Lords of France: Roads to the Enlightenment

The Hapsburg Empire was a castle made of sand. At its peak it comprised nearly every major power in Europe, and dominated all of its major institutions. But it was won without effort. The inheritance of the French, Spanish, and Portuguese crowns was an amazing feat, but mere dynastic linkages couldn't hold the sprawling Empire together, and the Austrian leaders of the family did too little to assert their dominance over the cadet branches of the Hapsburgs, and overplayed their hands when it came to policy integration. The strong stance that the Austrians took on defending a Catholic Holy Roman Empire and on attacking any reform movement within Catholicism didn't only isolate potential allies in Germany/push them towards Protestantism, it ostracized the reform-minded Henri II.

Multiple other policies isolated Henri. Matthias I (Hapsburg von Wein)'s policy of keeping out of French matters meant that Henri's policy was held captive by the League of the Commonwealth for most of his rule. By the end of his life, Henri II was disgusted by his pompous, overbearing cousins. However he was just as worried by his new heir.


The marriage of Remy Bourbon to Francine Hapsburg was seen, in 1518, as a mere political act, a provision to the Treaty of Toulouse, with little practical meaning. Henri II did not expect to father only one son--he was, after all, a young man when he signed the treaty. But as it stood Henri sired many daughters but only one young man--Gaston--by the time he hit old age. And Gaston was, to put it bluntly, not King material. More interested with his dogs and mistresses than matters of state, Gaston held weekly hunts into the Burgundian forests. In 1548 Gaston heard news of a massive boar terrorizing peasants in the dark woods of Brittany. Along with his dogs and his retinue of followers, he traveled to Nantes to find this boar. Upon finding the wood that the boar was supposedly in, he sent his dogs into the forest and rode in with them. After this, he was never heard from again.

The death of the Dauphin shook French politics to the core. The new prince, Remy Bourbon, was not only of a new dynasty, he had been a well known partisan for the League of the Commonwealth to the degree that he'd funded anti-Hapsburg revolters. But he'd been separated from the League for years, placed in what amounted to a house arrest in Paris. Remy had been working as a royal accountant for three years when he got the news that he would be the new Crown Prince of France.

Henri wasn't going out without a fight, though. On his first meeting with Remy, he set out the guidelines that Remy would have to follow if he wanted Henri supporting his claim. Remy wouldn't go to war, he would not raise taxes in peacetime, spend too much money, take out loans, act as a tyrant, or fight the Empire. Remy agreed to all of these, and in 1539 (following the death of Henri II) he was crowned King.


He took the name Louis, wishing to undo the shame put on the name by Louis the Eleventh. Following again from this wish for a break with the past, Louis XII broke France's alliance with the Hapsburgs, sent over 500 colonists to Canada (at a huge expense), and sent Robert de Bosquet, Henri II's first minister and a recently converted Hugenot, to Frankfurt as an ambassador. In even more of a break with the past, Louis XII went further than any previous King towards integrating his vassals into the Kingdom of France proper. Following Henri's lead (Henri annexed the Duchy of Provence and the Counties of Hainaut and Armagnac during his rule), Louis XII sent his troops to the borders of the last French vassal, Foix, and asked politely for Foix to integrate herself into France. What could the Count do but accept?


Louis XII would do far more to break the rule of the Empire and strengthen France through his years. His cry "Pour la gloire de France!" soon became the cheer of Frenchmen everywhere, and the Kingdom of France would break from her chains in a big way through his rule.

Sorry for the short update, but I have a family reunion this weekend and work tonight, so I figured that I'd leave you guys with a pseudo-cliffhanger

Ripheus said:

It would be cool if there was an event that let Austria trade the Low Countries for Bavaria, like Joseph II tried to do. Can't wait to see France advance to the Rhine, now that all the little vassals are cleaned up (though from the narrative it sounds like I'll have to .

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Maybe not the Rhine--perhaps a little further South. Louis XII will have a little bit of house keeping to do (I plan on putting it all in one section given time constraints), but there's a rebellious vassal which needs to return to the fold.

edit: And that would be cool. Honestly it'd be cool if the Netherlands ever go historically in MM. The fact that the Lowlands become a part of the demense is a huge step up, but they very rarely revolt (or for that matter become heretical)

(can't help but at this img)

loki100 said:

ah, that feels so much better, Europe has the proper Hapsburg-Bourbon rivalry as its main driver. Great pair of updates and this is developing in all sorts of interesting ways - does the Canadian colony give you a lead over GB in such matters?

