§ 1. Political writers differ concerning the construction of fortresses; indeed, some demolish those which others have constructed. Machiavelli is uncertain. For this is his counsel in chapter 20 of The Prince:
A custom had grown strong among princes that, in order to possess their principate more securely, they should erect fortresses which, as though with reins and bridles, would restrain those who contrived something against them, and that against every sudden assault they should have a secure refuge to which they might withdraw. Indeed, I would not wish to condemn this counsel, since it is now very ancient and customary. Nevertheless, in our age we have seen Niccolò Vitelli destroy the two fortresses which were at Città di Castello in order to retain that dominion. Guidobaldo, prince of Urbino, having been restored to the principate from which he had been expelled by Valentino, utterly overthrew all the fortresses of that province. For, when they had thus been overthrown, he judged that the province could be lost again only with greater difficulty. When the Bentivogli returned after Bologna had been recovered, they followed the same counsel. Fortresses, therefore, are or are not useful according to the condition of the times; but in whatever respect some good returns to you from them, in another they harm you exceedingly. This matter can assuredly be examined thus.
§ 2. I judge fortresses useless to free cities, but judge that every expense which would have to be spent separately upon a fortress should be devoted to walls, ditches, and bulwarks. Thus the Romans ought to have leveled the Capitol to the ground, and the Athenians to have demolished the citadel of Minerva; for it is advantageous to wicked citizens and slaves to occupy them and hand them over to the enemy. They must also be guarded in time of peace. When war is raging, it is a miserable consolation for citizens to abandon their houses and flee into the fortress, which nevertheless they cannot defend for long, since their multitude impedes them and there is a lack of provisions and danger of disease among a crowded multitude.
Hence fortresses are demolished as workhouses of slavery and supports of servitude as soon as men aspire to liberty. Simon Maccabaeus destroyed the fortress which the Greeks had occupied for thirty years. Fortresses are therefore hateful to cities as fetters upon liberty. As long as they remain, citizens judge that they have been placed beneath the blow; and although the garrison may do no harm, it is nevertheless an object of fear. A fortress nevertheless saved Rome, but those who preferred to die were men of great spirit. The Messenians also, after being defeated by the Lacedaemonians, defended themselves for twenty years in the fortress of Mount Ithome. Pausanias, Messenian Affairs.
§ 3. Those who have added some province to their empire by war ought to keep its people obedient by means of fortresses. Everyone now employs this method throughout the whole world; and if anyone undertakes to advise the contrary, he will appear to be acting so as to be mad with reason—and, if the truth must be said, he is mad. Therefore, when Machiavelli proclaims fortresses useless and harmful, he acts so as to strip his prince of dominion by means of exotic wisdom. The Spaniards would already have lost the West Indies a thousand times, and the Portuguese the East Indies, if they had been without fortresses. For a few fortresses impose a bridle upon so many peoples.
But the entire matter will be understood if we weigh Machiavelli’s wisdom. In book 2, chapter 24, of his Discourses on the Republic, he reasons thus:
It may perhaps seem remarkable to someone that, although the peoples of Latium, after being conquered and subdued, rebelled so many times, the Roman people did not construct any fortresses either at Privernum or in their other cities in order to restrain them and keep them obedient. For they certainly acted otherwise than our Florentines think one ought to act, since the Florentines judge that their own and other cities must be restrained by fortresses. Indeed, if the Roman people had been like our own men, they would have acted in the same way as ours. But because there was in that people another valor, another power, and another judgment concerning affairs, it therefore thought that one must act otherwise. While the state was free, it never constructed any fortresses either for restraining cities or for defending provinces; nevertheless, it preserved some of those which it occupied after they had been founded by others. Since these things are so, while the princes of our own time appear to think very differently, I have therefore judged that I would not act amiss if I inquired in this place whether structures of such great mass are useful or useless to their authors.
I reply that those who deny that the Romans possessed fortresses are gravely mistaken, for they held their whole empire by the garrisons of fortresses. I shall easily prove this matter, remarkable though it may be to antiquaries, to be true for political writers. It must be observed that some whom the Romans conquered were received into the city. Florus, book 1, chapter 1: “Thus peace was made and a treaty struck with Tatius. A thing marvelous to relate followed: the enemies abandoned their own seats and migrated into the new city, and joined their ancestral wealth to their sons-in-law as a dowry.”
