(1611-1675)
[Illustration: Turenne. [TN]]
Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, esteemed, after
Napoleon, the greatest of French generals, was born September 16,
1611. He was the second son of the Duc de Bouillon, Prince of Sedan,
and of Elizabeth of Nassau, daughter of the celebrated William of
Orange, to whose courage and talents the Netherlands mainly owed their
deliverance from Spain. Both parents being zealous Calvinists, Turenne
was of course brought up in the same faith. Soon after his father's
death, the duchess sent him, when he was not yet thirteen years old,
into the Low Countries, to learn the art of war under his uncle,
Maurice of Nassau, who commanded the troops of Holland in the
protracted struggle between that country and Spain. Maurice held that
there was no royal road to military skill, and placed his young
relation in the ranks, as a volunteer, where for some time he served,
enduring all hardships to which the common soldiers were exposed. In
his second campaign he was promoted to the command of a company, which
he retained for four years, distinguished by the admirable discipline
of his men, by unceasing attention to the due performance of his own
duty, and by his eagerness to witness, and become thoroughly
acquainted with, every branch of service. In the year 1630, family
circumstances rendered it expedient that he should return to France,
where the Court received him with distinction, and invested him with
the command of a regiment.
Four years elapsed before Turenne had an opportunity of distinguishing
himself in the service of his native country. His first laurels were
reaped in 1634, at the siege of the strong fortress of La Motte, in
Lorraine, where he headed the assault, and, by his skill and bravery,
mainly contributed to its success. For this exploit he was raised, at
the early stage of twenty-three, to the rank of Marechal de Camp, the
second grade of military rank in France. In the following year, the
breaking out of war between France and Austria opened a wider field of
action. Turenne held a subordinate command in the army, which, under
the Cardinal de la Valette, marched into Germany to support the
Swedes, commanded by the Duke of Weimar. At first fortune smiled on
the allies; but, ere long, scarcity of provisions compelled them to a
disastrous retreat over a ruined country, in the face of the enemy. On
this occasion the young soldier's ability and disinterestedness were
equally conspicuous. He sold his plate and equipage for the use of the
army; threw away his baggage to load the wagons with those stragglers
who must otherwise have been abandoned; and marched on foot, while he
gave up his own horse to the relief of one who had fallen, exhausted
by hunger and fatigue. These are the acts which win the attachment of
soldiers, and Turenne was idolized by his.
Our limits will not allow of the relation of those campaigns in which
the subject of this memoir filled a subordinate part. In 1637-38 he
again served under La Valette, in Flanders and Germany, after which he
was made Lieutenant-general, a rank not previously existing in France.
The three following years he was employed in Italy and Savoy, and in
1642 made a campaign in Roussillon, under the eye of Louis XIII. In
the spring of 1643 the king died; and in the autumn of the same year
Turenne received from the queen-mother and regent, Anne of Austria, a
marshal's baton, the appropriate reward of his long and brilliant
services. Four years a captain, four a colonel, three Marechal de
Camp, five lieutenant-general, he had served in all stations from the
ranks upward, and distinguished himself in them not only by military
talent, but by strict honor and trustworthiness; rare virtues in those
turbulent times, when men were familiar with civil war, and the great
nobility were too powerful to be peaceful subjects.
Soon after his promotion he was sent to Germany, to collect and
reorganize the French army, which had been roughly handled at
Duttlingen. It wanted rest, men, and money, and he settled it in good
quarters, raised recruits, and pledged his own credit for the
necessary sums. The effects of his exertions were soon seen. He
arrived in Alsace, December, 1643, and in the following May was at the
head of 10,000 men, well armed and equipped, with whom he felt strong
enough to attack the Imperial army, and raise the siege of Fribourg.