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Yeah I don't know what the hell the English have been doing but they still barely have any colonies.

edit: So I checked the savegame editor (it's the easiest way to get a full map). A couple of interesting things: Hedjaz, Yemen, and the Ottos all ganged up on the Mamluks early on, leaving Yemen with Palestine and Lebanon and Hedjaz in control of Sinai. Hedjaz has used her increased tax/manpower to conquer Arabia's interior, and now looks almost like Saudi Arabia (they don't have the eastern coast locked up yet but it looks like it could happen). Meanwhile, since Ottoman Egypt is cut off Ethiopia has run rampant in eastern Africa. In East Asia, Japan has formed and Majaphit is rebuilding its historical Indonesian empire. Ming's expanding into the hordes as usual though her expansion hasn't created the stupid looking borders it usually does. Russia hasn't gotten anywhere wrt Siberia yet (I may force them into a war with the Siberian horde soon--Russia usually underperforms and unlike my Prussia game I have no fear for the Cossacks now.

I don't care about spoilers but the next update's going to be on like, Sunday or Monday.

Flandres isn't a country in Magna Mundi. If I was forced to release a country it'd probably be Hainaut + Vlaandern. And I'm not sure about Italy either--the Emperor's doing his best to keep that awesome thing from happening.

kepler said:

I really liked your last post about religion!

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Thanks! In truth I wish there was more stuff about the Jesuits, they are a very interesting institution. Also I had another image (I got the 'Key Reformer approaches us' even which either shifts you towards Tradition or converts you to Reformist...It's strange, I must had put all of my moves towards Innovation in this period because I was still able to take a lot of 'requires X innovation' decisions)

Louis XII's reign can be separated cleanly into two separate periods, this being before and after 1560. This isn't to say that Louis XII suffered something similar to Francois' long wait before he was allowed to effectively govern, nor did Louis XII have to fight a revolt like that of his predecessor. Instead, the usual dynamic of French royal administration in the early modern period was reversed: the early period marked a time of plenty for the kingdom, the later period a time of austerity.


This came, partially, from the extensive funds which Henri II kept through his reign (2 million livres in 1548), and partially because Louis XII, being the twice legitimate heir to the French throne, didn't have to worry about pretenders. This also came from large amount of attention that Louis XII and his ministers were able to devote to their own problems--France was still highly held as the paragon of the peaceful nation in the early 1550s. Louis XII, a highly intelligent and perceptive man, focused his attention on three main issues in the 1550s--the colony of New France, his family, and the state of France's army. In New France Louis fostered a rapid expansion of the colony which I will deal with later. In familial matters Louis strove to avoid the mistake that his two predecessors had made, and made sure that he had fathered not one but two sons before he went into any highly dangerous endeavors (perhaps he was too lucky--Francine birthed 12 children over their lives, of which 8 survived. Where before a lack of heirs led to instability, Francine and Louis' passionate love affair [helped along by Francine's conversion to French patriotism] led to the creation of the Princely class, one of the biggest dangers to the French crown in later years), and it is enough to say that he succeeded. It was the French army that took up most of Louis' time: all the better, for the institution had shriveled up in the face of two generations of neglect, and in those generations massive advances had been made in the military arts.

Before I go into the advances made in the French military during the 1550s, I want to note precisely why Louis XII paid so much attention to the army. Louis came to his position butressed by widespread League support, but he knew that this support would falter soon enough. Even with a clean break from the Empire, the League (and the logic of geopolitics) required a stronger statement. Furthermore, by breaking with the empire France needed enough money and men to support herself on her own within Europe. The perfect target for this, from an economic and symbolic point of view, was what the League of the Commonwealth called 'le prize', but was more generally called the Duchy of Savoy.


The Duchy of Savoy had long been the target for League belligerence. As a vassal which had broken free from the French commonwealth, Savoy was considered by the League as legally part of France. This doubly applied to the counties of Savoy and Nizze, whose Estates had opposed the Savoyard Duke's decision to break from France. Over the decades, a border skirmish on the Nizzan-Provencial border over the village of Cagnes Sur-Mer led to a French claim on the county, and d'Estrain's tireless work led to a French claim in the county of Savoy. But claims weren't enough--to take these provinces France would have to fight the Holy Roman Emperor. Thus came Louis' military priority, and thus came his personal focus on the military.

