12

MACHIAVELLI

THE FINAL WORD ON MERCENARIES, as far as the medieval/Renaissance world is concerned, was written by the Florentine political philosopher, Niccolò Machiavelli. That word was not favourable. The crisis provoked by the military defeats in 1494–95 caused him to rethink traditional military strategies and tactics. His enforced retirement from politics in 1512 and his humanist training allowed him to see that situation in the broadest possible perspective, that is, typically for Renaissance intellectuals, by the study of classical history. When he decided that the disasters of the late Roman Empire came from the use of Germanic recruits, it required only a little leap of the imagination to believe that Italy’s current problems lay in having hired foreigners.

However, since there were relatively few foreigners in the armies of the many Italian states, the problem, he decided, might be in the use of any mercenaries. Italians should return to the Roman Republic’s practice of enlisting their own young men. The decisive moment in the development of his thought may have been at Pisa in 1509, when Florentine mercenaries had refused to attack a breach in the walls.

Machiavelli had the standing to expect a hearing – education and experience. In 1498, when a republican government ruled, he was second chancellor, then secretary, to the Committee of Ten, in charge of military preparations. In 1505 he began to organise a Florentine army of conscripted soldiers. He did not supervise this force personally, however, since diplomatic travel took him through Italy and even to France and Germany.

In 1512, after Medici partisans overthrew the republic, Machiavelli composed The Prince as advice for Giuliano de’ Medici, the brother of the cardinal who would soon become Pope Leo X; but although both Medicis read the manuscript, they were not impressed. Meanwhile Machiavelli finished a second book, a more erudite study entitled Discourses, in which he argued for a democratic, republican form of government.

MACHIAVELLI’S COMMENTS ON MERCENARIES

Machiavelli’s treatise was scholarly. When he discussed mercenaries in chapter twelve of The Prince, he began with a general premise: ‘They do not fear God and do not keep faith with mankind’. So much for the condottieri. But Machiavelli was not intent of being fair. He even denied Hawkwood the claim of being the first great mercenary commander – he gave credit for that to Alberigo de Conto, whose lieutenants included Francesco Sforza, later the commander of Milanese mercenaries. He praised Sforza for taking the logical next step of a general with an army – taking over the country. But Sforza’s descendents, relying on others to command their armies, ‘began as dukes and ended as private citizens’.

Relying on foreign armies (auxiliaries), Machiavelli argued, was even worse – a ruler should rely only on his own citizens or subjects. From this flows a vast river of consequences – that a ruler has to be honest, just, respected. Exactly the opposite characteristics from those that a superficial reader might expect. But it was true that the prince was not to be a philosopher king – such an idealist would quickly fall to aggressive neighbours or internal plots. Above all, he had to be practical – it was good that citizens should both love and fear their prince; but it was essential that they should fear him.

Feared, but not hated. And if hated, then not simultaneously despised. Misplaced generosity and compassion would be perceived as weakness. But there had to be balance – other rulers should fear him, but not fear him so much that war became unavoidable. Statecraft was, in short, a craft, an art, a skill that could be mastered. Machiavelli offered himself as the teacher.

Alas, contemporaries laughed at his arguments that money was not essential for war, that a patriotic citizenry would fight without pay, that infantry was superior to cavalry, and that artillery was overrated.

The condottieri were better generals than Machiavelli indicated, and their men were strong and well trained, but he was right in saying that they instinctively shrank back from pitched battles in which a quarter or half of their force might be slaughtered.

There had to be a better way to face the well-financed French and Spanish armies than using mercenaries; traditional practices had failed and seemed ever less likely to be successful in the future. That was Machiavelli’s great insight. National armies were practically invincible, he said, because a few determined men are always superior to a myriad of half-hearted ones. The French and Spanish were fighting for pride and their king, the Italians only for money. That had to change.

Machiavelli’s proposals did make military strategists see the need to study history. He used his analysis of ancient Greek and Roman armies and politics to suggest parallels to modern politics; some examples he took from ancient Rome, some from Cesare Borgia (whose name alluded to the most successful of all the Roman generals, even though he was the son of a pope), but all were thought-provoking.

Machiavelli wisely did not spend much time condemning military popes. Julius II (1503–13) might have been safe – he was a true warrior – and Alexander Borgia (1492–1503) provided enough material for scandalous gossip for centuries. But with the Medici in control of the papacy, it was best to criticise popes as little as possible.

Contemporary clerics and secular rulers alike condemned Machiavelli’s ideas as cynical, evil, and unsuitable for Christian readers – that was enough to guarantee him a large readership. They even popularised his name, Niccolò, as ‘Old Nick’, indicating that he was clearly in league with the devil. They did this while cynically lying and cheating themselves. The difference, they rationalised, was that they knew that they were doing wrong, and Machiavelli did not.

