THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF MILITIA AND MERCENARY SOLDIERS
Having now discussed fully the qualities of these principalities of
which I proposed to treat, and partially considered the causes of their
prosperity or failure, and having also showed the methods by which
many have sought to obtain such states, it now remains for me to treat
generally of the methods of attack and defence that can be used in
each of them. We have said already how necessary it is for a prince
to have his foundations good, otherwise he is certain to be ruined.
The chief foundations of all states, whether new, old, or mixed, are
good laws and good arms. And as there cannot be good laws where there
are not good arms, and where there are good arms there should be good
laws, I will not now discuss the laws, but will speak of the arms. I
say, therefore, that the arms by which a prince defends his possessions
are either his own, or else mercenaries, or auxiliaries, or mixed. The
mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous, and if any one
keeps his state based on the arms of mercenaries, he will never stand
firm or sure, as they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline,
faithless, bold amongst friends, cowardly amongst enemies, they have no
fear of God, and keep no faith with men. Ruin is only deferred as long
as the assault is postponed; in peace you are despoiled by them, and in
war by the enemy. The cause of this is that they have no love or other
motive to keep them in the field beyond a trifling wage, which is not
enough to make them ready to die for you. They are quite willing to be
your soldiers so long as you do not make war, but when war comes, it is
either fly or be off. I ought to have little trouble in proving this,
since the ruin of Italy is now caused by nothing else but through her
having relied for many years on mercenary arms. These were somewhat
improved in a few cases, and appeared courageous among themselves, but
when the foreigner came they showed their worthlessness. Thus it came
about that King Charles of France was allowed to take Italy without the
slightest trouble, and those who said that it was owing to our sins,
spoke the truth, but it was not the sins that they believed but those
that I have related. And as it was the sins of princes, they too have
suffered the punishment. I will explain more fully the defects of these
arms. Mercenary captains are either very capable men or not; if they
are, you cannot rely upon them, for they will always aspire to their
own greatness, either by oppressing you, their master, or by oppressing
others against your intentions; but if the captain is not an able man,
he will generally ruin you. And if it is replied to this, that whoever
has armed forces will do the same, whether these are mercenary or not,
I would reply that as armies are to be used either by a prince or by a
republic, the prince must go in person to take the position of captain,
and the republic must send its own citizens. If the one sent turns
out incompetent, it must change him; and if capable, keep him by law
from going beyond the proper limits. And it is seen by experience that
only princes and armed republics make very great progress, whereas
mercenary forces do nothing but damage, and also an armed republic
submits less easily to the rule of one of its citizens than a republic
armed by foreign forces. Rome and Sparta were for many centuries well
armed and free. The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom. As an
example of mercenary armies in antiquity there are the Carthaginians,
who were oppressed by their mercenary soldiers, after the termination
of the first war with the Romans, even while they still had their own
citizens as captains. Philip of Macedon was made captain of their
forces by the Thebans after the death of Epaminondas, and after gaining
the victory he deprived them of liberty. The Milanese, on the death
of Duke Philip, hired Francesco Sforza against the Venetians, who
having overcome the enemy at Caravaggio, allied himself with them to
oppress the Milanese his employers. The father of this Sforza, being
a soldier in the service of the Queen Giovanna of Naples, left her
suddenly unarmed, by which she was compelled, in order not to lose the
kingdom, to throw herself into the arms of the King of Aragon. And
if the Venetians and Florentines have in times past increased their
dominions by means of such forces, and their captains have not made
themselves princes but have defended them, I reply that the Florentines
in this case have been favoured by chance, for of the capable leaders
whom they might have feared, some did not conquer, some met with
opposition, and others directed their ambition elsewhere. The one who
did not conquer was Sir John Hawkwood, whose fidelity could not be
known as he was not victorious, but every one will admit that, had he
conquered, the Florentines would have been at his mercy. Sforza had
always the Bracceschi against him, they being constantly at enmity.
Francesco directed his ambition towards Lombardy; Braccio against the
Church and the kingdom of Naples. But let us look at what followed a
short time ago. The Florentines appointed Paolo Vitelli their captain,
a man of great prudence, who had risen from a private station to the
highest reputation. If he had taken Pisa no one can deny that it was
highly important for the Florentines to retain his friendship, because
had he become the soldier of their enemies they would have had no
means of opposing him; and in order to retain him they would have been
obliged to obey him. As to the Venetians, if one considers the progress
they made, it will be seen that they acted surely and gloriously so
long as they made war with their own forces; that it was before they
commenced their enterprises on land that they fought courageously with
their own gentlemen and armed populace, but when they began to fight
on land they abandoned this virtue, and began to follow the Italian
custom. And at the commencement of their land conquests they had not
much to fear from their captains, their land possessions not being
very large, and their reputation being great, but as their possessions
increased, as they did under Carmagnola, they had an example of their
mistake. For seeing that he was very powerful, after he had defeated
the Duke of Milan, and knowing, on the other hand, that he was not
enterprising in warfare, they considered that they would not make any
more conquests with him, and they neither would nor could dismiss him,
for fear of losing what they had already gained. They were therefore
obliged, in order to make sure of him, to have him killed. They then
had for captains Bartolommeo da Bergamo, Roberto da San Severino, Count
di Pitigliano, and such like, from whom they had to fear loss instead
of gain, as happened subsequently at Vailà, where in one day they lost
what they had laboriously gained in eight hundred years; for with these
forces, only slow and trifling acquisitions are made, but sudden and
miraculous losses. And as I have cited these examples from Italy,
which has now for many years been governed by mercenary forces, I will
now deal more largely with them, so that having seen their origin and
progress, they can be better remedied. You must understand that in
these latter times, as soon as the empire began to be repudiated in
Italy and the pope to gain greater reputation in temporal matters,
Italy was divided into many states; many of the principal cities took
up arms against their nobles, who, favoured by the emperor, had held
them in subjection, and the Church encouraged this in order to increase
its temporal power. In many other cities one of the inhabitants became
prince. Thus Italy having fallen almost entirely into the hands of
the Church and a few republics, and the priests and other citizens
not being accustomed to bear arms, they began to hire foreigners as
soldiers. The first to bring reputation for this kind of militia was
Alberigo da Como, a native of Romagna. The discipline of this man
produced, among others, Braccio and Sforza, who were in their day the
arbiters of Italy. After these came all those others who up to the
present day have commanded the armies of Italy, and the result of their
prowess has been that Italy has been overrun by Charles, preyed on by
Louis, tyrannised over by Ferrando, and insulted by the Swiss. The
system adopted by them was, in the first place, to increase their own
reputation by discrediting the infantry. They did this because, as they
had no country and lived on their earnings, a few foot soldiers did not
augment their reputation, and they could not maintain a large number
and therefore they restricted themselves almost entirely to cavalry,
by which with a smaller number they were well paid and honoured. They
reduced things to such a state that in an army of 20,000 soldiers there
were not 2000 foot. They had also used every means to spare themselves
and the soldiers any hardship or fear by not killing each other in
their encounters, but taking prisoners without a blow. They made no
attacks on fortifications by night; and those in the fortifications did
not attack the tents at night, they made no stockades on ditches round
their camps, and did not take the field in winter. All these things
were permitted by their military rules, and adopted, as we have said,
to avoid trouble and danger, so that they have reduced Italy to slavery
and degradation.