The so-called "lace wars" of the late 17th to the middle of the 18th century are considered today as a kind of "good" war, without deviations, without murders, without massacres of civilians, looting, rape, war crimes. But was it so?
History shows that, unfortunately, this was not the only way it happened. War has always been cruel and some took care to make it absolutely inhumane, reaching the conscious sowing of absolute terror. And of course we are not talking about the usual perversions of the Turks against the Christians and not only their opponents, but about the works of the army of the "Now Christian King", the "civilized", lover of the arts "King Sun" of Louis XIV of France.
In 1672 Louis XI of France with a population of 20 million declared war on Holland with a population of 2.2 million. Three French marshals, the famous Comte, Touraine and Luxemburg marched on the Dutch lands with 120,000 soldiers.
Louis himself had ordered his marshals to launch a campaign of terror against the Dutch. “Go ahead guys. Loot, kill, destroy, and if it is possible to commit even greater depravity do not neglect to do so . Show me that I am not wrong in considering you the flower of the king's troops," Marshal de Luxemburg ordered his soldiers.
The French approached the villages of Bodergraven and Zwammerdam. The French soldiers raped the women and burned the houses along with many of their inhabitants. Louis' Minister of War himself, Lavoie, reported:"We set fire to the city and roasted the Dutch in it"...
Gradually the French stopped their campaign of terror, not because they were moved by the blood of civilians , but because such actions galvanized Dutch resistance. The Dutch War ended in 1678 with France emerging victorious and gaining some territory.
What France lost was its prestige. It is not enough that the strongest European power of the time unnecessarily attacked the little Netherlands, the king's soldiers also committed incredible war crimes. Unfortunately, the French army continued this tactic later, as for example in 1688, when they razed the German Palatinate. After all, the "lace wars" weren't such "good" wars...