§ 1. Those who deny that these are lawful think in a manner that is excessively old-fashioned and arrogant. Joshua and David employed stratagem, as did not only other great commanders but also holy men. Those are excessively simple who think:
οὐδεὶς ἀνὴρ εὔψυχος ἀξιοῖ λάθρᾳ κτεῖναι τὸν ἐχθρόν.
No one of sound mind thinks it right secretly to kill a public enemy. “I do not wish to steal victory” is an impious rather than a noble saying. Holy and noble is that theft by which citizens are preserved and vain glory is despised for the sake of public safety. A skilled hunter takes wild beasts by guile. Augustine puts it excellently in his Questions on Joshua 4, questions 9 and 10: “When a war is undertaken justly, whether a man fights openly or from ambush makes no difference to justice.” Indeed, if victory can be sought by a good guile or stratagem, one must not proceed by force, because danger would be encountered without cause. And the resourcefulness of that most warlike state is to be praised, which commanded that a cock be sacrificed for a bloody victory but an ox for an ingenious one.
Furthermore, this must be considered: success does not always attend one who is fully prepared against the weak, and victory can turn upon a very small matter. An example is the battle that took place in the city of Perugia between the noble and rival families of the Oddi and the Baglioni. Machiavelli relates the matter in book 3, chapter 14, of The Discourses. For when that city was afflicted by civil dissensions and was wholly divided into the two factions of the Oddi and the Baglioni, the latter, having become more powerful, drove the former into exile. The exiled Oddi had gathered an army through the assistance of friends and, having entered Perugia on a certain night, were secretly hastening to seize the forum. But because the individual streets in that city, fortified beforehand with chains stretched across them, impeded the passage of cavalrymen, a certain man with an iron hammer went before them and broke the fastenings of the chains. All the chains had already been broken except only the one that closed the entrance into the forum itself. When the same man was attempting to break it with great exertion, and was prevented from raising the hammer high enough by those who followed at his back and had already sounded the call to arms, he said to them, “Go back,” so that he might, of course, break the chain more freely. But this utterance, sent like an echo from the first men to those behind, and by these to others, gradually reached the last men. It caused those at the rear, who did not understand why it had been uttered, to flee with great violence. The rest gradually followed them, abandoned their undertaking, and themselves became the cause of their own destruction, having been disturbed by so slight and accidental an occurrence.
All stratagems are lawful provided that faith and dignity are preserved; all that contain treachery are to be abominated. Pompey defeated Mithridates in Armenia by ordering his cavalry to withdraw until it had reached the place of ambush. Cassius in the same manner drew the Parthian into an ambush after showing cavalry in front and concealing infantry. Ventidius crushed them by the same means, so that they were compelled to depart from the province. Thus he defeated and killed Pharnapates. Caesar preoccupied the hills against Afranius; Juba drew Curio out into the plain and routed his encircled cavalry. Hannibal never failed to employ ambushes. He exposed a few soldiers to Fulvius through the mist and attacked the opposite part of the camp. Against Minucius he concealed infantry in the mountains, and he would have destroyed Minucius had Fabius not come to his aid. At the Trebia Hannibal with remarkable skill so deceived Sempronius that he wore out his fasting army in severe cold by making it cross the river. At Lake Trasimene he drew the Romans into the mountain, and Flaminius did not perceive the ambush before he was surrounded in front, on the flank, and in the rear and was destroyed with his army. He attacked Junius’s camp after keeping the Romans disturbed for the entire night by means of six hundred cavalrymen. At Cannae he crushed the Romans by the pretense of six hundred deserters, a device Licinius the consul imitated against the Iapygians.
Care must diligently be taken that guiles do not become known. For how did it profit Semiramis to bring forward camels in the trappings of elephants if the Indians knew of it? What advantage did a childish stratagem bring the people of Fidenae when they sent infantry with torches into the army? Guiles are not guiles unless you manage them with cunning. Certainly the foremost prudence of a prince is to guard especially against the guiles of war. They depict a sword smeared with garlic and thereby separated from a magnet, and inscribe upon it the maxim, “Neither by force nor by guile,” which is the emblem of an unconquered prince.
§ 2. Some stratagems belong to war, others to battles. Certain stratagems of war are general and must always be observed when this can be done. The Roman people had various stratagems, of which this was the principal one: they would not readily enter a war or attempt a new province unless they had friends in it or nearby whose assistance they could employ. They defended their Campanian friends against Samnium, and that became the cause of the destruction of the Samnites. They occupied Etruria through the assistance of the Camertes and Sicily through the Mamertines. The Athenians led them into Macedonia; the Rhodians, into Asia; the dissension of the Jewish brothers, into Syria; and royal offspring, into Egypt. By the same method the Spaniard occupied the greatest regions in both Indies, since they always procured with great effort, payment, and hope certain men who preferred foreign dominions. The Turk also overturns everyone while bringing assistance to others; he has faithful friends even in the midst of Europe.
