








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;* 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.

* With which to chalk up the billets for his soldiers.

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 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, allied himself with them to crush the Milanese, his
masters. His father, Sforza, having been engaged by Queen Johanna 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,*
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 Paolo 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 plebeians 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 Carmignola, 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, and the like, under whom they had to dread loss and not
gain, as happened afterwards at Vaila, 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.

* As Sir John Hawkwood, the English leader of mercenaries, was
called by the Italians.

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,
a native of the Romagna. 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.