And in chapter 3: “He incorporated the Albans. And so, after the enemy had been conquered, he tore apart Mettius Fufetius, guilty of breaking the treaty, after he had been bound between two chariots drawn by swift horses. He also destroyed Alba itself, although it was a parent city, because it was nevertheless a rival; but first he transferred all the wealth of the city and the people itself to Rome, so that the kindred city seemed not to have perished but in some sense to have returned again into its own body.”
They utterly destroyed some, sold others, and received others in surrender, so that they might either enervate them in this fashion and prevent them from rebelling or restrain them with garrisons. These garrisons were of two kinds: colonies and fortresses. They treated them according to the cause of the war, the obstinacy, or the obedience of the besieged. The Falisci surrendered voluntarily; the Fidenates were consumed by their own fire; the Veientes were seized and utterly destroyed; among the Sabines, and where the Nar flows around, a great number of men and a great extent of land were captured; the cities of the Samnites were so destroyed that Samnium had to be sought in Samnium. But I must speak of fortresses.
The first kind consisted of colonies, when in suitable places they fortified ancient towns or constructed new ones. Peoples about to rebel attacked these first of all. At the beginning they were like great fortresses; afterward they grew into great cities. Lipsius describes this custom in book 2, chapter 23, of his Constancy: “Let this one example concerning colonies stand for all exactions and robberies. Just as nothing firmer for the strength of empire was discovered, so nothing more grievous to subjects could have been devised. Legions and veteran cohorts were everywhere conducted into fields and towns, and the miserable provincials were in a moment cast down from all their goods and fortunes. They had dared nothing and deserved nothing; their wealth or fertile fields constituted their whole crime. In this there assuredly appears a kind of whirlpool of every calamity. It is miserable to be despoiled of money; what if one is despoiled also of fields and roofs? It is grievous to be driven from those; what if from one’s whole fatherland, temples, and altars? Behold, several thousand persons were torn apart: children from parents, masters from their household servants, wives from husbands; and they were scattered into various lands according as each man’s lot fell—some ‘to the thirsty Africans,’ as the poet says concerning this very matter, ‘part to Scythia, or to the Britons divided from the whole world.’ Octavian Caesar alone planted twenty-eight colonies in Italy alone; in the provinces he planted as many as he pleased. Nor, so far as I know, was any other thing more destructive to the Gauls, to us, and to the Spaniards.”
Colonies were towns of Roman or Latin citizens who had been conducted there. Sigonius relates these reasons for colonies: first, that the earlier peoples who had previously inhabited the places might be restrained; the second people was therefore military and was introduced as though into a fortification. Second, that neighboring enemies might be repelled. Third, that the urban plebs might be drained away. Fourth, that the Roman stock might nevertheless be increased. Fifth, that seditions might be removed. Sixth, that veterans might receive rewards. According to their original institution, therefore—for matters were afterward conducted in another manner also—the colonists had to deal with conquered peoples and neighboring enemies. Thus the colonists planted among the Ubii kept perpetual watch against the unpacified Gauls and Germans. But we must treat of fortresses properly so called, of which I affirm that there were very many.
These were, namely, camps, from which our fortresses or castles also take their name; for in Italian they are called citadels because they are like small cities, as colonies generally were at the beginning. But I speak of camps, which I affirm were fortresses—temporary fortresses and sometimes permanent ones. I call military fortifications fortresses whether they are made of stone or of turf and timber, for even now fortresses of turf are more highly approved. Nicolas Bellus teaches this concerning his Gauls in volume 1 of Political Matters:
As regards fortifications, there is no other region in which there is a greater number of them, which results from several causes. One is that, when the kingdom was divided into several dominions and principalities—namely Burgundy, Brittany, the Duchy of Anjou, and Normandy—each ruler fortified his own frontiers. The number of fortifications grew through the wars of the English, who ruled a great part of France. The situation and nature of places suitable for fortification, and no less the diligence and aptitude of the people for these matters, make the fortification of places easier. There is no other nation more industrious in fortifying or one which spares labor and expense less. Nor is France less strong within than on its outermost frontiers. Beauvais, Troyes, Orléans, Angers, the city of Bourges, Limoges, Saint-Flour, Carcassonne, and Soissons yield nothing in strength to Calais, Péronne, Narbonne, and other frontier places. Each part of this kingdom is fitted to serve as a frontier for the rest of the kingdom.