§ 3. Another fraud is to introduce discussion of a truce and peace until one’s forces are better prepared, or so that the spirits of the enemy may grow slack and, enticed by the sweetness of peace, abandon their care for war.
§ 4. This too is customary: to aid belligerents in such a way that assistance is sent to the weaker party until, after each side has been weakened, it submits itself to the victor. For a state that sustains a war not by its own assistance but by another’s is in the power of its helper.
§ 5. A war must never be greatly feared when many conspire against one; for the man who can withstand their first assaults will easily overcome them all. In 1484 the Italians conspired against the Venetians. The latter won over Ludovico, duke of Milan, with gifts and easily dispelled every danger. Thus also, when the German princes conspired against Charles V, the war was brought to an end at its first assault.
§ 6. Some men have wearied an enemy with sleeplessness by nocturnal disturbances while remaining within a fortified camp. Epaminondas harassed the camp of the Lacedaemonians throughout the entire night by means of a few light-armed cavalrymen and on the following day attacked them when they were exhausted. When Epaminondas came to Mount Oneium, he ordered his army to rest; in the morning he defeated the enemy when they were worn out by their watch. When Titus Quinctius thought that the Volsci would attack his camp, he left a cohort on station during the night, but commanded the trumpeters to ride around the rampart on horses and sound their instruments; then in the morning he attacked and routed the weary enemy.
§ 7. Many men have used the enemy’s superstition for their own advantages. I shall adduce only this single instance here, because it shows in a wonderful manner the remarkable wretchedness of the superstitious. Panarmus and Gonippus, Messenians, went into the camp of the Laconians with beautiful horses, white tunics, and purple military cloaks. They were believed by those men to be Castor and Pollux, killed many, mocked the superstition, and then returned unharmed to their own men.
§ 8. When the flight either of the entire army or of one part is feigned, great care must be applied lest some of the soldiers think that it is a true flight and panic arise. When the Romans on one occasion perceived that the enemy was strong, they ordered the velites and hastati to withdraw to their starting positions once battle had begun; then they killed those who followed with ill-considered ardor. Hannibal placed torches and hay upon the horns of oxen and drove them through the woods. While the Romans were astonished at the movement of fire by night, he escaped by another road. The Spaniards struck the Carthaginians still more violently with a stratagem, for they sent burning carts drawn by oxen into Hamilcar’s army and threw its ranks into disorder.
§ 9. When Scipio saw that the strength of Hasdrubal’s army was in the middle of the battle-line, he arranged matters in the battle-line itself so that those men should remain idle. For he ordered the wings to advance more swiftly and the middle battle-line more slowly, so that after the wings had been defeated the courage of the middle also might fail. Justinian, the prefect of the emperor Tiberius, conquered while he waited until the Persians had emptied their quivers; for when matters came to swords, he found them inferior.
§ 10. The best stratagem is to guard against opposing stratagems. Archelaidas, although unaware of the ambush, nevertheless ordered his men to advance in formation, saying that there was an ambush; and one truly existed, so that he easily dispersed the men lying in wait. Otherwise, both those who fall into an ambush and those who come to their assistance are in equal danger. Sertorius cast Pompey’s soldiers into an ambush and slaughtered, while Pompey himself looked on, the legion that had come to their assistance; ten thousand were killed.
Assistance is cunningly diverted elsewhere, because that terrifies the enemy more. When Parmenion saw that the Tyrians had made a sortie and that the Macedonians were giving way and being hard pressed, he did not aid them but attacked the city. Polyainos, book 5.
§ 11. If a man, enclosed between mountains and rivers or the enemy’s garrisons, despairs of being able to escape, he will display everything as though he were going to escape through trackless places, while in the meantime he secretly prepares everything pertaining to bridges and swimming the river; and after threatening one part, he will flee by another.
Iphicrates most skillfully corrected his error. When, on his way to Sicyon, he had passed beyond an ambush, someone from the city cried out, “Now you will pay the penalty.” Suspecting that these were not empty threats, he swiftly withdrew by another road and crushed the ambushers.
§ 12. Remarkable also was the stratagem of Titus Didius, who, when he knew that a legion was to be intercepted, pretended that he wished to fight and, after leading out his army, diverted the enemy from concern for the intercepted legion.
