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I was wondering, in Europe from c.1500 to WWII, were heirs sent to the front? Obviously they went to war, Louis XIV sent his son and grandson to the battlefields of Flanders, his son with the order "so that when I come to die it will not be noticed that the King is dead.".

But how "close" to the front would it have been? I mean, it's one thing to send your heir to the mud of Flanders, but is he sitting in a comfortably warm and dry tent somewhere? Or is he down in the trenches (so to speak)?

The reason I extended it to the 20th century, was because ISTR reading that Léopold III of Belgium was likewise in the trenches as a teenager. Was it only if there was a spare or the heir apparent had an heir already? Did it depend on the sort of "properness" of the war. Say, sending the dauphin to go fight in Flanders was okay, but him taking a jaunt across Europe to go fight the Turks in Hungary was unthinkable?
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