This is also proved in Belgium and Germany. Such were the fortresses of the Romans; for we are not disputing about the material of fortresses but about their purpose and manner. Let us therefore examine Roman fortresses. First, all Roman camps, even for the rest of a single night, were like fortresses. A place most suitable for prospect, watering, and foraging was chosen; it was surrounded with a rampart and ditch; everything was distinguished in the highest order, as Lipsius explains most learnedly. But like these camps were those which were permanent upon the frontiers. Next, there were permanent forces established by Augustus for the protection of the empire. Tacitus, Annals 1: “The legions, provinces, and fleets, all things joined to one another”; for the principal part of the soldiers was stationed on the frontiers.
Third, in the time of Augustus there were three legions in Spain, seven in Gaul along the Rhine, two in Africa, two in Egypt, four in Syria along the Euphrates, two in Moesia along the Danube, and two in Dalmatia. But afterward there were three in Egypt—one at Alexandria, according to Strabo—and likewise nine cohorts: three in the city, three at Syene, and three in other places. There were also two legions at Berytus, because it was the barrier of the sea. It is established that there were also cohorts of allies, auxiliaries, wings, and cavalry. In Raetia, Judaea, and other places there were cohorts alone; at Lyons in Gaul there was the Eighteenth Cohort; at Forum Julii of the Ligurians there was a cohort, the ancient auxiliary force of the place. In Gaul there were 1,200 soldiers, Agrippa says in Josephus. Afterward three legions were stationed in Britain by Claudius, two in Cappadocia by Vespasian, and two in Dacia by Trajan. Indeed, at Rome there were ten thousand—or nine thousand—and afterward more praetorians for the protection of the princes and against sudden emergencies. “These men,” says Lipsius, “had the Praetorian Camp at the Viminal Gate, so that they might be kept under closer restraint and discipline, separated from the citizens and the city.” Besides these there were three Urban and Watch Cohorts; Dio, book 4. Lipsius judges that there were fourteen cohorts.
§ 4. While I weigh all these matters with myself, I at the same time establish what they are accustomed to deny: the fortresses of the Romans. The Praetorian camps were enclosed with a ditch and rampart, and all those along the Rhine in the same manner. They differed in no respect from our castles except that their garrison was larger. Their fortification was of the kind which is now customary in our temporary camps, such as Ambrosius, the greatest of commanders, made along the Rhine. Indeed, those ancient winter camps of the Romans were stronger—stronger, I say, if you consider the times. For since men lacked cannon, it was necessary to climb with their hands, tear apart palisades and embankments, and level the breastwork. Thus at that time they were safer in their camps than men now are in fortresses. For although they were made with little labor, they were nevertheless easily defended.
Sejanus established a camp at Rome and fortified it with a rampart. Tacitus, Annals 4: “He increased the power of the prefecture, previously moderate, by gathering into one camp the cohorts dispersed throughout the city, so that they might receive commands together and, through their number, strength, and the sight of one another, confidence might be given to them and fear to everyone else. He alleged that the soldiers grew wanton while dispersed; that if some sudden event should arise, aid could be brought more powerfully by all together; and that they would act more severely if their rampart were established far from the allurements of the city.”
Although, therefore, the Romans are not thought to have possessed fortresses, there is nevertheless no doubt that the camps themselves were like fortresses. For I define a fortress as a bulwark built for restraining peoples and repelling enemies; fortresses are accordingly named from repelling, and hence many towns have retained the name of camps. But let us hear Machiavelli further:
Let this be the beginning of the discussion: fortresses are customarily constructed either to repel enemies or to restrain subjects and keep them obedient. I declare, however, that they are not necessary for the former use and that for the latter they are useless and harmful. I judge fortresses harmful for restraining subjects because the danger of rebellion which is feared customarily arises from hatred conceived by subjects against their lords. Subjects hate their princes and lords because of injuries received; princes are accustomed to injure their subjects and treat them badly especially when they hope that they can rule them according to their own decision and tame and restrain them according to their mind’s desire. They think and hope this most of all when they possess in the subjects’ midst exceedingly well-fortified citadels constructed in a vast mass, because they believe that no one will dare anything against them. Since these things are so, fortresses of this kind are not merely useless for keeping subjects obedient but also harmful, since princes, trusting in them more than is fitting, seize an opportunity for mistreating and punishing their subjects and thereby stir up their hatred against themselves, from which rebellions, slaughters, and infinite evils depend.
