Prince Eugene of Savoy

Prince Eugene Francis of Savoy-Carignano was born in Paris in 1663 to a French count and a niece of Cardinal Mazarin, and after Louis XIV rejected him for French military service he fled France in 1683 to serve the Holy Roman Empire and the Austrian Habsburg dynasty, becoming one of the greatest military commanders of his era. He distinguished himself that same year at the Ottoman siege of Vienna and rose to field marshal by age twenty-five during the Great Turkish War, orchestrating the decisive Battle of Zenta in 1697, which inflicted roughly 25,000 Ottoman casualties. During the War of the Spanish Succession he formed a crucial military partnership with the Duke of Marlborough, sharing in victories at Blenheim in 1704 and Oudenarde in 1708 and at Malplaquet in 1709, while independently winning at Turin in 1706. He returned to war against the Ottomans in the Austro-Turkish War of 1716 to 1717, winning at Petrovaradin and Belgrade and securing a favorable peace in 1718, after which he served as Austria's first minister in Vienna, negotiating further peace settlements. He died in Vienna in 1736 at age seventy-two.