The Prince
by Nicolo Machiavelli
Chapter XII
How many kinds of soldiery there are, and
concerning mercenaries
Having discoursed particularly on the characteristics of
such principalities as in the beginning I proposed to
discuss, and having considered in some degree the causes of
their being good or bad, and having shown the methods by
which many have sought to acquire them and to hold them, it
now remains for me to discuss generally the means of offence
and defence which belong to each of them.
We have seen above how necessary it is for a prince to
have his foundations well laid, otherwise it follows of
necessity he will go to ruin. The chief foundations of all
states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and
good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state
is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed
they have good laws. I shall leave the laws out of the
discussion and shall speak of the arms.
I say, therefore, that the arms with
which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they
are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed. Mercenaries and
auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his
state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor
safe; for they are disunited, ambitious, and without
discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly
before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor
fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as
the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in
war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other attraction
or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend,
which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you.
They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not
make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run
from the foe; which I should have little trouble to prove,
for the ruin of Italy has been caused by nothing else than
by resting all her hopes for many years on mercenaries, and
although they formerly made some display and appeared
valiant amongst themselves, yet when the foreigners came
they showed what they were. Thus it was that Charles, King
of France, was allowed to seize Italy with chalk in
hand;1
and he who told us that our sins were the cause of it told
the truth, but they were not the sins he imagined, but those
which I have related. And as they were the sins of princes,
it is the princes who have also suffered the penalty.
I wish to demonstrate further the infelicity of these
arms. The mercenary captains are either capable men or they
are not; if they are, you cannot trust them, because they
always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing
you, who are their master, or others contrary to your
intentions; but if the captain is not skilful, you are
ruined in the usual way.
And if it be urged that whoever is armed will act in the
same way, whether mercenary or not, I reply that when arms
have to be resorted to, either by a prince or a republic,
then the prince ought to go in person and perform the duty
of a captain; the republic has to send its citizens, and
when one is sent who does not turn out satisfactorily, it
ought to recall him, and when one is worthy, to hold him by
the laws so that he does not leave the command. And
experience has shown princes and republics, single-handed,
making the greatest progress, and mercenaries doing nothing
except damage; and it is more difficult to bring a republic,
armed with its own arms, under the sway of one of its
citizens than it is to bring one armed with foreign arms.
Rome and Sparta stood for many ages armed and free. The
Switzers are completely armed and quite free.
Of ancient mercenaries, for example, there are the
Carthaginians, who were oppressed by their mercenary
soldiers after the first war with the Romans, although the
Carthaginians had their own citizens for captains. After the
death of Epaminondas, Philip of Macedon was made captain of
their soldiers by the Thebans, and after victory he took
away their liberty.
Duke Filippo being dead, the Milanese
enlisted Francesco Sforza against the Venetians, and he,
having overcome the enemy at Caravaggio,2
allied himself with them to crush the Milanese, his masters.
His father, Sforza, having been engaged by Queen
Johanna3
of Naples, left her unprotected, so that she was forced to
throw herself into the arms of the King of Aragon, in order
to save her kingdom. And if the Venetians and Florentines
formerly extended their dominions by these arms, and yet
their captains did not make themselves princes, but have
defended them, I reply that the Florentines in this case
have been favoured by chance, for of the able captains, of
whom they might have stood in fear, some have not conquered,
some have been opposed, and others have turned their
ambitions elsewhere. One who did not
conquer was Giovanni Acuto,4
and since he did not conquer his fidelity cannot be proved;
but every one will acknowledge that, had he conquered, the
Florentines would have stood at his discretion. Sforza had
the Bracceschi always against him, so they watched each
other. Francesco turned his ambition to Lombardy; Braccio
against the Church and the kingdom of Naples. But let us
come to that which happened a short while ago. The
Florentines appointed as their captain Pagolo Vitelli, a
most prudent man, who from a private position had risen to
the greatest renown. If this man had taken Pisa, nobody can
deny that it would have been proper for the Florentines to
keep in with him, for if he became the soldier of their
enemies they had no means of resisting, and if they held to
him they must obey him. The Venetians, if their achievements
are considered, will be seen to have acted safely and
gloriously so long as they sent to war their own men, when
with armed gentlemen and plebians they did valiantly. This
was before they turned to enterprises on land, but when they
began to fight on land they forsook this virtue and followed
the custom of Italy. And in the beginning of their expansion
on land, through not having much territory, and because of
their great reputation, they had not much to fear from their
captains; but when they expanded, as under
Carmignuola,5
they had a taste of this mistake; for, having found him a
most valiant man (they beat the Duke of Milan under his
leadership), and, on the other hand, knowing how lukewarm he
was in the war, they feared they would no longer conquer
under him, and for this reason they were not willing, nor
were they able, to let him go; and so, not to lose again
that which they had acquired, they were compelled, in order
to secure themselves, to murder him. They had afterwards for
their captains Bartolomeo da Bergamo, Roberto da San
Severino, the count of Pitigliano,6
and the like, under whom they had to dread loss and not
gain, as happened afterwards at Vaila,7
where in one battle they lost that which in eight hundred
years they had acquired with so much trouble. Because from
such arms conquests come but slowly, long delayed and
inconsiderable, but the losses sudden and portentous.