Machiavelli’s argument can be concluded briefly thus: fortresses cause a prince to command securely; tyranny follows from security, by which subjects are harshly and insultingly treated; from this come hatred and rebellion; fortresses are therefore not to be built. But what prince will listen to this counselor? “Lest you become a tyrant, refuse to be powerful”? Rather, labor so that you may be powerful, so that you can protect the good and overthrow the wicked. Security is sought for a prince from a fortress, from resources, and from an army, all of which can give courage no less than fortresses can. I believe that security arises from fortresses. I therefore judge that they must be built, so that the prince, secure in himself, may administer justice without fear and may deter an enemy and a citizen of hostile disposition from rebellion through despair of victory. Otherwise, if security must be avoided, let the soldier be dismissed; let the prince walk alone without bodyguards; let him invite the wicked to parricide, which they will perpetrate without any danger. A prince without attendants and a province without the garrisons of fortifications equally invite the enemy.
I conclude to the contrary. A prince must act so that he is truly a prince, so that, secure in himself, he compels what he has commanded to be done and cuts off hope from those who contrive revolution. He can maintain this purpose especially by fortifying citadels; therefore citadels must be fortified.
Moreover, it is not rightly advised that a prince should not seek security but should pass his life in fear and anxiety in order that he may act more mildly. For in truth nothing is more cruel than a timid prince: he fears everything, believes everything hostile, and indulges suspicions. Hence the timidity of a prince is calamitous to leading men, and far more princes have been cruel through fear than through security. Augustus was most savage while he was afraid, and if he had died within the first twenty years of his rule, he would have been among the most hateful of princes. But when he had gained possession of affairs and dispelled his dangers, he put on gentleness. Let this remain stored deep in the mind: if he is timid, he is also cruel; if he fears, he rages. Claudius is a great example. Therefore, lest he fear and rage, let him build fortresses for his security. Machiavelli continues.
§ 5.
But neither, when wars press upon us, do fortresses possess as much force as men customarily attribute to them. For there are only two methods of keeping subjects obedient and restraining them by force. One is that you should have ready at hand an excellent army, as the Roman people had, by which you may settle the waves once they have been stirred. The other is that you should utterly destroy and extirpate rebels, lest they be able to defect again or take up arms against you. For if you plunder their goods, arms remain to the despoiled. If you take away their arms also, fury supplies arms. If, after killing the commanders, you grant the rest the enjoyment of life, other commanders will immediately be reborn like the heads of the Lernaean Hydra. If you possess fortresses, in time of peace they will make you more audacious and unjust toward your subjects; when war comes, they will be attacked both by enemies and by your subjects, and it will not be possible for you to resist both.
I know that nothing is secure for a tyrant whom subjects and foreigners hate, and whom the very ministers of his cruelty detest.
Those two methods belong to the rich, powerful, and cruel. For to have an excellent army always ready at hand belongs only to a most powerful prince. Next, permanent armies must be maintained with great stipends; and when these are wrung from subjects, then at last they take up arms or flee to any nation whatever, and the cultivation of the province is abandoned. Next, a hundred deaths of emperors demonstrate how readily an army mutinies. Third, two thousand men in fortresses have greater power for restraining enemies than ten thousand in the open. Fortresses are therefore savings of expense.
But what he says—that fortresses do not greatly harm enemies—is false. For no one attacks a strong fortress equipped with soldiers and provisions unless he is prepared for the weariness of a long siege. Meanwhile relief forces can be assembled while the enemy fights against stones, turf, and wickerwork and pours out his strength and resources. But let us consider for a little while the fortresses of the most astute commander. In the year in which Caesar disturbed the Britons, there was a scarcity of crops because of drought, and he was compelled to station his legions in different places: one was led among the Morini, another among the Nervii, a third among the Aedui, a fourth among the Remi, three into Belgium, one among the Eburones, together with five cohorts. Caesar himself meanwhile determined to remain in Gaul until he learned that the legions had been stationed and the winter quarters fortified.
But how well fortified were the camps? The tribunes and centurions of the first ranks judge that forces however great, even those of Germans, could be sustained by fortified winter quarters. The matter itself bore witness, because they most courageously sustained the first assault of the enemy, inflicted many wounds in return, and were not pressed by want of grain. We cannot deny here that there were as many castles or fortresses as there were legionary camps. Caesar did not depart from Gaul until he heard that the winter quarters had been fortified. The fortification was such that the centurions and tribunes judged that it could be defended against forces however great; and Cicero defended his camp for many days against many thousands, although the enemies drove forward shelters and towers and in three hours completed a fortification ten miles in extent, and although on the seventh day they set the camp on fire after fire had been cast within the rampart. But the whole hope lay in fortifying and resisting.
