Burgundy switched back to the French side, restoring occupied Paris to France in 1435, once it was clear France would win the Hundred Years' War. Like Austria, Burgundy often expanded by making love rather than war: the dynastic marriage of Philip the Bold to the daughter of the Count of Flanders and Artois in 1369 was the first of many such bloodless advances. When Louis de Malle died in 1384, Margaret inherited Flanders, which was joined to Burgundy. Brabant and Limburg were added in 1404-1406, Namur was annexed in 1421, followed by Hainault in 1428, Holland and Zeeland in 1425-1428, Luxembourg in 1451, with Utrecht taken by force in 1455 and Gelderland invaded in 1473. The dukes were also students of the art of war.
They were the first to add gunpowder artillery units to a regular army, and the first to appoint salaried nobles as artillery officers (most nobles preferred to serve in the cavalry, the traditional arm of aristocracy). They were also the first to concentrate cannon in batteries, rather than disperse them evenly across a battle front. In a series of military reforms from 1468 to 1473, the Burgundian army was remade, partly on the French model but also making use of a unique four-man lance as its core unit. Subsequently, Burgundy fought with France (1474-1477), then with the Swiss (1474-1477), in the hope of becoming a full kingdom and one of the emerging Great Powers of Europe, stretching from Lorraine to Milan. Instead, the Swiss destroyed the Burgundian army and killed Charles the Rash. Control of Burgundy was then contested by claimants from the Houses of Habsburg and Valois, and later also by the Bourbons. Charles' daughter, Mary, married Emperor Maximilian I, which gave most Burgundian possessions to the Habsburgs. The original duchy, however, was annexed to France
