Marshal Saxe, 1696-1750: Magnanimity Run Wild
Jon Manchip White introduces one of the greatest generals and strangest personalities of his age, Maurice de Saxe, who was “vain, childish, virile, hard-bitten, chivalrous when it suited him ...”
Marshal Saxe is one of the forgotten figures of the first half of the eighteenth century; yet not only is he one of its most vivid personalities but one of its outstanding generals. He takes his place among the great mercenary soldiers of a military age: Schomburg, Schulenburg and Prince Eugene in the west, Keith and Lacy in the east; and there is leason to rate him even more highly than any of these and compare his achievements with those of Marlborough. At the close of his career Louis XV revived for him the splendid title of Marshal-General of the King’s Camps and Armies, a title that had been borne previously only by the legendary Turenne.
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