feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Prince/section_5_part_1.txt
feat_book_id: The Prince.chapter xii
feat_summary_id: chapter xii
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter XII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210303115306/https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince/section6/", "summary": "Concerning Various Kinds of Troops, and Especially Mercenaries All princes must build on strong foundations. The two essential components of a strong state are good laws and good armies. Good laws cannot exist without good armies. The presence of a good army, however, indicates the presence of good laws. There are three types of armies: a prince's own troops, mercenary troops, and auxiliary troops. Mercenary and auxiliary troops are useless and dangerous. Mercenaries are \"disunited, undisciplined, ambitious, and faithless. Because their only motivation is monetary, they are generally not effective in battle and have low morale. Mercenary commanders are either skilled or unskilled. Unskilled commanders are worthless, but skilled commanders cannot be trusted to suppress their own ambition. It is far more preferable for a prince to command his own army. Historically, dependence on mercenaries ruined Italy. During the breakup of Italy, which the Church supported in hopes of increasing its own stature, many townships hired mercenaries because they had little experience in military matters. Since the mercenaries were more concerned with increasing their own prestige and status than with taking risks or accomplishing military objectives, the conflicts between these mercenary forces devolved into a series of ineffective, staged, pseudo-battles, ultimately degrading Italy's political and military might", "analysis": ""}
text: 
  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.
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter XII
target: Concerning Various Kinds of Troops, and Especially Mercenaries All princes must build on strong foundations. The two essential components of a strong state are good laws and good armies. Good laws cannot exist without good armies. The presence of a good army, however, indicates the presence of good laws. There are three types of armies: a prince's own troops, mercenary troops, and auxiliary troops. Mercenary and auxiliary troops are useless and dangerous. Mercenaries are "disunited, undisciplined, ambitious, and faithless. Because their only motivation is monetary, they are generally not effective in battle and have low morale. Mercenary commanders are either skilled or unskilled. Unskilled commanders are worthless, but skilled commanders cannot be trusted to suppress their own ambition. It is far more preferable for a prince to command his own army. Historically, dependence on mercenaries ruined Italy. During the breakup of Italy, which the Church supported in hopes of increasing its own stature, many townships hired mercenaries because they had little experience in military matters. Since the mercenaries were more concerned with increasing their own prestige and status than with taking risks or accomplishing military objectives, the conflicts between these mercenary forces devolved into a series of ineffective, staged, pseudo-battles, ultimately degrading Italy's political and military might