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 there 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.

[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.”

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 Johanna[3] 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.

[2] Battle of Caravaggio, 15th September 1448.

[3] Johanna II of Naples, the widow of Ladislao, King of Naples.

[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.

[5] Carmignuola. Francesco Bussone, born at Carmagnola about 1390,

executed at Venice, 5th May 1432.

[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.

[7] Battle of Vaila in 1509.

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.

[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.