During the 77-year life of Louis XIV, France was at peace for only 17 years – less than one year in four. The rest of the time was taken up in warfare against most of the other states of Europe, as the ‘Sun King’ pushed forward his frontiers and tested the extent to which he could exploit France’s central position, her modern bureaucracy, and her large and industrious population. To help him in these wars, Louis XIV was able to call upon a highly gifted group of field commanders such as Turenne, Conde, and Luxembourg. Between them, they did much to advance the general European ‘Art of War’, including some brilliant mobile operations which helped to set the military agenda for the whole of the 18th century, and even beyond. However the military predominance of France among the states of Europe ultimately owed more to the equally gifted group of administrators, most notably Colbert and Louvois, who worked at the centre to organize the state’s infrastructure for war, in both financial and logistical terms. It was they who provided the money from a modernized tax structure, and then made sure it was properly spent on all the regiments, ships, guns, stockpiles of powder, and rations – and also the fortresses – that a great power would insatiably require when it set out to occupy and defend what it saw as its geographically ‘natural’ frontiers.
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