§ 13. When camp is set opposite camp, it will be of great advantage if you divide the enemy’s forces. For this purpose it will be especially advantageous to have a camp as strongly fortified as possible, so that many men may be dispatched in different directions from it.
§ 14. Men sometimes spread certain reports suddenly in order to animate their soldiers and terrify the enemy—for example, that the enemy’s commander has fallen. When Quinctius saw that one wing was giving way, he proclaimed that the other had conquered, and thus added eagerness to his own men and fear to the enemy. This is also a customary means of terrifying enemies.
Edward of England withdrew Philip the Fair from his attack upon Belgium by fraud, for he persuaded Philip’s sister that the princes of Gaul had conspired to desert him in the battle-line. Memnon of Rhodes persuaded the enemy that his soldiers were afflicted by mutiny and thereby drew them out into the plains. There was more pretense in Antigonus Hierax. After he had been defeated and had withdrawn his army into safe places, he pretended to be dead. Men were sent, supposedly by the soldiers, to seek the dead man’s body and make surrender; when four thousand men had been sent to accept the surrender, Antigonus killed them.
§ 15. Fraudulence resting upon such petty lies is unworthy of a commander. The stratagem of Croesus, who opposed camels to horses because the latter cannot bear their smell, proceeded from natural observation and from intelligence and prudence. Pyrrhus likewise stationed elephants opposite the cavalry, so that he might fill both horses and horsemen with terror of the beasts.
§ 16. Cruel and rash was the deed of Sertorius. When the death of a certain commander was reported to him during battle, he killed the man who had reported it, lest the matter spread. It was cruel, I say, and rash, because others already knew it, and the messenger had not reported it to Sertorius alone. The anger and fear arising from this could therefore have turned the battle-line away.
§ 17. When Lutatius Catulus the consul had to cross a river with the Cimbri in pursuit, he pretended that he was going to fight, fortified a camp, and sent out foragers. Then, when the Cimbri did the same, he quietly crossed the river.
The man who has the greater number in battle must be admonished to fight with the utmost caution. For since the weaker man attempts everything, he does not require admonition; great forces produce pride, carelessness, negligence, and disaster. The weaker enemy must therefore be feared, because he will strike with an unexpected blow. But the stronger man has many resources for stratagems: he can suddenly extend the battle-line; he can place many men separately in ambush on the flank; he can send in what is, as it were, a new column from the rear; and he can detach men to attack the camp in the midst of the heat of battle. When he employs some or all of these measures, he does so not as though fearing the enemy but in order to finish the war quickly and with little loss.
§ 18. When a battle must be fought, the commander should be continually occupied in considering stratagems, for that is accomplished best which the enemy does not expect. After Epaminondas had created the expectation of a cavalry contest by raising an immense cloud of dust, he suddenly reached the rear of the unsuspecting enemy.
§ 19. Prudently to conceal and dissemble a disaster has brought the name of victory. Titus Licinius buried his own dead. When the enemy on the following day saw that far more of their own men had been slain, they immediately fled. Thus the nocturnal burial of the bodies produced a complete victory.
§ 20. Sometimes the enemy is deceived while he thinks provision is being made for him. Eumenes’ soldiers were going to plunder the enemy’s baggage at great risk. When he could not persuade them to change their plan, he warned the enemy to guard it better.
§ 21. When an enemy pressing upon you tries to compel you to do something which necessity demands, and you cannot escape the necessity, undertake it voluntarily and submit to the danger with great courage. For in this manner you will act in an orderly way, without disturbance or fear, and you will thoroughly terrify the enemy by the impression of magnanimity and boldness. Is it dangerous for your fields to be burned? Concede them voluntarily as a benefit. Timotheus permitted a part of the territory to the enemy and forbade ravaging with fire or sword.
When Chares the Athenian feared that his camp might be attacked out of contempt for the smallness of his force, he secretly sent many men out by night so that, when they returned in the morning where the enemy could see them, they might present the appearance of reinforcements. When Ptolemy had advanced before his army, he attached wagons to every kind of livestock and ordered them to be driven by cavalrymen; by raising a very great cloud of dust, he presented the appearance of an immense army. Gaius Marius and Sulpicius ordered camp servants mounted upon pack animals to appear from a mountain during the battle and present the appearance of another army; by this means they threw the enemy’s battle-line into disorder.
