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The Wars of Louis XIV, 1667-1714, by John A. Lynn
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Warfare dominated the long reign of the `Sun-king', Louis XIV. For forty years from 1672, France was continuously at war and had one of the largest armies seen in the West since the fall of imperial Rome. The campaigns secured little territory, but almost bankrupted the country and the consequences for the French monarchy were dramatic - contributing to its eventual downfall. John Lynn examines the wars for evidence of a coherent strategic policy; he explores the operational logistics of the campaigns; and considers their significance for France's diplomatic, political, mililtary, administrative and institutional
This is the first modern, comprehensive study in any language, and offers a vivid insight into 17th and 18th century statesmanship and warfare - reaching a climax with the defeat of France by Marlborough at Blenheim.
- Sales Rank: #468118 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Pearson Eduction
- Published on: 1999-05-08
- Released on: 1999-05-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x 1.10" w x 5.50" l, 1.04 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 421 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
'a most welcome addition to the literature'War in History
From the Back Cover
Warfare dominated the long reign of the Sun-king', Louis XIV. For forty years from 1672, France was continuously at war and had one of the largest armies seen in the West since the fall of imperial Rome. The campaigns secured little territory, but almost bankrupted the country and the consequences for the French monarchy were dramatic - contributing to its eventual downfall. John Lynn examines the wars for evidence of a coherent strategic policy; he explores the operational logistics of the campaigns; and considers their significance for France's diplomatic, political, mililtary, administrative and institutional
This is the first modern, comprehensive study in any language, and offers a vivid insight into 17th and 18th century statesmanship and warfare - reaching a climax with the defeat of France by Marlborough at Blenheim.
About the Author
Dr John A Lynn, Professor of History at the University of Illinois, has written or edited six books, including ‘ Giant of the Grand Siecle: The French Army, 1610-1715’ (Cambridge University Press, 1997) and ‘ The Wars of Louis XIV, 1667-1714’ (Longman, 1999). He is currently working on ‘ The Mind of War: A History of Combat and Culture’ for Westview Press.
Most helpful customer reviews
36 of 39 people found the following review helpful.
War-as-process
By R. A Forczyk
Since the wars of Louis XIV have not been covered comprehensively in English, this volume by a renowned historian is particularly welcome. In this work, John Lynn combines a succinct, but thorough blow-by-blow narrative account of the wars fought by Louis XIV with a cogent historical analysis that places these conflicts in their proper perspective. Lynn's main hypothesis differs from some other historians who view Louis XIV as a would-be European conqueror intent on endless wars of conquest. Rather, Lynn regards Louis' wars as essentially defensive after achieving limited territorial gains in Holland after 1675. Lynn explains these conflicts as wars-as-process that rather than seeking to annihilate enemy armies or achieve decisive victories, sought lesser objectives like extorting taxes from occupied lands, deciding dynastic issues or achieving defensible borders for France. Inevitably Louis XIV sought short wars against isolated opponents, but the indecisive nature of 18th Century conflict led to protracted, attritional struggles against coalitions.
The Wars of Louis XIV consists of eight chapters, beginning with a background chapter on European conflict in 1495-1661. Two other excellent opening chapters cover French strategic concepts in this period as well as the strength and methods of the French army and navy. The next two chapters cover the relatively painless War of Devolution and the Dutch War, which were fought to achieve martial Gloire for Louis after he came to the throne. At relatively low cost, Louis added to his territory and seemed to confirm the use of violence as a useful tool of statecraft. The fifth chapter covers violence and state policy, specifically the so-called "reunions" which were coercive annexations of adjacent territory similar to Hitler's "Anschluss" with Austria, and violent suppression of the Protestant minority in France. The sixth and seventh chapters - which comprise nearly half the book - cover the fateful Nine Years War and the War of the Spanish Succession. Although France did well militarily in the first conflict, it was financially exhausting to fight protracted attritional struggles against coalitions. In the last war, fought for dynastic reasons, the French did fairly well until Marlborough showed up in 1704. Marlborough changed the slow operational tempo - typically one big siege attempted per season - and sought to fight big battles. He smashed the French at Blenheim and Ramillies, and succeeded in rolling back most of Louis' gains over the past 20 years. Nevertheless, Louis outlasted his enemies and eventually managed to achieve a favorable peace. The final chapter consists of an analysis of all of Louis' wars and attempts to place them in proper historical perspective.
