finished_summaries/shmoop/The Prince/section_12_part_0.txt
The Prince.chapter 12
chapter 12
{"name": "Chapter 12", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420060055/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/prince-machiavelli/summary/chapter-12", "summary": "Any state--old, new, whatever--needs good laws and good armed forces. Since you can't have good armed forces without good law, let's just say you need a good army. There are four types of armies you could have: a local army, mercenaries, auxiliaries , or some kind of mixture. First things first: mercenaries and auxiliary armies are useless. Just don't do it. Mercenaries are only interested in the money and are not reliable. That's how Italy got into trouble--occupation by France and Spain--in the first place. Plus, if a mercenary leader is good then you have to be afraid that he will turn against you, and if he is bad he will make you lose anyway. So, no good. Good armies? Citizen armies. Look at Rome. Look at Sparta! Carthage used mercenaries, and guess what happened to them? They got owned by Philip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great's dad. Don't be like Carthage. Machiavelli gives us a bunch of examples, but the basic takeaway here is mercenaries = bad. They are lazy. They are expensive. They kill during wartime. And they don't even defend their camps. Machiavelli has a little bit of an axe to grind about this problem, since he has wanted Italy to stop relying on mercenaries forever, but no one would listen to him.", "analysis": ""}

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;(*) 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 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,(*)
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 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,(#) 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.

     (*) Battle of Caravaggio, 15th September 1448.

     (+) Johanna II of Naples, the widow of Ladislao, King of
     Naples.

     (%) 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.

     (#) Carmignuola. Francesco Bussone, born at Carmagnola about
     1390, executed at Venice, 5th May 1432.

     (&) 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.

     ($) 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,(*) 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.

     (*) 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.




Chapter 12
Any state--old, new, whatever--needs good laws and good armed forces. Since you can't have good armed forces without good law, let's just say you need a good army. There are four types of armies you could have: a local army, mercenaries, auxiliaries , or some kind of mixture. First things first: mercenaries and auxiliary armies are useless. Just don't do it. Mercenaries are only interested in the money and are not reliable. That's how Italy got into trouble--occupation by France and Spain--in the first place. Plus, if a mercenary leader is good then you have to be afraid that he will turn against you, and if he is bad he will make you lose anyway. So, no good. Good armies? Citizen armies. Look at Rome. Look at Sparta! Carthage used mercenaries, and guess what happened to them? They got owned by Philip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great's dad. Don't be like Carthage. Machiavelli gives us a bunch of examples, but the basic takeaway here is mercenaries = bad. They are lazy. They are expensive. They kill during wartime. And they don't even defend their camps. Machiavelli has a little bit of an axe to grind about this problem, since he has wanted Italy to stop relying on mercenaries forever, but no one would listen to him.