At that moment the glory which he hoped for, and was entitled to
obtain, as the reward of five months' labor, was snatched from him by
the arrival of the celebrated Prince de Conde, at that time Duc
d'Enghien, to assume the command. The vexation which Turenne must have
felt was increased by the difference of age (for the prince was ten
years his junior), and of personal character. Conde was ardent and
impetuous, and flushed by his brilliant victory at Rocroi the year
before; Turenne, cool, calculating, and cautious, unwearied in
preparing a certainty of success beforehand, yet prompt in striking
when the decisive moment was come. The difference of their characters
was exemplified upon this occasion. Merci, the Austrian commander, had
taken up a strong position, which Turenne said could not be forced;
but at the same time pointed out the means of turning it. Conde
differed from him, and the second in command was obliged to submit. On
two successive days two bloody and unsuccessful assaults were made;
on the third Turenne's advice was taken, and on the first
demonstration of this change of plan Merci retreated. In the following
year, ill supplied with everything, and forced to separate his troops
widely to obtain subsistence, Turenne was attacked at Mariendal, and
worsted by his old antagonist, Merci. This, his first defeat, he felt
severely; still he retained his position, and was again ready to meet
the enemy, when he received positive orders from Mazarin to undertake
nothing before the arrival of Conde. Zealous for his country and
careless of personal slights, he marched without complaint under the
command of his rival; and his magnanimity was rewarded at the battle
of Nordlingen, in 1645, where the centre and right wing having failed
in their attack, Turenne, with the left wing, broke the enemy's right,
and falling on his centre in flank, threw it into utter confusion. For
this service he received the most cordial and ample acknowledgments
from Conde, both on the field and in his despatches to the Queen
Regent. Soon after, Conde, who was wounded in the battle, resigned his
command into the hands of Turenne. The following campaigns of
1646-47-48 exhibited a series of successes, by means of which he drove
the Duke of Bavaria from his dominions, and reduced the emperor to
seek for peace. This was concluded at Munster in 1648, and to
Turenne's exertions the termination of the Thirty Years' War is mainly
to be ascribed.
The repose of France was soon broken by civil war. Mazarin's
administration, oppressive in all respects, but especially in fiscal
matters, had produced no small discontent throughout the country, and
especially in Paris, where the Parliament openly espoused the cause of
the people against the minister, and was joined by several of the
highest nobility, urged by various motives of private interest or
personal pique. Among these were the Prince of Conti, the Duc de
Longueville, and the Duc de Bouillon. Mazarin, in alarm, endeavored to
enlist the ambition of Turenne in his favor, by offering the
government of Alsace, and the hand of his own niece, as the price of
his adherence to the Court. The viscount, pressed by both parties,
avoided declaring his adhesion to either; but he unequivocally
expressed his disapprobation of the cardinal's proceedings, and, being
superseded in his command, retired peaceably to Holland. There he
remained till the convention of Ruel effected a hollow and insincere
reconciliation between the Court and one of the jarring parties of
which the Fronde was composed. That reconciliation was soon broken by
the sudden arrest of Conde, Conti, and the Duc de Longueville. Turenne
then threw himself into the arms of the Fronde, and, at the head of
eight thousand men, found himself obliged to encounter the royal army,
twenty thousand strong. In the battle which ensued, he distinguished
his personal bravery in several desperate charges; but the disparity
was too great; and this defeat of Rhetel was of serious consequence to
the Fronde party. Convinced at last that his true interest lay rather
on the side of the Court, then managed by a woman and a priest, where
he might be supreme in military matters, than in supporting the cause
of an impetuous and self-willed leader, such as Conde, Turenne gladly
listened to overtures of accommodation, and passed over to the support
of the regency.
The value of his services was soon made evident. Twice, at the head of
very inferior troops, he checked Conde in the career of victory; and
again compelled him to fight under the walls of Paris; where, in the
celebrated battle of the Faubourg St. Antoine, the prince and his army
narrowly escaped destruction. Finally, he re-established the Court at
Paris, and compelled Conde to quit the realm. These important events
took place in one campaign of six months in 1652.