Louis put the army under his personal consideration for the entirety of the 1550s, not even appointing a marshal until 1564. Louis XII knew that his royal attention would greatly increase the Army's prestige (which was highly lacking in 1550). Another reason for Louis XII's personal attention of the army was that he wished to integrate all of the Europe's recent innovations into his army personally, in order to have the French army act under one strategic vision.This lack of vision fractured and broken leadership as it did from a chronic lack of officers. Louis XII tried to solve this by making annual trips to the French army academy, showing the elites that the Academy was a worthy institution and (more importantly) a path to the King's Court. This led to a huge increase in officer recruitment. At the death of de Villenueve in 1515, the Academy housed roughly 1,000 students. During Henri's reign, this dropped to 150 in 1545. After Louis' trips, this number increased by more than a hundred a year until in 1558, 1,500 students were in the academy. Many of the new students entered the Siegeworks & Fortifications concentration, working to build one of the great technological innovations of the time: the Star Fortress.

The star fortress was a technological marvel invented by Italian architects during the 1530s as a way to protect the routes from Austrian-influenced Venice and French-influenced Parma. But Louis XII signed an alliance between the Italian League and the Commonwealth of France in 1552, giving France access to Italian engineering marvels. Francois Louis Von Vibien (who, if you will recall, was made Head Instructor of the French Army Academy in 1515), was obsessed with creating a new sort of fortress to defend against gunpowder-armed armies (as a way to expand on de Villenueve's defensive minded strategy), and new Italian architectural methods were just the way for him to implement these defensive plans.Star Fortresses were built to deflect artillery shells and resist enemy assaults. If we recall the Burgundian Wars, we will remember that Burgundian Medieval castles crumbled before artillery fire (and fell before concentrated assaults). This is because castle walls, being straight with rounded crenelations, broke apart when hit by shells and had 'dead zones' which could be used by assaulting enemies. Star Fortresses had no dead zones, had curved walls to rebound artillery shell, and (most importantly) had massive cannons which could destroy any advancing formations.



All in all, 14 star forts were built in the counties of Hainaut and Flandres during the 1550s, with several additions made by the French Engineers Group, such as deeply dug wells which wouldn't go dry or become infected by the surrounding river water, and extra-thick walls which could take multiple artillery shots. But the fortresses still had several weaknesses in the face of a Hapsburg attack--firstly, the Walloons and Flanderes had (at best) a shaky loyalty to the French king at the point. Secondly, following the Estates meeting of Flanders in 1556, Hainautians were exempt from conscription. The ensuing reliance on mercenaries led to disloyal garrisons in these key fortresses.The French Army Academy supported more than the creation of star fortresses. The next major innovation came from as unlikely a source as the German mercenaries serving in the French army.

Although Louis moved back to a professional army and away from mercenary regiments in the 1550s, he still realized that the German mercenaries had come across a huge tactical innovation in their use of wheel-lock pistols. Wheel-locks, the first self-self igniting firearms, were far more accurate and could shoot far faster than the match-lock guns they replaced. Most importantly, the match-lock could be implemented as an accurate and reliable pistol, leading to a widespread use of firearms by German cavalrymen.


The Reiter, who discharged his pistols as he charged, was a massive step up from the lance-armed knight or light cavalryman. By using pistols a cavalry charge could finally pierce pike squares. More importantly, it allowed the cavalryman to engage ranged enemies in skirmish warfare, which led Louis to use these Cavaliers in a massively innovative role to support his total reorganization of the French army.



Armies were largely self-sufficient bodies up until the 16th century. From the Roman use of armies as private security forces to the association of the army with the land the army was raised on, armies and militaries were private, independent forces. In the 1500s this legal (and social) concept clashed with the increasing size of national militaries, leading to super-sized armies who were very exposed to attrition. Just across the Rhine lay the perfect example of such a super-army. The Armee der Nederlanders, led by the Duke of Luxembourg, amounted to 23,000 infantrymen and 12,000 cavalry. Such armies could squash the 10,000 man French armies, which led to a problem--how to reform these organizations without losing the French army's maneuverability. Louis XII did this via the creation of the corps (from the French word for body), groups of armies which would move under the direction of one Commander in Chief.

This isn't as revolutionary as some scholars have made it seem--the concept of the Commander in Chief existed in France before 1550 and the importance of the French commandants was what led to the creation of the Counseil at the end of the 100 Years War. However, it was Louis' revolutionary use of cavalry which led to the modern implementation of corps-sized units.


The Message was an expert rider recruited to scout enemy positions and carry messages from one army to the next. It was, perhaps, the most dangerous job in the French army--although they were given expert training, 4/5 died in the War of Savoy. It was precisely because of this danger that the training of these new cavalrymen was so important--they had to know how to shoot their wheel-locks, but also when to avoid engagement. They had to know how to avoid enemy formations while taking notes on their composition. They had to know how to ride, hard and fast, across rough and broken terrain. Most importantly, they had to know alternative routes in said uneven terrain in order to avoid getting lost.

