Vauban and the French Military Under Louis XIV
Vauban and the French Military Under Louis XIV

Author: Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2009-12-21

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0786456981

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A man of inventiveness, versatility and reformist ideas, Marshal Sebastien Le Preste de Vauban built a formidable ring of fortresses to protect France's national frontiers. More than just a fortification designer, Vauban was also a gifted economist, author, and political strategist. This book tells the complete story of Vauban's exceptional career, placing him within the framework of Louis XIV's reign and revealing his lasting influences in France and other nations. With the aid of numerous detailed drawings, 17th century bastioned fortification, artillery, and seige warfare are described in detail. Vauban's fortifications that are still standing today are particularly highlighted.

Conserving the Enlightenment
Conserving the Enlightenment

Author: Jānis Langins

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 9780262122580

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A study of French military engineers at a crucial point in the evolution of modern engineering.

The Dynastic State and the Army Under Louis XIV
The Dynastic State and the Army Under Louis XIV

Author: Guy Rowlands

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002-08-29

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9780521641241

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The 'personal rule' of Louis XIV witnessed a massive increase in the size of the French army and an apparent improvement in the quality of its officers, its men and the War Ministry. However, this is the first book to treat the French army under Louis XIV as a living political, social and economic organism, an institution which reflected the dynastic interests and personal concerns of the king and his privileged subjects. The book explains the development of the army between the end of Cardinal Mazarin's ministry and the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, emphasising the awareness of Louis XIV and his ministers of the need to pay careful attention to the condition of the king's officers, and to take account of their military, political, social and cultural aspirations.

Vauban Under Siege
Vauban Under Siege

Author: Jamel Ostwald

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 9004154892

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"Vauban under Siege" is the first systematic comparison of the theory of Vaubanian siegecraft with its reality, contrasting military engineering's pursuit of the efficient siege with generals' contradictory search for rapid conquest, purchased at the cost of additional lives.

French Fortifications, 1715-1815
French Fortifications, 1715-1815

Author: Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2009-12-21

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0786458070

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This book describes and illustrates French fortifications from 1715 (the death of Louis XIV) to 1815 (the fall of Napoleon), focusing particularly on the Napoleonic era. After an historical background, it covers the heritage of the Ancien Regime with the important contributions of Vauban (the bastioned defense), Gribeauval's reforms in artillery, and Montalembert's innovations. Chapters explore the style of Napoleonic fortifications, siege warfare, artillery and engineering corps, as well as the Napoleonic achievements in France, Italy, German and the Netherlands, including projects that were planned but never completed.

Giant of the Grand Siècle
Giant of the Grand Siècle

Author: John A. Lynn

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1997-06-13

Total Pages: 673

ISBN-13: 0521572738

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An 'invisible giant', the seventeenth-century French army was the largest and hungriest institution of the Bourbon monarchy. Combining social and cultural emphases with more traditional institutional and operational concerns, this book examines the army in depth, studying recruitment, composition, discipline, motivation, selection of officers, leadership, administration, logistics, weaponry, tactics, field warfare and siegecraft. The portrait that emerges differs from what current scholarship might have predicted. Instead of claiming that a 'military revolution' transformed warfare, Lynn stresses evolutionary change. This work also offers surprising insights into absolutism and the relationship between the monarchy and aristocracy. Questioning widely held assumptions about state formation and coercion, Lynn argues that this standing army was primarily devoted to border defence and only rarely to internal repression.

The Vauban Fortifications of France
The Vauban Fortifications of France

Author: Paddy Griffith

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2013-01-20

Total Pages: 66

ISBN-13: 1849080410

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Vauban was the foremost military engineer of France, not only during his lifetime, but also throughout the 18th century when his legacy and methods remained in place almost unchanged. Indeed, his expertise and experience in the construction, defence, and attack of fortresses is unrivalled by any of his contemporaries, of any nationality. In all three of those fields he was a significant innovator and prolific exponent, having planned approximately 160 major defensive projects and directed over 50 sieges. This book provides not only a modern listing of his varied interventions and their fates, but also a wide-ranging discussion of just how and why they pushed forward the international boundaries of the arts of fortification.

The Armies and Wars of the Sun King 1643-1715
The Armies and Wars of the Sun King 1643-1715

Author: René Chartrand

Publisher: Century of the Soldier

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781911628606

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Volume 1 of the Sun King's wars and armies goes from his early and turbulent years, from the resounding victory over Spain at Rocroi in 1643, the unstable years of the Fronde civil wars, his seizure of absolute power in 1661, his immediate control of national finances and armed forces, his measures to create the most effective army in Europe, the i

Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles
Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles

Author: Chandra Mukerji

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1997-09-25

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 9780521599597

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In seventeenth-century France, land took on new importance for the practice of politics and rituals of court life. In her major new book, Chandra Mukerji highlights the connections between the two seemingly disparate activities of engineering and garden design. She shows how, at Versailles in particular, the royal park showcased French skills in using nature and art to design a distinctively French landscape and create a naturalized political territoriality. She challenges the association of state power with social and legal structures alone and demonstrates the importance for Louis XIV and his state of a controlled physical site, a demarcated French territory within the wider European geo-political continent.

Armies of the War of the Grand Alliance 1688–97
Armies of the War of the Grand Alliance 1688–97

Author: Gabriele Esposito

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-10-28

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13: 147284436X

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This title explores and illustrates the armies of France, and six countries allied against Louis XIV, in a wide-ranging Continental conflict that ushered in more than a century of European warfare. Formed in 1689, the 'Grand Alliance' or League of Augsburg was a military coalition of the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic, Britain, Spain and the Duchy of Savoy, to resist Louis XIV's rich, powerful and expansionist France. The first stage of the nine year conflict that followed also coincided with the so-called 'Glorious Revolution' in Britain (1688–91), when the throne passed to the Dutch Protestant leader, William of Orange, the head of a multi-national Dutch, Danish and English army, which finally expelled James II's Jacobite and French forces from Ireland. The long war on the continent was notable for the first widespread use of regimental uniforms and flintlock muskets with bayonets, plus the sophisticated use of siege warfare under the great French engineer, Vauban. The final Treaties of Ryswyck (1697) brought the war to an end and marked Louis XIV's political zenith, and also the ascendancy of both the Dutch and British as first-rate global powers. This fully illustrated title explores the armies which fought the War of the Grand Alliance, examining their strength, organization, uniforms and weapons, and explaining their campaigns and major battles.