Lehal Library

lodged temporarily. different kinds of armies they have in you and their only reason for fighting is the meagre salary you’re paying them, and that’s not reason enough to make them want to die for you. Sure, they’re happy to be your soldiers while you’re not at war, but when war comes, they run for it, or just disappear. It shouldn’t be hard to convince the reader of this, since Italy’s present ruin has been caused precisely by a prolonged dependence on mercenaries. It’s true that mercenary forces did win some battles and seemed courageous when fighting other mercenaries; but as soon as a foreign army turned up we saw what they were made of: Charles, King of France, didn’t even have to fight; his men just put chalk crosses on the buildings they planned to use as billets. When Savonarola said we brought this on ourselves with our own sins, he was right; except the sins were not what he was thinking of, but the ones I’ve been talking about. And because they were our rulers’ sins, it was our rulers who paid the price. I’d like to offer a better explanation of why mercenaries are not a good idea. A mercenary commander may or may not be an excellent military leader: if he is, you can’t trust him because he will always aspire to power himself, either by attacking you, his paymaster, or by attacking others against your wishes; but if he isn’t a capable leader, he’ll ruin you anyway. And if some- one objects that it hardly matters who commands the army since commanders always behave like this, whether mercenary or no, my response is as follows: armed forces are always at the service of a hereditary ruler or a republic. A ruler must go in person and act as commander himself; a republic must send its citizens; if it sends a man who turns out to be no good it must replace him; if he is good it must keep him in line with laws that prevent him exceeding his brief. Experience shows that only rulers and republics with their own armies make serious progress, while mercenaries bring nothing but trouble. And a republic with a citizen army is less likely to fall victim to a coup than a republic paying for mercenary armies. of short duration