- Claude Louis Hector de Villars
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Marshal General
Claude Louis Hector de VillarsSecretary of State for War In office
1 October 1715 – 24 September 1718Monarch Louis XV Preceded by Daniel Voysin de la Noiraye Succeeded by Claude le Blanc Personal details Born 8 May 1653
Moulins, FranceDied 17 June 1734 (aged 81)
Turin, Kingdom of SardiniaNationality French Military service Allegiance France Service/branch French Army Years of service 1671-1734 Rank Marshal General Battles/wars Franco-Dutch War
Nine Years' War
War of the Spanish Succession
War of the Polish SuccessionClaude Louis Hector de Villars, Prince de Martigues, Marquis then Duc de Villars, Vicomte de Melun (8 May 1653 – 17 June 1734) was the last great general of Louis XIV of France and one of the most brilliant commanders in French military history,[1] one of only six Marshals who have been promoted to Marshal General of France.
Contents
Early career
Villars was born at Moulins (in the present-day département of Allier) in a noble but poor family - his father was the diplomat Pierre de Villars. He entered the French army through the corps of pages in 1671. He distinguished himself at twenty in the Siege of Maastricht in 1673 during the Franco-Dutch War and after the bloody Battle of Seneffe a year later he was promoted on the field to mestre de camp (colonel) of a cavalry regiment.
The next promotion would take time in spite of a long record of excellent service under Turenne, The Great Condé and Luxembourg, and of his aristocratic birth. The reason was that he had incurred the enmity of the powerful Louvois, he was finally made maréchal de camp in 1687.
In the interval between the Dutch wars and the formation of the League of Augsburg, Villars, who combined with his military gifts the tact and subtlety of the diplomatist, was employed in an unofficial mission to the court of Bavaria, and there became the constant companion of Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria.
He returned to France in 1690 and was given a command in the cavalry of the army in Flanders, but towards the end of the War of the Grand Alliance he went to Vienna as ambassador.
War of the Spanish Succession
Main article: War of the Spanish SuccessionIt was Villars' part in the next war, beginning with Friedlingen (1702) and Hochstadt (1703) and ending with Denain (1712), that has made him most famous. For his part in the battle of Friedlingen he received the marshalate, and for the pacification of the insurgent Cévennes he received the Saint-Esprit order and the title of duke. Friedlingen and Hochstadt were barren victories, and the campaigns of which they formed were characterized by lost opportunities. Villars' glory thus begins with the year 1709 when France, apparently helpless, was roused to a great effort of self-defence by the stringent demands of the Coalition.
In that year he was called to command the main army opposing Prince Eugène of Savoy and Marlborough on the northern frontier. During the famine of the winter he shared the soldiers' miserable rations. When the campaign opened the old Marshal Boufflers volunteered to serve under him, and after the terrible battle of Malplaquet, in which he was gravely wounded (by a musketball to the knee), he was able to tell the king: "If it please God to give your majesty's enemies another such victory, they are ruined."
Two more campaigns passed without a battle and with scarcely any advance on the part of the invaders, but at last Marlborough manoeuvred Villars out of the famous Ne plus ultra lines, and the power of the defence seemed to be broken. But Louis made a last effort, the English contingent and its great leader were withdrawn from the enemy's camp, and Villars, though still suffering from his Malplaquet wounds, outmanoeuvered and decisively defeated Eugène at Denain. This victory saved France, though the war dragged on for another year on the Rhine, where Villars took Landau, led the stormers at Freiburg and negotiated the Treaty of Rastatt with Prince Eugène.
Regency
Villars played a conspicuous part in the politics of the Regency period as the principal opponent of Cardinal Dubois, and only the memories of Montmorency's rebellion prevented his being made constable of France. He took the field for the last time in the War of the Polish Succession (1734), with the title marshal-general of the king's armies, that Turenne had held before him. But he was over eighty years old at this point, and after opening the campaign energetically he died at Turin on 17 June 1734.
Legacy
Villars's memoirs show us a fanfaron plein d'honneur, as Voltaire calls him. He was indeed boastful, and also covetous of honours and wealth. But he was an honourable man of high courage, moral and physical, and a soldier who stands above all his contemporaries and successors in the 18th century, on the same height as Maurice de Saxe and Frederick II of Prussia.
The memoirs, part of which was published in 1734 and afterwards several times republished in untrustworthy versions, were for the first time completely edited by the Marquis de Vogüé in 1884–92.
Notes
- ^ Lynn p.62
References
- Lynn. A John. The French Wars 1667-1714: The Sun King at War. Osprey Publishing (2002).
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Claude Louis Hector de Villars, Prince de Martignes, marquis and duc de Villars and vicomte de Melun". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Claude_Louis_Hector_de_Villars,_Prince_de_Martignes,_marquis_and_duc_de_Villars_and_vicomte_de_Melun.
External links
Political offices Preceded by
Daniel Voysin de la NoirayeSecretary of State for War
1 October 1715 – 24 September 1718Succeeded by
Claude le BlancJean Baudoin (before 1634) · François Charpentier (1650) · Jean-François de Chamillart (1702) · Claude Louis Hector de Villars (1714) · Honoré Armand de Villars (1734) · Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne (1770) · Jean-Gérard Lacuée, count of Cessac (1803) · Alexis de Tocqueville (1841) · Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire (1860) · Albert, 4th duc de Broglie (1862) · Charles-Jean-Melchior de Vogüé (1901) · Ferdinand Foch (1918) · Philippe Pétain (1929) · André François-Poncet (1952) · Edgar Faure (1978) · Michel Serres (1990)
Categories:- 1653 births
- 1734 deaths
- People from Moulins, Allier
- 18th-century French people
- 17th-century French people
- People of the Regency of Philippe d'Orléans
- People of the Ancien Régime
- French military personnel of the Franco-Dutch War
- French military personnel of the Nine Years' War
- French army commanders in the War of the Spanish Succession
- French military personnel of the War of the Polish Succession
- Marshals General of France
- Members of the Académie française
- Princes of Martigues
- Dukes of Villars
- Marquesses of Villars
- Viscounts of Melun
- Secretaries of State for War (France)
- Governors of Provence
- Generalissimos
- Recipients of the Order of the Holy Spirit
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