In 1654 he again took the field against his former friend and
commander, Conde, who had taken refuge in Spain, and now led a foreign
army against his country. The most remarkable operation of the
campaign was the raising the siege of Arras, which the Spaniards had
invested, according to the most approved fashion of the day, with a
strong double line of circumvallation, within which the besieging army
was supposed to be securely sheltered against the sallies of the
garrison cooped up within, and the efforts of their friends from
without. Turenne marched to the relief of the place. This could only
be effected by forcing the enemy's entrenchments; which were
accordingly attacked, contrary to the opinion of his own officers, and
carried at all points, despite the personal exertions of Conde. The
Spaniards were forced to retreat. It is remarkable that Turenne, not
long after, was himself defeated in precisely similar circumstances,
under the walls of Valenciennes, round which he had drawn lines of
circumvallation. Once more he found himself in the same position at
Dunkirk. On this occasion he marched out of his lines to meet the
enemy, rather than wait, and suffer them to choose their point of
attack; and the celebrated battle of the Dunes, or Sandhills, ensued,
in which he gained a brilliant victory over the best Spanish troops,
with Conde at their head. This took place in 1657. Dunkirk and the
greater part of Flanders fell into the hands of the French in
consequence; and these successes led to the treaty of the Pyrenees,
which terminated the war in 1658.
When war broke out afresh between France and Spain, in 1667, Louis
XIV. made his first campaign under Turenne's guidance, and gained
possession of nearly the whole of Flanders. In 1672, when Louis
resolved to undertake in person the conquest of Holland, he again
placed the command, under himself, in Turenne's hands, and disgraced
several marshals who refused to receive orders from the viscount,
considering themselves his equals in military rank. How Le Grand
Monarque forced the passage of the Rhine when there was no army to
oppose him, and conquered city after city, till he was stopped by
inundations, under the walls of Amsterdam, has been said and sung by
his flatterers, and need not be repeated here. But after the king had
left the army, when the princes of Germany came to the assistance of
Holland, and her affairs took a more favorable turn under the able
guidance of the Prince of Orange, a wider field was offered for the
display of Turenne's talents. In the campaign of 1673 he drove the
Elector of Brandenburg, who had come to the assistance of the Dutch,
back to Berlin, and compelled him to negotiate for peace. In the same
year he was opposed, for the first time, to the imperial general,
Montecuculi, celebrated for his military writings as well as for his
exploits in the field. The meeting of these two great generals
produced no decisive results.
[Illustration: Turenne at the battle of the Dunes.]
Turenne returned to Paris in the winter, and was received with the
most flattering marks of favor. On the approach of spring he was sent
back to take command of the French army in Alsace, which, amounting to
no more than ten thousand men, was pressed by a powerful confederation
of the troops of the Empire, and those of Brandenburg, once again in
the field. Turenne set himself to beat the allies in detail, before
they could form a junction. He passed the Rhine, marched forty French
leagues in four days, and came up with the Imperialists, under the
Duke of Lorraine, at Sintzheim. They occupied a strong position, their
wings resting on mountains; their centre protected by a river and a
fortified town. Turenne hesitated: it seemed rash to attack; but a
victory was needful before the combination of the two armies should
render their force irresistible; and he commanded the best troops of
France. The event justified his confidence. Every post was carried
sword in hand. The Marshal had his horse killed under him, and was
slightly wounded. To the officers, who crowded round him with
congratulations, he replied, with one of those short and happy
speeches which tell upon an army more than the most labored harangues,
"With troops like you, gentlemen, a man ought to attack boldly, for he
is sure to conquer." The beaten army fell back behind the Neckar,
where they effected a junction with the troops of Brandenburg; but
they dared attempt nothing further, and left the Palatinate in the
quiet possession of Turenne. Under his eye, and, as it appears from
his own letters, at his express recommendation, as a matter of policy,
that wretched country was laid waste to a deplorable extent. This
transaction went far beyond the ordinary license of war, and excited
general indignation even in that unscrupulous age. It will ever be
remembered as a foul stain upon the character of the general who
executed, and of the king and minister who ordered or consented to it.
