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The PrinceXIII. Auxiliary, Mixed, and One’s Own Soldiers
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XIII. Auxiliary, Mixed, and One’s Own Soldiers

Auxiliary arms, the other kind of useless arms, are what you have when you call in a powerful ruler to come with his forces to help and defend you, as Pope Julius did in recent times. Having seen in the enterprise of Ferrara the sorry showing of his mercenary arms, he turned to auxiliaries, and agreed with Ferdinand, king of Spain, that Ferdinand should help him with his men and armies. These arms can be useful and good in themselves, but for the one who calls them in they are almost always harmful; for if they lose, you are undone, and if they win, you are their prisoner. And although ancient histories are full of such examples, I do not want to leave this fresh example of Pope Julius II. Nothing could have been less well considered than his decision to put himself entirely in the hands of a foreigner because he wanted Ferrara. But his good fortune brought about a third thing, so that he did not reap the fruit of his bad choice: when his auxiliaries were routed at Ravenna,1 the Swiss rose up and drove out the victors, against all expectation, his own and everyone else’s; and so he did not end up the prisoner either of his enemies, who had fled, or of his auxiliaries, since he had won with arms other than theirs. The Florentines, being entirely unarmed, brought ten thousand Frenchmen to Pisa to take it, and by this decision they ran more danger than at any other time in their troubles.2 The emperor of Constantinople, to oppose his neighbors, put ten thousand Turks into Greece, who would not leave when the war was over; and this was the beginning of Greece’s servitude to the infidels.3

Whoever, then, wants to be unable to win should make use of these arms, because they are much more dangerous than mercenaries. With auxiliaries your ruin is ready-made: they are all united, all trained to obey someone else. With mercenaries, once they have won, they need more time and a better opportunity to harm you, since they are not one body and were found and paid by you; and a third party whom you make their head cannot at once gain enough authority to harm you. In short, with mercenaries the greater danger is their cowardice; with auxiliaries, their ability.

A wise prince, therefore, has always avoided these arms and turned to his own, and has preferred to lose with his own men than to win with others, judging that no true victory is won with foreign arms. I will never hesitate to cite Cesare Borgia and his actions. This duke entered the Romagna with auxiliary arms, bringing nothing but French troops, and with them he took Imola and Forlì. But since such arms did not seem safe to him afterward, he turned to mercenaries, judging that there was less danger in them, and hired the Orsini and the Vitelli. Then, finding in his dealings with them that they were doubtful, unfaithful, and dangerous, he destroyed them and turned to his own men. And one can easily see the difference between these kinds of arms by considering the difference in the Duke’s reputation when he had the French alone, when he had the Orsini and the Vitelli, and when he was left with his own soldiers and relied on himself. It will be found to have grown at every step; and he was never esteemed so highly as when everyone saw that he was the complete master of his own arms.

I did not want to leave Italian and recent examples; still, I do not want to leave out Hiero of Syracuse, since he is one of those I named above. As I said, when the Syracusans made him head of their armies, he quickly realized that their mercenary soldiery was useless, since its captains were made like our Italian ones; and since he thought he could neither keep them nor let them go, he had them all cut to pieces, and afterward made war with his own arms and not with foreign ones. I also want to recall a figure from the Old Testament that bears on this point. When David offered himself to Saul to go and fight Goliath, the Philistine challenger, Saul, to give him courage, armed him with his own armor; and once David had it on, he refused it, saying that in it he could not make good use of himself, and so he wanted to meet the enemy with his own sling and his own knife.4

In the end, the arms of others either slip off your back, or weigh you down, or bind you. Charles VII, father of King Louis XI, having freed France from the English with his fortune and his ability, recognized this necessity of being armed with one’s own arms, and established in his kingdom a standing organization of men-at-arms and infantry.5 Afterward his son King Louis abolished the infantry and began to hire Swiss. This error, followed by his successors, is, as can now be seen in fact, the cause of that kingdom’s dangers. For having given reputation to the Swiss, he has debased all his own arms; he has abolished his infantry and made his men-at-arms dependent on the arms of others, since, being accustomed to fighting alongside the Swiss, they do not think they can win without them. So it is that the French are no match for the Swiss, and without the Swiss they do not try themselves against others. The armies of France, then, have been mixed, partly mercenary and partly their own; and such arms taken together are much better than pure auxiliaries or pure mercenaries, and much inferior to one’s own. And let this example suffice; for the kingdom of France would be invincible if the organization of Charles had been developed or preserved. But the poor prudence of men begins something which, because it tastes good at the time, does not notice the poison underneath, as I said above of consumptive fevers.

Therefore whoever does not recognize the evils in a principality as they arise is not truly wise, and this is given to few. And if one considers the first cause of the ruin of the Roman Empire, it will be found to have been simply that it began to hire the Goths; for from that beginning the forces of the Roman Empire began to weaken, and all the ability that was taken from it was given to them. I conclude, then, that without arms of its own no principality is secure; on the contrary, it is entirely dependent on fortune, having no ability to defend it in adversity. And it has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men “that nothing is so weak or unstable as a reputation for power not founded on one’s own strength.”6 One’s own arms are those composed of subjects, or citizens, or men of your own making; all others are either mercenary or auxiliary. And the way to organize one’s own arms will be easy to find if one examines the institutions of the four I have named above, and sees how Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, and how many republics and princes have armed and organized themselves. To their institutions I refer entirely.

Notes

  1. 1. At Ravenna, on April 11, 1512, the French defeated the Spanish and papal army of the Holy League; in the following months the Swiss drove the French out of Lombardy.

  2. 2. In 1500 Florence hired French and Swiss troops from Louis XII for the siege of Pisa; they mutinied and the siege failed.

  3. 3. John VI Cantacuzenus, in his civil war of 1341–47, brought Ottoman troops into Thrace; in 1354 the Turks took Gallipoli, their first foothold in Europe.

  4. 4. 1 Samuel 17:38–51. In the Bible David has only his sling and stones; he cuts off Goliath’s head with the giant’s own sword.

  5. 5. Charles VII (1403–1461) ended the Hundred Years’ War and created the first French standing army, the companies of ordinance (1445) and the free archers (1448). Louis XI reigned 1461–83.

  6. 6. Tacitus, Annals 13.19: nihil rerum mortalium tam instabile ac fluxum est quam fama potentiae non sua vi nixae. Machiavelli quotes from memory.