To this effect, Louis and von Vibien came up with a very far-sighted training method for the messager. Each messager, in order to graduate into the army, had to map out 100 miles in a certain area on the French border (mostly the north east border at this point), noting not only major roads, towns, rivers, bridges and fjords, but foot trails and 'peasant paths' through wooded and mountainous areas. These maps were then printed en masse and given to messagers who travelled in those areas (the better ones were also given to commanders). As the messager corps expanded, more and more of the French countryside became mapped and archived for military purpose, until in the early 17th century all of France was mapped to an adequate degree.

The extensive mapping of the Province of Flandres in the 1550s would be needed soon: war was coming, Louis could smell it.

So I teched up to gallop cavalry, reformed tercios, star forts and higher caliber artillery. But what's the fun in writing that?

The way I see it, I have ~9 days left in my town before I go to grad school (for, surprisingly enough, Public Policy and National Security Policy). I'm not sure how much my workload is going to go up, but I will endeavor to continue posting, albeit at a slower rate. However, I think that the War of Savoy is a nice place to put an intermission into this AAR: it marks France's break with the rest of Europe, the creation of the Conqueror myth (which several scholars attribute the Revolution to; namely the idea that a good French king needs to win glory on the battlefield, no matter how expensive that battlefield may be), and (soon enough), leads to the end of France's 'feudal problems', replaced by the totally different problems of an emerging state.

Louis' opportunity or war came in 1561, during the short lived Papal War. The war occurred after Pope Justin, elected with French support, took control over the Church for himself (and forced his cardinals to renounce national ties) with the goal of retaking Pepin's Gift (ie the province of Roma). With the help of Austrian threats, the Papacy was able to reestablish rule over her former capital in the winter of 1560, while the Italian League summoned her soldiers. At the break of Spring in 1561, Pope Justin declared a preemptive war against the League, a war which was joined with the Spanish Hapsburgs supporting the Papacy, and the Austrian Hapsburgs, The Republic of Venice & the Duke of Savoy supporting the Italian League. This war was a complicated affair from the French perspective (and not only because it featured infighting between the Hapsburgs or the Austrian Hapsburgs supporting their Italian enemies)--two major French goals in the region were to keep strong alliances with the Papacy and the Italian League, and constant war between the two (or, worse, the annexation of Sienna by the Papacy or the Emperor) would have been disastrous for French interests in Italy.



So even if Louis didn't already have interests in Savoy, France would likely have been drawn into the Papal War simply to make sure that there were no definite victors (or better, to make sure that the Papacy lost her position in Rome and remained confined to Avignon). But with French desire for Savoyard provinces in mind, the war provided a fantastic opportunity for Louis. Not only did it allow France to effectively end the Papal War (and alongside it the two threats to her allies), it caught her enemies in a bind. The Italian League, which needed a strong ally and which was generally supportive of French claims to Savoy, immediately declared a white peace on the Papal States (giving Sienna some townships on the northern part of Roma but allowing the Papacy to keep the rest) and joined into the War against Savoy. Venice, similarly, took the war as an opportunity to break from Austrian influence, nullifying her alliances and military access treaties in tow. With Venice closing her doors to Austrian soldiers, and Protestant Switzerland being similarly closed, the idea of an Italian theater in the Savoyard War was an impossible prospect.

These two facts led to the entry of England into the war, as well as the paradoxical fact that most of a war fought over Italian provinces occurred in the Netherlands. The unlikely coalition which fought against France (Imperial Austria, Papist Liege & Trier, and Protestant England) was one of the first modern, interdenominational coalitions in Europe. Indeed, the War of Savoy was said to be one of the first 'modern' wars, with participants casting aside religious rivalries to fight their secular enemies. In this fashion the War of Savoy was a foreshadowing of the more deadly War of the League of Stettin, which occurred a decade later in Germany.


Although only England and Austria were directly fighting France in the War of Savoy, France's belligerent actions nearly led to her total cutoff from international credit. This was most worrisome, as Henri II had neglected the financier class (merchants who got rich by giving loans to the government) in lieu of hard gold surpluses. On the very first days of the war, Louis announced that he would temporarily create the office of Chief Financier, to arrange loans for the Commonwealth. Jean de Faulkhaven (a Frenchified German NeoCatharist and key member of the Hugenot community) was appointed the first financier. The Chief Financier became a deeply hated position within the Catholic Aristocracy, but Jean de Faulkhaven saved France, multiple times, from near-bankruptcy brought on by the 6 years of war Louis sent his country into.

In the next section I will deal with the early parts of the campaign, from the demise of the Savoyard resistance to French overextention and defeat in 1564.