Caesar writes thus in book 5:
On the next day, after the enemies perceived from the nocturnal noise and watches that the Romans were departing, they placed ambushes in two divisions in the forests, in a suitable and concealed place approximately two miles away, and awaited the arrival of the Romans. When the greater part of the column had descended into a great valley, they suddenly showed themselves on each side of that valley and began to press the rearmost men, prevent the foremost from ascending, and join battle in a place most disadvantageous to our men.
Had they not possessed strong camps, all the legions could have been destroyed in one day. Assuredly the Romans would have acted far more prudently at the beginning by doing what they were afterward compelled to do: fortifying permanent camps, winter quarters, and even summer camps in fixed places. Hence Trajan placed castles beyond the Danube and built a bridge so that relief could be brought if they were attacked. Indeed, the conquered Decebalus was ordered to destroy his bulwarks.
Only this can be asked in this place: whether it is more advisable to possess temporary or permanent camps. But no prudent man can doubt that permanent ones are more useful. First, they are stronger, having been fortified by long labor. Second, there is no need to repeat the labor every year. Third, a conquered or routed army possesses a refuge. Hence the legions, concerning whose distribution I spoke above, and the cohorts passed their lives in their own fortifications. The regular legion at Alexandria possessed its own separately fortified camp, as though a fortress; the cohort at Jerusalem also possessed its own camp. What else was this than a fortress for restraining the city?
Herod himself, not contrary to Roman discipline, restrained the populous city hostile to him by three fortresses. Nor did the most courageous kings act otherwise. David fortified Zion and from it securely ruled the people. Besides the Cherethites and Pelethites, divisions of twenty-four thousand of the most select soldiers always served him as a garrison, as Holy Scripture testifies, 1 Chronicles 27. But let us consider our own times, concerning which Machiavelli speaks in this manner:
If fortresses were ever useless for restraining subjects, assuredly in our age they are not only useless but also ruinous because of the use of engines of war, whose assault neither fortresses nor any confined places can sustain. To withstand them, it is necessary continually to fall back and to compensate inwardly with new ditches and embankments for the ruins of the walls which they produce. Since these things are so, consider further whether a people which was already previously under your dominion, or one which has recently been added to your empire, should be restrained by fortresses of this kind. Certainly, if you possess a principate received from your ancestors, fortresses will not benefit you in keeping subjects obedient, for the reasons already explained: since they make you and your descendants more audacious in inflicting injuries upon the people, and consequently expose you to their hatred, and cannot afterward defend you. For these reasons, and lest either he himself or his heirs have an opportunity to exercise tyranny, but instead endeavor to win the people’s goodwill, a wise prince should never construct fortresses.
This argument repeats the preceding one and adds that fortresses are useless at the present time because they cannot long sustain the assault of engines. If this argument possesses force, no fortification whatever ought to be employed; nor should camps be surrounded with a rampart in the Roman manner, for they cannot long resist cannon. But kings and princes, as well as the most courageous commanders of our time—whom I judge in no way inferior to the ancients in strength of spirit and prudence—think altogether differently. For first, many fortresses fortified by the nature of the place and also assisted by art, if they possess an energetic soldiery, are impregnable and render rivers, harbors, and roads secure. Next, those which at some time yield to the enemy nevertheless, by delaying him, furnish time for assembling soldiers, exhaust the adversaries in expense and labor, and diminish their authority, while at times the treasuries of kingdoms are spent upon a single rock or marsh.
But if the enemy finds everything level and without fortifications, if he has gained one victory, uses it, and raises fortifications in various places, he imposes the bridle of perpetual servitude; for he finds an unarmed province. What prevented Albert of Brandenburg, as he raged with sword, pillage, and fires, from entering lower Germany except the fortress set at Koblenz? He neither dared pass it nor judged that attacking it suited his plans. The fortress was not the reason why the descendants of Sforza lost Milan, but their conduct, the hatred of the people, and the power of the French. If Milan had not possessed a fortress, it would have lost its dominion much sooner; and now for many years that fortress and others have been the protection of this duchy. The French fortified their kingdom with citadels better constructed than those of all other nations. Nicolas Bellus therefore speaks truly in volume 1 of Political Matters, concerning France:
As regards fortifications, there is no other region in which there is a greater number of them. This results from several causes. One is that, when the kingdom was divided into several dominions and principalities—namely Burgundy, Brittany, the Duchy of Anjou, and Normandy—each ruler fortified his own frontiers. The number of fortifications grew through the wars of the English, who ruled a great part of France. The situation and nature of places suitable for fortification, and no less the diligence and aptitude of the people for these matters, make the fortification of places easier.
