King Louis XIV: French Mastermind

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Under the direction of King Louis XIV, France achieved unprecedented dominance in Europe, and her culture flourished. Louis’ court was renowned for its splendor and sophistication. He helped advance the arts in every field through his enlightened patronage. Everything French was in vogue on the Continent.

The Sun King’s legacy was no less martial than cultural. Three of every five years during his reign were troubled by wars. Louis yearned to be a great king–another Charlemagne; yet historians continue to debate whether he deserved the epithet ‘great.’ Did he rescue France, embroiled as it was in the civil strife known as the Wars of the Fronde, or did his absolute rule hasten the Revolution of 1789? What cannot be disputed is that Louis and the formidable military machine he commanded elevated France to a position of pre-eminence during his lifetime and for a century thereafter.

Louis’ military excursions can be neatly separated into four distinct conflicts: the War of Devolution with Spain, the Dutch War, the War of the Palatinate and the War of the Spanish Succession–the last of which might be called the first truly global conflict of the modern age. His most spectacular successes came early, while he was still blessed with a handful of brilliant ministers (Jean-Baptiste Colbert and François-Michel le Tellier, marquis de Louvois) and marshals (Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne; Louis II de Bourbon, prince de Condé; and François-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Luxembourg).

When 4-year-old Louis ascended the throne in 1643, France already possessed an excellent army, but Louis and his minister of war, Louvois, raised its standards of professionalism still further. From the time he was appointed in 1666, Louvois introduced uniforms, improved equipment such as flintlock muskets and socket bayonets, and a revised organization with a fixed-rank system. After 1668, the army was increased to 170,000 men. (France was then Europe’s most populous country, with about 18 million people.) Under his finance minister, Colbert, the French navy grew from a squadron of 20 ships to a fleet of 270 by 1677. Louis also had at his disposal the era’s greatest military engineer, Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban, designer of the star-shaped bastion.

Internationally, the time was ripe for a change in the balance of power. The once global power of Spain was in rapid decline. Germany and Italy were still patchwork collections of minor principalities. The Ottoman Turks were active again, keeping Hapsburg Austria’s forces tied down in the Balkans. England was ruled by the House of Stuart, which had French blood and was not poorly disposed toward its neighbor across the Channel. From 1668 on, Louis XIV worked hard to keep England neutral, if not allied with France.

When Philip IV of Spain died in 1665, Louis seized the opportunity to invade the Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium) and the Franche-Comté (now Burgundy). Both provinces were more French than Spanish. Louis cited his wife’s ‘claim’ to those lands, since she was the daughter of the deceased Spanish king. In May 1667, the French army, commanded by Turenne, advanced into the region and, by August, had captured the Flemish towns of Charleroi, Armentières, Tournai, Douai and Lille. At Lille, Louis put in a personal appearance at the front lines.

Europe was stunned. Spain had been the dominant power for so long that nobody thought so easy a victory against her was possible. But Louis knew better. He believed that battles are won before they begin; consequently, his campaign had been thoroughly thought out before it was launched. Secret treaties had been made with Austria and Portugal, and German princes were bribed to stay out of the conflict. The campaign set the Sun King’s pattern for the future–far from being a bombastic or passionate warrior, he ran his wars by careful, deliberate calculation.

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