Pierre Théophile Victorien Marie Chaplais FSA FRHistS FBA (8 July 1920 – 26 November 2006) was a French historian.
[1] Born in Châteaubriant, Loire-Inférieure (now Loire-Atlantique), France, Chaplais was educated at the Collège Saint-Sauveur in Redon and the University of Rennes, where he studied Law and Classics, with a view of becoming an academic lawyer.
His education was interrupted by World War II, during which he served with the French Army until the 1940 Armistice.
A member of the French Resistance, Chaplais was captured by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald.
In 1955 he was elected Reader in Diplomatic at the University of Oxford, succeeding to Kathleen Major.