Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne

French military leader

• Born: September 11, 1611
• Birthplace: Sedan, France
• Died: July 27, 1675
• Place of death: Sasbach, Baden-Baden (now in Germany)

The Viscount de Turenne, a French Protestant noble who converted to Catholicism, was considered one of the greatest military minds of the seventeenth century. He played a crucial role in the Thirty Years’ War, the Wars of the Fronde, the War of Devolution, and the Franco-Dutch Wars, and the Rhineland Campaign.

Early Life

The Viscount de Turenne (tyuh-rehn), who was given the name Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne at birth, was born into the Huguenot (French Protestant) elite. His father was the duke de Bouillon and his mother was Elizabeth of Nassau, a princess of the House of Orange and the daughter of Prince William the Silent of the Netherlands (reigned as stadtholder, 1572-1584).

Steeped in the French Protestant-Dutch Calvinist military tradition, he entered into an army career almost on the basis of birthright. Through the efforts of his mother, he was apprenticed in the service of his uncle, Prince Maurice of Nassau , who had succeeded his father William the Silent as stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1585-1625). Turenne was kept on by another uncle, Stadtholder Frederick Henry . By the age of nineteen, Turenne had become an officer, with command responsibilities. For the next five years, he drifted between the French and the Dutch services.

When France entered the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) in 1635, Turenne had attained the rank of general and served in eastern and northern France before being sent into the Rhineland. He particularly distinguished himself by coordinating and leading the assault on Breisach on December 17, 1638, taking the city by storm and firmly establishing a reputation as a first-rate commander.

Life’s Work

During the remainder of the Thirty Years’ War, Turenne was dispatched from one battlefront to another: taking the city of Turin, Italy, in 1640; assisting in the Siege of Perpignan in southern France in 1642; and being suddenly transferred to Germany in 1643 to forestall an imminent invasion of France by the Bavarian army. Turenne’s German campaign of 1643-1648 was a masterpiece of maneuver and audacity, and it ended in the decisive victory in 1648 at Sommershausen over Austrian and Bavarian troops. Shortly thereafter, hostilities were suspended and the Thirty Years’ War came to an end. It was during this campaign that Turenne began his long, sometimes adversarial relationship with another notable military leader, Louis de Bourbon, duke of Enghien, and later Louis II, prince de Condé (later known as the Great Condé). On this occasion, though, Turenne and Condé worked very well in tandem.

The most controversial years of Turenne’s career occurred during the Wars of the Fronde (1648-1653), when dissident nobles sided with bourgeois and artisan elements in Paris against the royal government of the youthful monarch, Louis XIV , the Queen Mother Anne of Austria , and the first minister, Cardinal Jules Mazarin . During the initial phase, Turenne was on the side of the rebels, aligning himself closely with the duchesse de Longueville, Condé’s sister (with whom he was very likely carrying on an affair). Defeated at the Battle of Champ Blanc in Champagne on October 15, 1650, Turenne nevertheless benefited from a pardon and cease-fire in 1651. That year, he married Charlotte de Caumont and was free from the duchesse de Longueville’s influence.

Renewed fighting began in 1652, with Turenne on the royalist side. He defeated Condé at the Battle of Bléneau and then again at the Faubourg St.-Antoine on July 5, 1652. The Fronde would thereafter peter out.

Condé, however, escaped to join the service of Spain, with which France had been engaged in warfare since 1635. In August, 1654, Turenne lifted the Siege of Arras and went on to best Condé at the Battle of the Dunes (June 14, 1658). This battle was Turenne’s most innovative victory: He had used the ebb and flow of the oceanic tides to surprise and outflank his adversaries. His forces pushed as far as Ypres before the Spanish sued for peace, and the long Franco-Spanish Wars of 1635-1659 ended with the Treaty of the Pyrenees .