And as with these examples I have reached Italy, which
has been ruled for many years by mercenaries, I wish to
discuss them more seriously, in order that, having seen
their rise and progress, one may be better prepared to
counteract them. You must understand that the empire has
recently come to be repudiated in Italy, that the Pope has
acquired more temporal power, and that Italy has been
divided up into more states, for the reason that many of the
great cities took up arms against their nobles, who,
formerly favoured by the emperor, were oppressing them,
whilst the Church was favouring them so as to gain authority
in temporal power: in many others their citizens became
princes. From this it came to pass that Italy fell partly
into the hands of the Church and of republics, and, the
Church consisting of priests and the republic of citizens
unaccustomed to arms, both commenced to enlist
foreigners.
The first who gave renown to this
soldiery was Alberigo da Conio,8
the Romagnian. From the school of this man sprang, among
others, Braccio and Sforza, who in their time were the
arbiters of Italy. After these came all the other captains
who till now have directed the arms of Italy; and the end of
all their valour has been, that she has been overrun by
Charles, robbed by Louis, ravaged by Ferdinand, and insulted
by the Switzers. The principle that has guided them has
been, first, to lower the credit of infantry so that they
might increase their own. They did this because, subsisting
on their pay and without territory, they were unable to
support many soldiers, and a few infantry did not give them
any authority; so they were led to employ cavalry, with a
moderate force of which they were maintained and honoured;
and affairs were brought to such a pass that, in an army of
twenty thousand soldiers, there were not to be found two
thousand foot soldiers. They had, besides this, used every
art to lessen fatigue and danger to themselves and their
soldiers, not killing in the fray, but taking prisoners and
liberating without ransom. They did not attack towns at
night, nor did the garrisons of the towns attack encampments
at night; they did not surround the camp either with
stockade or ditch, nor did they campaign in the winter. All
these things were permitted by their military rules, and
devised by them to avoid, as I have said, both fatigue and
dangers; thus they have brought Italy to slavery and
contempt.
1 "With chalk in hand," "col
gesso." This is one of the bons mots of Alexander VI, and
refers to the ease with which Charles VIII seized Italy,
implying that it was only necessary for him to send his
quartermasters to chalk up the billets for his soldiers to
conquer the country. Cf. "The History of Henry VII," by Lord
Bacon: "King Charles had conquered the realm of Naples, and
lost it again, in a kind of a felicity of a dream. He passed
the whole length of Italy without resistance: so that it was
true what Pope Alexander was wont to say: That the Frenchmen
came into Italy with chalk in their hands, to mark up their
lodgings, rather than with swords to fight."
[back]
2 Battle of Caravaggio, 15th
September 1448.[back]
3 Johanna II of Naples, the widow
of Ladislao, King of Naples. [back]
4 Giovanni Acuto. An English
knight whose name was Sir John Hawkwood. He fought in the
English wars in France, and was knighted by Edward III;
afterwards he collected a body of troops and went into
Italy. These became the famous "White Company." He took part
in many wars, and died in Florence in 1394. He was born
about 1320 at Sible Hedingham, a village in Essex. He
married Domnia, a daughter of Bernabo Visconti.
[back]
5 Carmignuola. Francesco Bussone,
born at Carmagnola about 1390, executed at Venice, 5th May
1432. [back]
6 Bartolomeo Colleoni of Bergamo;
died 1457. Roberto of San Severino; died fighting for Venice
against Sigismund, Duke of Austria, in 1487. "Primo capitano
in Italia."--Machiavelli. Count of Pitigliano; Nicolo
Orsini, born 1442, died 1510. [back]
7 Battle of Vaila in 1509.
[back]
8 Alberigo da Conio. Alberico da
Barbiano, Count of Cunio in Romagna. He was the leader of
the famous "Company of St George," composed entirely of
Italian soldiers. He died in 1409. [back]
-
- The Prince
by Nicolo Machiavelli
Chapter XI
<<< Contents
>>> Chapter
XIII
|