§ 6. What Machiavelli adds, however, contributes nothing to the matter. He says:
To these considerations is added the fact that fortresses are easily lost, either through the fraud of those who command them, the force of enemies, hunger, or a long siege. But if you wish to recover a city which has been lost by the aid of a fortress which alone has remained faithful, you nevertheless need an army just as though you possessed no fortress, and indeed an army so much larger as it is more likely that the citizens will be more hostile to you because of injuries received from the fortress than they would have been if you had lacked one. Experience itself has taught that the fortress of Milan benefited neither the Sforzas nor the French at all in time of war and harmed them greatly in time of peace, because both, trusting in so great a mass of construction, did not consider some more humane method of preserving that principate.
I have already refuted a similar argument above concerning a treasury. For if fear of thieves means that treasure must not be laid aside, neither should a method of household management be recommended to the head of a household. But it is miserable to be despoiled, and most miserable to possess nothing of which you can be despoiled. I say most miserable in a prince and in a state; for I am not instructing solitary men and pupils of voluntary poverty but a state, which needs resources, fortresses, and the other necessities by which it may terrify and restrain the wicked.
Commanders of fortresses can desert and hand the fortresses over, but unfortified camps, towns, and villages can be handed over much more easily. Consequently, neither camps nor fortresses are beneficial without the fidelity of men. Sometimes a stronger enemy wrests a spear from a soldier and kills him after he has been struck down with his own sword; nevertheless, an army is not for that reason to go unarmed. But Guidobaldo, son of Federico, duke of Urbino, a man most skilled in military affairs, after he had been driven from his dominion by Cesare Borgia, son of Alexander VI, and had afterward recovered that same dominion through a certain chance, demolished all its fortresses and bulwarks. For since he possessed well-disposed subjects, he did not need them for restraining those subjects; and he saw that he could not defend them against enemies without an army.
I do not deny that it is sometimes fitting for fortresses to be demolished: namely, if the goodwill of the subjects is so great that they are not necessary for restraining them; if money for maintaining a garrison is lacking; or if they cannot be defended. Nor are we disputing about that matter. We know that great commanders have consumed towns, villages, crops, and all other things which they could not defend with flames, lest they benefit the enemy. Guidobaldo did not hold the principate long thereafter, as experience taught. The favor of the people is changed more swiftly than a breeze. Peoples begin most swiftly to hate those princes whom they embraced most eagerly when, contrary to expectation, they see that tributes, taxes, and services are commanded.
He does not reason rightly concerning the fortress of the Genoese. Although that city could not be held, it does not therefore follow that all fortresses must be demolished. Otherwise cities should not be surrounded with walls, since prodigious walls did not defend Babylon and Nineveh; for there were other causes of their destruction. But let us refute Machiavelli from his own words and from history. He says:
The event which occurred at Genoa a few years ago is both the most recent and the most evident example for demonstrating that the construction of fortresses is useless and their destruction useful. For we know that after that city defected from Louis, king of France, in the year of salvation 1506, and he came into Italy with a great army to recover it, the king, after recovering the city, founded a fortress of immense mass, such as it is established that no other then existed. For it seemed impregnable both by the nature of its location and by art. It rested upon the promontory of Gondega, projecting over the sea, so that from there the entire harbor and also a great part of the city could be struck with missiles. Nevertheless, when afterward, in the year of the Lord 1512, all the French were driven out of Italy, Genoa also, fearing the fortress not at all, defected to Ottaviano Fregoso. He surrounded it with a siege and in the space of sixteen months compelled it by hunger to surrender. After Fregoso had occupied it, despising the counsels of all who advised that he preserve it as a kind of refuge, he caused it to be demolished utterly. He judged the goodwill of the people and his own valor to be a better foundation for his dominion, which he still possesses, than any fortresses or bulwarks.
To me, however, the great usefulness of fortresses seems to be proved most firmly by this very example. For when the French, hated by the Italians and afflicted by diseases, hunger, and innumerable calamities, were being driven from all Italy, it was not surprising that the citizens of Genoa also—long free and princes of Italy—agreed upon liberty. The fortress caused them not to be the first to do so. This ought not to be esteemed a small matter, for the French held the fortress and harbor for sixteen months. If meanwhile they had assembled a strong army, they could have lifted the siege. Add that the fortress was compelled by hunger to surrender. Therefore, if adequate provision had been made for its supplies, a siege of two or three years would have been necessary; during that time the French could both have prepared relief forces and worn down the besiegers, and the dispositions of the peoples could have changed.