MILITARY MATTERS

Machiavelli never commanded troops in the field. He lacked personal experience except in organisation and supply. He was an intellectual, a theorist. That was the most important reason that contemporaries did not heed his wisdom. One anecdote reported by Mallett illustrates the difference between the observer and the expert: Giovanni de’ Medici is said to have allowed him to try out his proposed infantry drills on the Black Bands. Machiavelli explained the commands, then tried them on the parade ground. As the morning passed into midday, the heat became intense; the soldiers, unaccustomed to the new drill, became confused and fell repeatedly into disorder. There must have been considerable heckling and laughter, and one doubts that the soldiers gave it their best effort. Finally Giovanni took over the command again, barked a few decisive commands and restored the formations to order. It was not a fair test, but Machiavelli was too wise to ask for another try with those men.

The story is probably apocryphal; that is, it wasn’t true, but it should have been. In the long run Machiavelli was right, and that is why we still read him. Still, in the short run he was a failure. The immediate future still belonged to professional armies; and although these armies were no longer composed of short-term mercenaries, the French Revolution’s introduction of mass armies of volunteers was still a long way off. Thus, in that odd way that history has of confounding us, Machiavelli was more important for future generations than he was for contemporaries.

Machiavelli wanted to revive the citizen-soldier, and with that also to revive the republican state. The citizen-soldier, knowing that the government’s decisions would determine the chances of his living and dying, of prospering or paying taxes to foreigners, would insist on a role in the government. The ancient Roman republic could be restored, first in Florence, and then throughout Italy.

Although Machiavelli presented this as an original idea, it was not quite so. Every Italian city had once been defended by a citizen militia, and although these had become impractical as field troops, they were still useful for defending walls and forts. Indeed, the first use of revived civic militia – as envisioned by Florentine intellectuals between 1402 and 1420 – would be as garrison troops. But Florence was of several minds about arming the lower classes, and was definitely reluctant to give command to any member of any noble family. Giving command to a commoner, no matter how talented, was unthinkable.

There had been a major shift in the organisation of armies that began in the 1440s. The leading nation was France, but armies long remained small, rarely over 20,000 men. This was because of the difficulty of supplying a larger force, and also because once an army became too large, the general could not get an overview of the battlefield and his orders could not reach distant units in time to make any difference. There was also the lack of an experienced chain of command, with competent officers at each level of responsibility; and not only field officers, but commissary officials, paymasters, engineers, transport specialists, the staff responsible for the care and feeding of the commander and the courtiers necessary to entertain and advise him. But the final decision of an army’s size was dictated by money.

As the mercenary tradition faded slowly into national armies, so too did the practice of living off the land – robbing, raping and burning. These were the hallmarks of the mercenary soldier, and there must have been many a disappointed young bully or old reprobate when the royal commander explained that their employer expected to win battles decisively, not stop to wait till his troops had finished with their pleasures. But whatever the troops lost in way of booty, they more than made up for in having guaranteed employment. Men and officers alike were becoming professionals, and like all professionals they were concerned with salaries, retirement benefits, and honours. Because kings and princes could provide these, their methods of war were those of the future. And because they could treat old-fashioned mercenaries as robber bands, they had a monopoly on war that allowed them to dictate the rules.

This did not mean the end of irregular troops, or plunder, or murder; those have survived to the present day and will surely last long into the future. But the rise of the national state and the national army marched a decisive change in the way western societies made war, and peace, and thus changed everything else. The Leviathan was coming – the modern state.

Machiavelli did not believe that the day of the modern army had already dawned – at least, not in the west. And it would not until Italy awoke. In chapter thirteen of The Prince he argued that the French were weaker than they should be because the king relied on Swiss mercenaries; in The Discourses, book three, he went further, to explain why the French are so ferocious at the beginning of a battle, then timid at the end (at first more courage than men, then less than women). It’s a Celtic thing, he said, going back to the Gauls, to have more ardour than discipline.

He accused contemporary Italians of having neither ardour nor discipline. Italians, however, were descendants of Romans and hence had some hope of correcting their faults.

HIS EXHORTATION TO GIULIANO DE’MEDICI

Machiavelli concluded The Prince with a call to Giuliano de’Medici to take the lead in rescuing the nation from foreign barbarians. The Swiss must give way before infantry armed with swords, because infantrymen can slip beneath the pikes; such infantry, however, cannot withstand cavalry attacks; and cavalry cannot charge pikemen. The new Italian army must be a combination of arms. Most of all, it must have a leader who can inspire the troops:

Let, therefore, your illustrious house take up this charge with that courage and hopes with which all just enterprises are undertaken; so that under its standard this our native country may be ennobled, and under its auspices may be verified that saying of Petrarch:

Virtú conra al Furore	Courage against rage
Prenderâ l’arme, e fia il combatter corto:	shall take up arms,
	and the battle will be brief
Che l’antico valore	because ancient valour
Negli italici cuor non è ancor morto	is not yet dead in Italian hearts.