereas this technique was controversial in Anglo-Saxon countries. They often offered a psychodynamic and comprehensive approach to the cases which was probably linked to the underlying issue of freeing oneself from the moral judgments often too present when describing the disorder during the First World War when each soldier counted for the country. Currently, the approach is evolving towards methods of integrative care provided by military and associative practitioners. The mentally disturbed soldier is accompanied in a process of re-insertion and rehabilitation just like the physically wounded soldier. These nuggets from the history of psychiatry show how the concept of post-traumatic war disorder, which seems so obvious today, evolved over time. If the final chapter remains to be written, we hope that additional studies on this matter will continue within the medico-psychological society, whose 170th anniversary we honor today and we wish to pay tribute to our masters who in particular have worked for the recognition and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorders.