During December 1674 and January 1675, Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, led French forces on a flank march that resulted in the defeat of an army fielded principally by the Holy Roman Empire and in that army's expulsion from Alsace.

[8] While the main campaign of 1674 was being fought in the Netherlands, Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, sought to open a second front against France in Alsace.

[9] An Imperial army under Field Marshal Alexander von Bournonville crossed the Rhine River into Alsace at Strasbourg in September 1674.

The king also invoked the arriere ban, a relic of feudal times calling on French nobles to support the monarchy with levies.

[10] Armies in the Seventeenth Century generally campaigned between April and October and avoided combat during the winter.

Bad weather made movement of artillery and supplies difficult as autumn rains and spring floods turned roads to mud.

Bournonville carried on this tradition in 1674 by moving his army of around 57,000 men into camps mainly in the rich region around Colmar in southern Alsace.

As he explained to King Louis, Turenne determined to use this advantage over the enemy army by marching around its flank and launching a surprise attack in the dead of winter.

Turenne requisitioned large amounts of grain and other foodstuffs, ruthlessly ignoring the complaints of the local authorities that he was stripping the province of food.

The French main body marched through Remiremont, meeting no resistance from the troops of the Duke of Lorraine, and entered Belfort on December 27.

[17] A French soldier said that Turenne's manoeuvre during the Winter Campaign was "one of the best concerted Stratagems and at the same Time one of the greatest Actions that ever was done by any General."

His campaign anticipated similar manoeuvres that would later be carried out by such great generals as Napoleon and Stonewall Jackson.