Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne

Born in 1611 to a Huguenot family, the son of a Marshal of France, he learned war young as a volunteer in the Dutch States Army under his uncles Maurice of Nassau and Frederick Henry. He made his name capturing the fortress of Breisach in 1638 during the Thirty Years' War, became Marshal of France in 1643, then spent three years smashing Bavaria into submission. After initially backing the Fronde rebellion, he switched to the royal side in 1651 and crushed the Prince of Condé's forces outside Paris. Victories at Arras in 1654 and Dunkirk in 1658 broke Spanish power in the Low Countries; Louis…