French Armies of the Thirty Years War presents the development of the French Army, one of the first standing armies in Europe, from 1617 to 1648. It shows how Louis XIII and Richelieu exploited the complex legacy of the Wars of Religion to the benefit of both the Crown and the Country.
The Three Musketeers, Cyrano de Bergerac, Louis XIII, Richelieu, Condé, Turenne, La Rochelle, Rocroithese few words sum up the literary and historical representations most people will associate with the tumultuous events in France during the first half of the seventeenth century.
French Armies of the Thirty Years War begins in 1617, the year that Louis XIII really took power, by distancing the Queen Mother and ordering the assassination of Concini, and ends in 1648 five years after the death of Louis XIII, and the year of the Peace Treaty of Westphalia. This period in France was almost completely dominated by the personality and activities of Richelieu, who entered the Kings council in April 1624. He gave the King an ambition: to procure the ruin of the Huguenot party, humble the pride of the great, reduce all subjects to their duty, and elevate your majestys name among foreign nations to its rightful reputation. By Richelieus death, on 4 December 1642, this programme had been accomplished.
The first military action of this period, in August 1620, known as the Drôlerie des Ponts de Cé, was an uprising of the nobility who supported the Queen Mother against the King. The rebels were roundly defeated by the Kings armies, but very few units actually fought. In his memoirs, Richelieu, who was on the Queens side at the time, gives a detailed analysis of this defeat. In particular, he drew from it the principles that he was to follow throughout his life, and he realised: that which is held only by a precarious authority does not last long; that those who fight against a legitimate power are already half-defeated by their own imagination. These political beliefs gave Louis XIII and Richelieu a powerful instrument that was to emerge transformed from the Thirty Years War.
The Army that Marie de Medici left to Henri IVs heir was small and inexperienced, but the Wars of Religion at the beginning of Louis XIIIs reign, combined with Richelieus actions, gave the French Crown an increasingly efficient army. Commanded by great captains such as the Duc de Rohan, the Viscomte de Turenne and the Prince of Condé, the army was highly successful, as shown by the long list of French victories, from the Île de Ré (1626) to Lens (1648) amply demonstrate.
