Louis himself lacked military talent and did not take a
prominent part in any campaign. He was served, however, by very able
commanders, including Condé and Turenne. Vauban, an eminent engineer,
especially developed the art of siege craft. It was said of Vauban that he
never besieged a fortress without taking it and never lost one which he
defended. Louvois, the war minister of the king, recruited, equipped, and
provisioned larger bodies of troops than ever before had appeared on European
battlefields. It was Louvois who introduced the use of distinctive uniforms for
soldiers and the custom of marching in step. He also established field
hospitals and ambulances and placed camp life on a sanitary basis. The labors
of these men gave Louis the best standing army of the age.
THE RHINE BOUNDARY
Of the four great wars which filled a large part of
Louis's reign, all but the last were designed to extend the dominions of France
on the east and northeast to the Rhine. That river in ancient times had
separated Gaul and Germany, and Louis, as well as Richelieu and Mazarin before
him, regarded it as a natural boundary of France. A beginning in this direction
had already been made at the close of the Thirty Years' War, when France gained
nearly all of Alsace and secured the recognition of her old claims to the
bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun in Lorraine. A treaty which Mazarin
negotiated with Spain in 1659 A.D. also gave France most of Artois, as well as
part of Flanders. Louis thus had a good basis of further advance through
Lorraine and the Netherlands to the Rhine.
