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CHAPTER XVII.: of the value of artillery to modern armies, and whether the general opinion respecting it is correct. - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic Writings, vol. 2 (The Prince, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, Thoughts of a Statesman) [1513]

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The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic Writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, tr. from the Italian, by Christian E. Detmold (Boston, J. R. Osgood and company, 1882). Vol. 2.

Part of: The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic Writings, 4 vols.

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CHAPTER XVII.

of the value of artillery to modern armies, and whether the general opinion respecting it is correct.

Considering the many open field fights, or pitched battles as they are called in our day, that were fought by the Romans at various times, I have reflected upon the opinion so universally entertained, that, if artillery had existed in ancient times, the Romans would not have been allowed so easily to conquer provinces and make other peoples tributary to themselves; nor would they in any way have been able to extend their dominions so largely. It is further said, that the use of these fire-arms prevents men from displaying the same personal valor as they could in ancient times; that it is more difficult to join battle than formerly, and that the same organization and discipline of armies cannot be preserved; and that henceforth the battles will be fought mainly by artillery. I deem it, therefore, not from our purpose to examine whether these opinions are correct, and in how far the introduction of artillery has increased or diminished the strength of armies, and whether it gives or takes away from good commanders the opportunity of acting valiantly.

I shall begin by examining the first proposition, that the Romans never could have carried their conquests so far if artillery had been in use in their time. To this I reply, that wars are either defensive or aggressive, and thus we must inquire first whether artillery be most useful for attack or for defence. Whatever may be said on either side of the question, I believe that it is beyond comparison more damaging to him who has to defend himself than to him who attacks. My reason for saying this is, that he who is on the defensive is either within some fortified place, or he is in camp protected by intrenchments. If he is within a fortified place, it is either a small one, such as they generally are, or it is a large one. In the first case he is certainly lost, for the power of artillery is such that even the strongest walls will in a few days be battered down by it; and if he who is within has not a considerable space for retreat, and cannot protect himself by new ditches and earthworks, he is lost, and will not be able to resist the enemy, who will rush in through the breach in the wall, and whatever artillery he may have will in that case be of no use to him, for it is a maxim that artillery cannot resist an assault of troops in mass; and thus the fury of the Ultramontanes has never been resisted by those defending fortified places. The assaults of the Italians in battle are easily resisted when made, not in serried masses, but in small detachments, which assaults they very properly call skirmishes; and when they deliberately attempt in this disorderly manner to enter a breach where there is artillery, they go to manifest destruction, for in such case the artillery within is effective. But when a breach is assaulted by troops in dense masses, where one pushes upon the other, unless impeded by ditches and earthworks, they will succeed in entering any place; and although some will be killed, yet not so many as to prevent the victory. The truth of this has been demonstrated by many captures of strong places by the Ultramontanes in Italy, and especially that of Brescia; for when that city had revolted against the French, the citadel being still held by the king of France, the Venetians, by way of resisting the attacks of those who might enter the place, had mounted artillery in every convenient place, in front and flank, along the streets that lead from the citadel to the city. The French commander, Gaston de Foix, however, paid no attention to this, but marched down on foot with his troops, through the midst of the artillery, and took the city; and according to report his troops did not suffer seriously. Thus, whoever is besieged in a small place, having no space to enable him to retreat behind ditches and earthworks, after the walls are breached, and having to rely for his further defence solely upon his artillery, will quickly be lost. But supposing that you have to defend a large place, with ample space for convenient retreat, even then I maintain that the employment of artillery is without comparison more advantageous for the besiegers than the besieged. For to make artillery damage the besieger it must necessarily be placed higher than the level of the surrounding country, otherwise every little earthwork that the enemy may throw up will secure him against all your efforts to injure him; so that being obliged to raise your artillery upon your walls, or to elevate it in some other way above the level of the country, you expose yourself to two difficulties: the first, that you cannot thus place artillery of the same caliber and power as the besieger’s, as that requires considerable space; the second is, that even if you should be able thus to place your guns, you cannot make your batteries secure against the artillery of the assailant, who has the advantage of being able to place his on higher ground, having all the convenience of space for manœuvring his guns which the besieged lacks. So that it is impossible for him who defends the place to keep his guns in an elevated position if the besieger has plenty and powerful artillery; and if his batteries are too low, then they are to a great extent useless, as we have said above. Thus the defence of fortified cities depends upon the arms and valor of the garrison, the same as in ancient times, and upon artillery of small caliber, and the little advantage derived from that is almost entirely counterbalanced by disadvantages; for it obliges you to give but little elevation to your walls and to bury them, as it were, in the ditches; so that when you come to a hand-to-hand fight after the walls are breached or the ditches filled up, you will be at greater disadvantage than before; and therefore, as we have said above, the use of artillery is of greater advantage to the besieger than to the besieged.