§ 22. Whether it is better to make an assault upon the enemy or to sustain one is disputed among commanders. Decius attacked the enemy; Fabius sustained the assault. The soldier who attacks is more courageous; the one who receives the enemy is more prudent. If the intervening space is somewhat long, it is better to receive him, for the enemy arrives out of breath. If the enemy is more timid, he must be attacked; if he is bold, his assault must be sustained, for he will be wearied by his first onset.
But firearms have now changed the practice of war. When matters have come within missile range, the man who is ready first inflicts loss and kills some who would have done harm; but this depends upon other circumstances, and especially upon the place.
§ 23. The nature of places often profits more than the valor of the combatants or a veteran commander. Place certainly has the greatest importance for the matter. Marcus Curius defeated Pyrrhus by drawing the phalanx into narrow places. Men generally contrive to fight from elevated ground. Thus Pompey defeated Mithridates, Caesar defeated Pharnaces, and Lucullus defeated Mithridates and Tigranes. Themistocles defeated Xerxes in narrow waters, the few defeating the many. Datames with a few soldiers always defeated many because he never joined battle without keeping the enemy confined by the narrowness of the places. Thus Aemilius Probus.
Sertorius wore down the Roman forces by skirmishes. Hannibal placed precipitous roads as an obstacle on one flank and defeated Marcellus; at Cannae he used the river Volturnus as a fortification. The Roman Hannibal, Caesar, imitated this in book 3 of The Civil War: “His right wing was protected by a certain stream with difficult banks. For this reason he had posted all his cavalry, all the archers, and the slingers on the left wing.”
§ 24. Many men have made a suitable place by art. Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian encumbered with trees the plain upon which he was going to fight Hippias with cavalry and made it impassable for a horseman. Xanthippus led the Carthaginian army, which was strong in horses and elephants, into a plain and defeated the Romans. Clearchus caught the enemy’s cavalry in pits that were suddenly made; Quintus Sertorius crushed the hostile cavalry by making trenches.
Camps must be fortified with wagon wheels sunk into the ground, chains, a rampart, and caltrops; the soldiery must remain united. The Germans, while pitching camp in different places in Gaul, were cut down by the Guises. Hannibal also awaited the wind at Cannae and conquered by this means. The Cimbri likewise fought against Marius on the Raudian Plain by the same stratagem. The Cimbri also employed the assistance of the sun so that, by the reflection of its rays, they might dazzle the enemy’s eyes; but this was a small assistance. The Romans were also aided in the Pontic War by the setting moon. For since it was already near its setting behind the Romans and cast their long shadows, the men of Pontus, in great error, expended their missiles upon those shadows.
Because Eumenes was strong in cavalry, by occupying the ground he brought it about that he drew the enemy down into level places. Hannibal did the same, but cautiously, so that he took account of the cavalry engagements on each side; for he also defeated the Romans’ left wing by stratagem.
§ 25. Therefore, just as a camp must be disposed according to the advantage of places, so I judge that a battle-line must be disposed. It is customarily divided in general into various forms: first, so that it is oblong; second, broad; third, resembling a crescent turned toward the enemy; and fourth, crescent-shaped with its horns turned away. For the remaining forms are generally not customary when battle is fought with an entire line. Nevertheless, an extraordinary formation must always be held in readiness.
§ 26. The instruction of Bernardino de Mendoza, part 1, chapter 44, is remarkable. “It is held to be a useful stratagem in battle,” he says, “if some troop of lancers and firearm-bearing cavalry is drawn out from the right side of the column, even if it is a fifth part of the column, to attack the enemy from the flank when the battle grows hot. Thus, if the enemy turns against the troop, he presents a bare flank to the column; if he opposes himself to the column, he exposes his flank to the troop. Because the stratagem is of great assistance toward victory, I do not indeed know whether it has been customary among infantrymen; it was of great use to me among cavalrymen, when I arranged light-armed troops for this purpose. I observed that the enemy was affected by great loss in this way even if there were only twenty-five men in a single troop; and with divine assistance I broke up very many columns and, as a soldier, obtained notable victories for our king, the father of Your Majesty.”
He teaches that lancers are most suitable for this plan. For a squadron of one hundred or one hundred and twenty lancers can disperse a squadron of four hundred or five hundred firearm-bearing cavalrymen if they divide themselves into smaller troops and attack impetuously in several places; for firearms are rendered useless in that manner and cannot be brought into action.
In their reserves our countrymen not only establish definite ranks but also keep for employment, even among the foremost troops, certain columns which they call “flying.” These sometimes provoke the enemy, sometimes assist those who are hard pressed, and also fight, if the enemy has formed his battle-line first, until the other battle-line has been formed.