When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

For the month of July the Xtra feed is lit up with five installments of Louis XIV's Arms & Armies, a very exciting and fascinating 10 part series (with the tenth part released in September) looking at how Louis managed to wage war with his troops, what he changed in the French state to make it happen and what the legacy of such changes was. It makes for some very interesting listening, and herein we give you a sample of each of the five episodes releasing in the Xtra feed in July, so I hope you'll check them out! For the record, here's a brief rundown of each ep. Episode 1: setting the scene of 17th century warfare and the French experience, how France had been threatened and how Louis planned to react.Episode 2: how Louis furthered the changes advanced by his predecessors in the constitution of French armies; how the armies wielded by the state went from mostly mercenaries to state funded and organised institutions in their own right, and how Louis XIV organised the monies around to pay for them.Episode