In the third case, when you intrench yourself in camp, so as not to be forced to deliver battle except at your convenience or advantage, I maintain that under those circumstances you have generally no better means for defence or combat than what the ancients had; and often even your artillery operates to your disadvantage, for if the enemy turns your intrenchments so as to get into your rear, and has but slightly the advantage of you in the ground, which may easily happen, so as to place him but a little higher than you are, or should he attack you before your intrenchments are sufficiently completed to cover you effectually, he may quickly dislodge you, and thus there is nothing left you but to issue from your intrenchments and come to battle. This happened to the Spaniards at the battle of Ravenna, who, being posted between the river Ronco and an earthwork which had not been raised high enough, and the French having slightly the advantage of the ground, were forced by the latter to leave their intrenchments and come to open battle. But supposing, as must often happen, that you have chosen the highest ground in the neighborhood for your camp, and that your intrenchments are good and sufficient, so that owing to your position and your other preparations the enemy does not venture to attack you, in that case he will resort to the same means as the ancients did when the adversary had placed himself in an impregnable position; that is, he will scour the country, plunder the towns and villages of your allies, and cut off your supplies of provisions, so that you will be forced to abandon your intrenchments and come to battle, where your artillery will avail you but little, as we shall show further on. If now we recall to mind the manner in which the Romans made war, and remember that all their wars were aggressive and not defensive, we must see (from all that has been said above) that they would have had even greater advantages if they had had the use of artillery, and that their conquests would have been even more rapid than they were.

Now, as to the second proposition, that, since the introduction of artillery men cannot display the same personal bravery as anciently, I maintain that, where men have to present themselves to the fire in small and scattered numbers, they are exposed to greater danger than when in ancient times they had to escalade a place, or make similar assaults, in which they had to act, not in a compact body, but singly and one after the other. It is also true that the lives of the commanders and principal officers of the armies are more exposed now than formerly; for as they can be reached everywhere by the artillery, it is of no use for them to place themselves in the rear ranks, protected by their best men. Nevertheless, we see that these dangers rarely cause any extraordinary losses; for places that are well supplied with artillery are not taken by escalade, nor are they attempted to be taken by feeble assaults, but are regularly besieged, as was done in ancient days. And even with such places as can be taken by assault, the danger is not much greater now than then; for even in those days the ancients did not lack means of defending their places by throwing projectiles upon the enemy, which, although not so noisy as cannon, yet were equally effective in the killing of men. As to the danger of death to which commanders and leaders of bands are said to be more exposed nowadays, the twenty-four years during which the last war in Italy was protracted furnish fewer examples of generals killed than any ten years of war of the ancients. For with the exception of the Count Louis de Mirandola, who was killed at Ferrara when the Venetians besieged that city a few years ago, and the Duke of Nemours, who was killed at Cirignuola, none were killed by artillery; for Gaston de Foix was killed by the sword, and not by a bullet. So that if men nowadays give less proof of valor than formerly, it is not chargeable to the introduction of artillery, but to bad discipline and the feebleness of the armies, which being in the aggregate deficient in courage and vigor, cannot show it in their individual parts.

As to the other proposition advanced, that there are nowadays no more hand-to-hand fights, and that hereafter war will be made altogether with artillery, I maintain that this opinion is wholly erroneous, and will be so regarded by all those generals who desire to manage their armies in the manner of the ancients. For whoever wishes to form a good army must, by real or sham fights, train his troops to attack the enemy sword in hand, and to seize hold of him bodily; and he must rely more upon infantry than upon cavalry, for reasons which I will explain further on. And by thus relying upon the infantry, and upon the above-indicated mode of training them, artillery will prove entirely useless. For the infantry, in engaging the enemy hand to hand, can more easily escape the effects of the artillery than it could in ancient times the rush of the elephants and the scythe chariots, and other now obsolete means of attack which the Roman infantry had to encounter, and against which they knew how to defend themselves. And they would most probably have found also the means of escaping the effects of the artillery, as the time during which its fire is most damaging is so much less than that during which the elephants and the scythe chariots were dangerous. For whilst these carried disorder into the ranks in the very midst of the fight, the artillery interferes with you only at the beginning of the battle, and then it is easily avoided by the infantry, either by availing of the natural cover of the ground, or by lying down during the fire. And experience has shown even this to be hardly necessary, especially with regard to heavy artillery, which cannot be so accurately directed; for when aimed too high the balls pass over you, and when too low they do not reach you. And when you have engaged the enemy hand to hand, then it is perfectly evident that neither light nor heavy artillery can do you any more damage; for if the enemy has planted his guns in the front, they will fall into your hands, and if in the rear, then they will damage his own troops sooner than yours; and if he places his guns on the flank, they cannot injure you to that degree but that you can rush up and capture them, the same as in the first case. All this cannot be gainsaid, for we have seen how the Swiss at Novara, in 1513, without cavalry or artillery, went to encounter the French, who were well provided in their intrenchments with artillery, and routed them without suffering much from the effect of the guns. And the reason of this is, that, besides the other things mentioned above, the artillery, to be well served, needs to be protected by walls, ditches, or earthworks; and if it lacks this protection it is either captured or becomes useless, as generally happens in open field battles, when it is protected only by men. On the flank the artillery cannot be employed differently from what the ancients did their catapults and other engines of war, which were always placed outside of the squadrons, so that they should not break the ranks; and whenever they were hard pushed by cavalry or other troops, they promptly took shelter behind the legions. And whoever employs artillery differently does not understand the matter well, and relies upon that which may easily disappoint him. And if the Turks by means of their artillery gained the victory over the Persians and the Egyptians, it resulted from no other merit than the unusual noise, which frightened the cavalry. I will conclude this chapter, therefore, by saying that artillery is useful in an army when the soldiers are animated by the same valor as that of the ancient Romans, but without that it is perfectly inefficient, especially against courageous troops.