But Machiavelli proceeds:
The same reasoning applies also to those fortresses which states are accustomed to found in recently occupied cities in order to keep those citizens obedient. If this is less evident from the example of the Genoese already adduced, it will become better known from the encounter between the Florentines and Pisans. For when the Florentines had seen the Pisans rebel so many times, they judged that by constructing a fortress they could restrain them. They paid too little attention to the fact that a city which had been accustomed to be free and had always been hostile to the Florentine name could be kept obedient by no other method than if, in the Roman manner, they either received it into partnership with themselves or utterly destroyed it. How much the fortresses benefited them toward their intended end became apparent from the arrival of Charles, king of France, to whom they were immediately handed over, without negligence of the commanders and without fear of a greater evil. If the Florentines had not previously founded them and had not attributed so much to them as to suppose that the city was preserved through them, they would assuredly have considered another method by which they could not so easily have been stripped of dominion over the city by the king.
Here too nothing is concluded against fortresses. Pisa and Florence were rival cities for a long time. At last Pisa succumbed; but because it was held neither by a sufficiently strong garrison nor by a fortress, when an opportunity was given it rebelled. They afterward restrained it by a fortress until the arrival of King Charles, to whom everything yielded. Since the fortress was defended by a garrison insufficiently strong, faithless, and feeble, the commanders preferred to surrender themselves to the king’s favor rather than run risks without cause. If the Florentines had strengthened the fortress, placed a powerful garrison and provisions within it, and mollified the hostile spirits of the Pisans so that they preferred neighbors and kinsmen to distant masters, they could have sustained and worn down Charles’s army for a long time, preventing it from gaining other successes.
The remaining methods were difficult: to transfer Pisa to Florence or to destroy it utterly. For they preferred to rule another city rather than that there should be no city. I do not excuse the Florentines if they sinned through pride of command or avarice. Against great hatreds no power endures, yet fortresses and armies resist for some time. If they had not constructed a fortress at Pisa, the Pisans would already before Charles’s arrival have shaken off the yoke and harassed Florence with incursions and depredations.
§ 7. He concedes that cities have been recovered through fortresses but responds in this manner:
If someone should object to us that either Tarentum in ancient times or Brescia in our own age was recovered by means of a fortress after the inhabitants defected, I reply that the fortress was by no means sufficient for recovering Tarentum, since the consul Quintus Fabius was sent with a very great army to occupy it; with that army he could without doubt have captured it even if they had possessed no fortress there. What, therefore, did the fortress benefit the Roman people if they nevertheless needed a consular army to recover the city? The Romans possessed no fortress at Capua, yet they recovered that same city by the valor of an army. In the rebellion of the city of Brescia something new and rare occurred. For it rarely happens that, when a city defects, those in the fortress remain faithful unless they possess a neighboring army whose aid they can implore. When the Brescian citizens defected, Foilleus, the commander, was at Bologna with the royal army. Having learned of the matter through swift messengers, he immediately prepared for the journey and, arriving there on the third day, recovered the city with the help of the fortress. Therefore Brescia could not be recovered by the fortress alone but needed the royal army; nor, even if it could have been recovered by that alone, [would this example suffice].
I reply that the fortress was of the greatest benefit. For although the city could not be recovered without an army, it could nevertheless be recovered easily because the fortress furnished the opportunity. The disorders of Belgium have shown how much importance lies in fortresses. Indeed, he admits that Brescia was recovered with the aid of a fortress. The very method of wars teaches this. How much danger and labor is expended by commanders so that, while they besiege a city, they may take one tower, one bulwark from the enemies! And when they have obtained this, they judge that their labor has been worthwhile.
When Jerusalem was besieged—and that was the most renowned siege among all those since the world was created—Titus first took the outer wall, then the second, finally the third, and this at intervals of time and with fresh slaughter of his own men; fourth, he took the fortress Antonia constructed by Herod; fifth, the Temple, which possessed the strength and position of a fortress; finally, Mount Zion, an altogether royal fortification. If the Romans had taken timely thought for themselves and occupied one of those fortresses before they were driven out, they would easily have obtained the city. The kings of the Greeks acted more prudently, therefore, because they held the fortress.
§ 8. Nor do I approve every kind of fortress, but only three kinds. First are those which are separated from cities or possess small cities joined to them but were not constructed for keeping those cities obedient. Their purpose is the protection of rivers, harbors, frontiers, and roads; on this account the advantageous position of their locations renders them useful. Hence the Hermenstein fortress—Ehrenbreitstein—set over the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle, is useful. In the same way there is the fortress which they call Schenkenschanz at the division of the Rhine; for I have already shown above that it is properly called a fortress because it repels the enemy.