Overall, this work is excellent - it is well-written, well-researched and provides fresh insight into a long-neglected subject. Students of Napoleonic warfare would be well-advised to read this book as background on the development of French doctrine (particularly a preference for fortifications) and strategy in pre-Revolutionary France. The chapters that cover the wars are sub-divided into sections on each year, which are cover the different fronts sequentially. The only flaw is this volume is the lack of decent maps; many important towns mentioned in the text are not depicted in the simple sketch maps nor are the movement of armies depicted. Nor is there a map of the Spanish theater of war, which was particularly important in the last two wars. It is particularly difficult to follow gains and losses of towns in the main battle front of Flanders, and the author should have provided at least a summary map to depict major territorial changes in each war. Readers should keep a good atlas handy in order to follow the campaigns.
Although France was able to achieve some strategic gains in these wars of Louis XIV, the main military legacy of the Sun King was near financial bankruptcy. John Lynn concludes, "for fifty years, French armies had been strong enough to stand against coalitions of all the other great powers. But the treaties of Utrecht, Rastatt, and Baden marked a watershed in international relations. No longer could France maintain its former dominance. This reality reflected not only the relative decline of France, but the increased power of other European states."
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
Fifty Years of War
By Marco Antonio Abarca
Louis XIV engaged in nearly constant warfare from 1664 to 1714. His wars covered the face of Europe from Ireland to Italy. The great commanders of the Age, Marlborough, Vauban, Turenne, Conde, Luxembourg and Eugene all crossed the stage of Louis' many wars. This is a lot of history to compress into one volume.
John Lynn does an admirable job of surveying the different wars and keeping track of all the campaigns that shaped these wars. He writes clearly and economically. One finishes the book having a better understanding of Louis' grand strategic vision.
This is not a book for someone wanting to learn more about the great commanders of the Age or the details of specific campaigns or battles. This is a book about war, writ large.
In my opinion, the value of this book for the general reading public of military history is that it places the accomplishments of Frederick the Great and later Napoleon into a better context. To understand why they were such revolutionaries, it is important to place them in contrast to an era where war was seen as process and the decisive moment did not exist.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Very Useful
By R. Albin
This useful and concise book is a nice overview of the wars of Louis XIV. Lynn provides the basic narrative and quite a bit of astute analysis. As Lynn points out, there is not a lot of English language literature on this topic and much of it is dominated by what might be termed Marlborougholatry. In a series of well written chapters, Lynn provides the basic background in French and general European history, the fundamentally personal-dynastic considerations underlying much of these conflicts, an excellent overview of the structure of the French war efforts, a set of narrative chapters on the wars themselves, and a well considered concluding overview attempting to place Louis' wars in larger context.
Lynn emphasizes Louis' psychology as a monarch dedicated to maintaining and expanding royal authority, and Louis' attachment to the idea of divinely sanctioned legitimate succession. The essentially dynastic motivations of much of his policy are discussed very well. The section on the organization of the French war effort, stressing the expansion of royal power and administration is a digest of one of Lynn's prior books and is simply excellent. This shows both the great expansion and vigor of Louis' rule, and in the discussion of its financial limitations, its marked weakness. Lynn's discussion of the structure of the French Army and Navy, and the nature of warfare in this period is similarly excellent.
The narrative chapters are solid, concise overviews of Louis' major wars. These are generally well done but rather dense because of the necessity of packing so much into a series of relatively short chapters. More maps and exposition would have improved these chapters. Lynn has a basic distinction between Louis' early wars which were devoted to establishing France as a particularly powerful state within the European state system, and his later wars, which Lynn argues were largely efforts to consolidate and defend the results of the earlier wars. In a modest bit of revision, Lynn argues that the later wars - The War of the League of Augsburg and the War of the Spanish Succession - were essentially defensive on Louis' part, though Louis' arrogance and miscalculations led to protracted, general European wars. Lynn is essentially trying to correct a view that sees Louis as some precursor version of Napoleon, which is probably correct, but he probably goes too far in defending Louis. The cumulative effect of narrative chapters provides an excellent illustration of the relatively inconclusive nature of war per se in this period and leads Lynn to finish with some interesting analysis of war as a general phenomenon in modern European history.
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