The early 1660’s was a time of relative peace for France. For Turenne, it was a time of change and bereavement; his wife, Charlotte died in 1666. Two years later, probably for career advancement reasons, he abjured the Huguenot faith and became a Catholic. The outbreak of the War of Devolution in 1667 marked a new beginning for Turenne: He had been appointed general marshal of France, holding the highest French army command next to that of the king himself. He was assigned to the invasion of the Spanish Netherlands. The invasion was marked by a generally smooth campaign for Turenne, climaxed by the investment and capture of the fortress at Lille on September 26, 1667.

In 1672, when King Louis XIV launched a massive surprise attack deep into the Dutch Netherlands, marking the start of the French-Dutch Wars (1672-1678), Turenne, despite his parental link with the House of Orange, led the most crucial wave. However, when the Dutch opened the dikes in desperation and the French advance bogged down as a result of the flooding, it was deemed necessary to dispatch Turenne to Germany to counter a threatened invasion by the German States, which was aimed at eastern France.

The Rhineland Campaign of 1674-1675 is considered to be Turenne’s most consummate tour de force. Invariably outnumbered, he threw superior enemy forces off balance, played the game of maneuver and bluff virtually to perfection, and generally bided his time to set up and act on the opportunity to divide and then individually pounce on the isolated units of his foes. Denied reinforcements, Turenne played a deadly game of bluff, deception, march, and counter-march with his brilliant adversary, imperialist Marshal Raimundo Montecuccoli; but Turenne was steadily forced across the Rhine and deep into eastern France. Having seemingly lost Alsace, and with the door perhaps open for imperial troops to march on Paris, Turenne won back the province in spectacular fashion. He executed his march across the Vosges, using the mountain range to shield his forces and deceive the imperials as to his true intentions and whereabouts. In the dead of winter, he parceled out his units, split them as they went through the mountains, and reassembled them at Belfort. He then rapidly pressed northward and overwhelmed the German army at Mulhouse.

His greatest triumph came at Turkheim on January 5, 1675. A well-planned and energetic surprise flank attack sent imperial forces back across the Rhine, thereupon Turenne secured the city of Strasbourg, put eastern France out of danger, and was in position to resume the offensive into German territory. During the summer of 1675, Turenne’s army was pushing eastward against that of Marshal Montecuccoli. At Sasbach on July 27, there was a clash, and while reconnoitering, Turenne was felled by an artillery shell, dying immediately.

Significance

As the most accomplished and celebrated French commander of the seventeenth century, Turenne often paid the price for his ability by being assigned to the most difficult tasks and being allocated provisions and manpower that were often barely adequate to sustain his efforts. His generalship is credited as being the crucial factor on three occasions: The final phases of the Thirty Years’ War, the defeat of the Frondists, and the turning away of the imperialist invasion of France during the winter of 1674-1675. He was interred at the abbey church at Saint-Denis, the burial place of many French monarchs, until Napoleon moved his body to the Church of the Invalides in Paris.

Bibliography

Cronin, Vincent. Louis XIV. London: Harvill Press, 1996. Turenne is credited with serving as King Louis XIV’s primary mentor in the intricacies of warfare.

Goubert, Pierre. Louis XIV and Twenty Million Frenchmen. Translated by Anne Carter. New York: Vintage Books, 1972. The author celebrates Turenne as Louis XIV’s greatest soldier and implies that his demise played a role in the first downturn in French military and diplomatic fortunes, which he believes occurred during the late 1670’s.

Jones, Archer. The Art of War in the Western World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. This work includes a detailed analysis of the 1673-1674 war in Germany between Turenne and Montecuccoli.

Lynn, John A. Giant of the Grand Siècle: The French Army, 1610-1715. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. A comprehensive overview of army administration and tactics, including the direction of military officials.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Wars of Louis XIV. New York: Longman, 1999. An excellent analysis of the Louis’s record in military matters, largely confirming Turenne’s high place among the great commanders of the age.

Ranum, Orest. The Fronde: A French Revolution, 1648-1652. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. The author puts into perspective Turenne’s enigmatic role in the Fronde and attempts to explain his turnaround in terms of family interests.