Second, fortresses are founded for restraining and defending great cities. There are three modes of these. Some can strike the city and divert provisions, such as the one at Genoa which the king of France constructed. These are to be approved most of all, because they constrain the spirits of the citizens by fear of two things: bombardment and a sortie into the city, and the prevention of provisions. Others prevail through fear of only one of these two disadvantages, such as those of Prague and Luxembourg, which can do harm by battering and invading the cities. Those situated in harbors generally serve to protect or impede imports. Such is the African fortification of Rachia, which the Spaniards brought under their dominion a few years ago by a courageous stratagem and which the Ethiopians besieged for a long time with their utmost strength.
The third kind of fortresses is that which princes and nobles are accustomed to construct, which does not come under the name of a fortification but is a somewhat more honorable dwelling fortified against sudden assaults. There is an innumerable multitude of these in Germany and Gaul. In former times many were very strongly fortified and set upon rocks; now most are deserted.
Machiavelli errs much more gravely concerning fortresses against enemies:
But those fortresses which are constructed to repel foreign enemies and to defend your people and empire are not necessary either. If you abound in courageous men and energetic soldiers, they are not only unnecessary but altogether useless. For without an army they are of no benefit; an excellent army can defend you without fortresses. All who excelled either in political or military arts—such as the Romans and Spartans—understood this sufficiently from experience itself. The Romans never constructed any fortresses; the Spartans did not even wish the cities occupied by them to possess walls. They believed that the valor of soldiers alone constituted bulwarks. Hence it happened that when a certain Spartan was asked whether the city of Athens seemed furnished with beautiful walls, he replied, “Entirely so, if it were inhabited by women.” Therefore, for a prince who possesses a good army, only some fortresses situated upon the frontiers of the empire, especially in maritime locations, can be beneficial for sustaining the enemies for several days until the armies are made ready; but not even these are necessary to him. If he lacks a courageous army, fortresses on the frontiers of the empire either benefit him not at all or even harm him. For they are easily lost, and when the enemy occupies them, he will employ them against you. But if you grant that some fortresses are so strong and fortified that they cannot be occupied, the enemy nevertheless proceeds onward after leaving them behind him; for most powerful armies invade and overrun the enemy’s frontiers without taking account of either the cities or the strongest fortresses which they leave at their back. It is established that this is so from both ancient and modern examples. Francesco Maria invaded Urbino a few years ago and was not at all concerned that he had left behind him ten cities, all hostile to him. Therefore, every prince who possesses a powerful army can easily lack fortresses; one who lacks it ought not to construct fortresses but to fortify as strongly as he can the city in which he dwells and to equip the citizens with arms, so that he may at least sustain for some time the assault of arriving enemies until he can either make an agreement with him or summon foreigners to his aid. Whatever other fortresses and bulwarks are built burden both princes and subjects with excessive expenditures in time of peace and are of no benefit in time of war. Therefore, just as in other matters the senate of the Roman people administered everything with the highest prudence, so here also it acted wisely, because it judged that the conquered and subdued Latins and Privernates were not to be restrained by any fortresses but kept obedient by another method, more advantageous and more consonant with valor.
I have already refuted these things above, nor do the Lacedaemonians move me, since in the judgment of all nations they acted with ἀφροσύνης—that is, with foolish simplicity—in not even surrounding their city with a wall. Nothing could be more foolish than this. For if a place lies open to every injury, watch must be kept with great forces, great labor, and danger. In every place, even one at peace, the Romans fortified their camp. For what wisdom is there in exhausting a citizen with watches when by interposing a small wall you can save so much labor?
But the walls of the Athenians were as though they were inhabited by women. This, however, was the jeer of a Laconian—and of one who feared walled Athens. We know that the most courageous men founded and defended the strongest walls, and that fortresses in Europe and India have in our own time been defended with remarkable valor. If we praise Roman strength, assuredly we ought to admire our own times; for the strength of soldiers who advance against iron cannon is greater than that of men advancing against arrows.
They object that Poland and England lack fortifications. But perhaps it would be better for those kingdoms to receive examples from many others than to give them. How often is Poland invaded with impunity by Turks, Tatars, Muscovites, and Swedes? How many thousands of people are carried away? If there were fortifications and garrisons at suitable places, if the crossings were occupied, the sudden assaults of the enemies would easily be repelled. England is girded by the sea: to have entered it is to have conquered it.