Having carried fire and sword through that part of the Palatinate
which lay upon the right or German bank of the Rhine, he crossed that
river. But the Imperial troops, reinforced by the Saxons and Hessians
to the amount of sixty thousand men, pressed him hard; and it seemed
impossible to keep the field against so great a disparity of force;
his own troops not amounting to more than twenty thousand. He
retreated into Lorraine, abandoning the fertile plains of Alsace to
the enemy, led his army behind the Vosges Mountains, and crossing them
by unfrequented routes, surprised the enemy at Colmar, beat him at
Mulhausen and Turkheim, and forced him to recross the Rhine. This is
esteemed the most brilliant of Turenne's campaigns, and it was
conceived and conducted with the greater boldness, being in opposition
to the orders of Louvois. "I know," he wrote to that minister, in
remonstrating, and indeed refusing to follow his directions, "I know
the strength of the Imperialists, their generals, and the country in
which we are. I take all upon myself, and charge myself with whatever
may occur."
Returning to Paris at the end of the campaign, his journey through
France resembled a triumphal progress; such was the popular enthusiasm
in his favor. Not less flattering was his reception by the king, whose
undeviating regard and confidence, undimmed by jealousy or envy, is
creditable alike to the monarch and to his faithful subject. At this
time Turenne, it is said, had serious thoughts of retiring to a
convent, and was induced only by the earnest remonstrances of the
king, and his representations of the critical state of France, to
resume his command. Returning to the Upper Rhine, he was again opposed
to Montecuculi. For two months the resources and well-matched skill of
the rival captains were displayed in a series of marches and
countermarches, in which every movement was so well foreseen and
guarded against, that no opportunity occurred for coming to action
with advantage to either side. At last the art of Turenne appeared to
prevail; when, not many minutes after he had expressed the full belief
that victory was within his grasp, a cannon-ball struck him while
engaged in reconnoitring the enemy's position, previous to giving
battle, and he fell dead from his horse, July 27, 1675. The same shot
carried off the arm of St. Hilaire, commander-in-chief of the
artillery. "Weep not for me," said the brave soldier to his son; "it
is for that great man that we ought to weep."
His subordinates possessed neither the talents requisite to follow up
his plans, nor the confidence of the troops, who perceived their
hesitation, and were eager to avenge the death of their beloved
general. "Loose the piebald," so they named Turenne's horse, was the
cry; "he will lead us on." But those on whom the command devolved
thought of anything rather than of attacking the enemy; and after
holding a hurried council of war, retreated in all haste across the
Rhine.
The Swabian peasants let the spot where he fell lie fallow for many
years, and carefully preserved a tree under which he had been sitting
just before. Strange that the people who had suffered so much at his
hands should regard his memory with such respect!
The character of Turenne was more remarkable for solidity than for
brilliancy. Many generals may have been better qualified to complete a
campaign by one decisive blow; few probably have laid the scheme of a
campaign with more judgment, or shown more skill and patience in
carrying their plans into effect. And it is remarkable that, contrary
to general experience, he became much more enterprising in advanced
years than he had been in youth. Of that impetuous spirit, which
sometimes carries men to success where caution would have hesitated
and failed, he possessed little. In his earlier years he seldom
ventured to give battle, except where victory was nearly certain; but
a course of victory inspired confidence, and trained by long practice
to distinguish the difficult from the impossible, he adopted in his
later campaigns a bolder style of tactics than had seemed congenial to
his original temper. In this respect he offered a remarkable contrast
to his rival in fame, Conde, who, celebrated in early life for the
headlong valor, even to rashness, of his enterprises, became in old
age prudent almost to timidity. Equally calm in success or in defeat,
Turenne was always ready to prosecute the one, or to repair the other.
And he carried the same temper into private life, where he was
distinguished for the dignity with which he avoided quarrels, under
circumstances in which lesser men would have found it hard to do so,
without incurring the reproach of cowardice. Nor must we pass over his
thorough honesty and disinterestedness in pecuniary matters; a quality
more rare in a great man then than it is now.