Henri De La Tour D'Auvergne Turenne, viscount de, a French soldier, born in Sedan, Sept. 11, 1611, killed near Sasbach, Germany, July 27, 1675. He was the second son of Henri de Bouillon, prince of Sedan, by Elizabeth of Nassau, daughter of William I. of Orange, and was sent when a boy to Holland to learn the art of war under his uncle Maurice. In 1630 he entered the service of France, received the command of an infantry regiment, distinguished himself in Lorraine under Marshal de La Force, became mareehal de camp in 1635, and served under La Valette in Germany, where he relieved Mentz, then besieged by the imperialists. In 1637, with an auxiliary corps, he joined the Swedish army under Duke Bernhard of Weimar, and captured several towns. In 1639, under the count d'Harcourt, he defeated the united Austrians and Spaniards at Oasale, and in 1640 forced Turin to surrender. In 1642 he conquered Roussillon from Spain. After the accession of Louis XIV. he was made marshal of France, and placed in command of the army in Germany. He crossed the Rhine, worsted the Bavarians under Mercy, acted in concert with Condé in the three days' battle at Freiburg (1644), was defeated by Mercy at Mergentheim, May 5, 1645, but gained a victory over him in conjunction with Condé at Allersheim, near Nordlingen, three months later, and, joining the Swedish general Wrangel, conquered the Bavarians at Lauingen and Zusmarshausen, and forced the elector to sign an armistice in March, 1647. He then went to Flanders, and took several places, but was stopped in his career by the termination of the thirty years' war (1648). On his return to France, his love for the duchess de Longueville and his brother's example connected him with the Fronde. At the head of a Spanish army which was sent to support that movement, he was defeated near Rethel by Marshal Duplessis-Praslin, and driven out of France (1650). After vain efforts to reconcile France and Spain, he was permited to return home, and henceforth proved the most loyal supporter of the king, while Condé became the leader of the Fronde. He defeated Condé's troops at Bléneau in April, 1652, followed him up to Paris, and inflicted upon him a severe loss in July in the faubourg St. Antoine, and thus secured the triumph of the royal cause.

The Spaniards having invaded the north of France under Condé, he worsted them at Arras in 1654, gained the decisive victory of the "Dunes," June 14, 1658, and. took Dunkirk. These successes hastened the peace of the Pyrenees, Nov. 7, 1659. In addition to his previous rank as minister of state, he now received that of marshal general. In 1667, war being declared against Spain, Turenne entered Flanders at the head of the army, accompanied by Louis XIV., and in less than four months conquered that province; and several of his conquests were confirmed by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, May 2, 1668. In the war against Holland (1672) he commanded one of the invading armies; and when the European powers came to the rescue of the Dutch, he entered Germany, advanced to the Elbe, and forced the elector of Brandenburg to a separate peace in 1673; then, in a campaign celebrated for his skilful strategy, he protected Alsace from invasion (1674), crossed the Rhine at Philippsburg, routed the enemy at Sinsheim and Ladenburg, and drove them back to the Main, and devastated the Palatinate, burning 30 towns.

In the following winter, with an army of scarcely 22,000 men, he nearly destroyed 60,000 Austrians and Brandenburgers under Bournonville, gaining victories at Miihlhausen (Dec. 29, 1674) and Türkheim (Jan. 5, 1675). He now wished to retire from active service; but he was the only French general capable of coping with Montecuculi. He therefore continued in command, and during four months the manoeuvres and strategic operations of the two generals were subjects of universal admiration. Finally Turenne forced his rival into a position near Sasbach where he was constrained to fight at a disadvantage; the French commander consequently had a new victory in prospect, when, surveying the last preparations on the eve of the battle, he was killed by a stray ball, and his death caused his army to retreat beyond the Rhine. Turenne was originally a Protestant, but became a Catholic about 1668 through the influence of Bossuet. - See Ramsay's Histoire de M. Turenne, including his Mémoires of the campaigns of 1643-59 (French and English, Paris and London, 2 vols., 1735*; new French ed., 1838), and Neuber's Turenne als Kriegstheoretiker und Feldherr (Vienna, 1869).