THE ART OF WAR-MACHAIVELLI

THE ART OF WAR-MACHAIVELLI

(Book Review)

General Introduction of the Book

The Art of War is a treatise by the Italian Renaissance political philosopher and historian Niccolò Machiavelli.

The format of The Art of War is a socratic dialogue. The purpose, declared by LordFabrizio Colonna (perhaps Machiavelli's persona) at the outset, "To honor and reward virtù, not to have contempt for poverty, to esteem the modes and orders of military discipline, to constrain citizens to love one another, to live without factions, to esteem less the private than the public good." To these ends, Machiavelli notes in his preface, the military is like the roof of palazzo protecting the contents.This was Written between 1519 and 1520 and published the following year, it was Machiavelli's only historical or political work printed during his lifetime, though he was appointed official historian of Florence in 1520 and entrusted with minor civil duties.

Author

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli ( 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was a Florentine historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher,humanist, and writer during the Renaissance. He was for many years an official in the Florentine Republic, with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs. He was a founder of modern political science, and more specifically political ethics. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is renowned in the Italian language. He was Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. He wrote his masterpiece, The Prince, after the Medici had recovered power and he no longer held a position of responsibility in Florence. His views on the importance of a strong ruler who was not afraid to be harsh with his subjects and enemies were most likely influenced by the Italian city-states, which due to a lack of unification were very vulnerable to other unified nation-states, such as France.

"Machiavellianism" is a widely used negative term to characterize unscrupulous politicians of the sort Machiavelli described in The Prince. The book itself gained enormous notoriety and wide readership because the author seemed to be endorsing behavior often deemed as evil and immoral. Because of this, the term "Machiavellian" is often associated with deceit, deviousness, ambition, and brutality. The art of war is also one of his important books.

Contents

The Art of War is divided into a preface (proemio) and seven books (chapters), which take the form of a series of dialogues that take place in the Orti Oricellari, the gardens built in a classical style by Bernardo  Rucellai in the 1490s for Florentine aristocrats and humanists to engage in discussion, between Cosimo Rucellai and "Lord Fabrizio Colonna" (many feel Colonna is a veiled disguise for Machiavelli himself, but this view has been challenged by scholars such as Mansfield), with other patrizi and captains of the recent Florentine republic: Zanobi Buondelmonti, Battista della Palla and Luigi Alamanni. The work is dedicated to Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi, patrizio fiorentino in a preface which ostentatiously pronounces Machiavelli's authorship. After repeated uses of the first person single to introduce the dialogue, Machiavelli retreats from work serving as neither narrator nor interlocutor. Fabrizio is enamored with the Roman Legions of the early to mid Republic and strongly advocates adapting them to the contemporary situation of Renaissance Florence.

Fabrizio dominates the discussions with his knowledge, wisdom and insights. The other characters, for the most part, simply yield to his superior knowledge and merely bring up topics, ask him questions or for clarification. These dialogues, then, often become monologues with Fabrizio detailing how an army should be raised, trained, organized, deployed and employed.

Machiavelli's Art of War echoes many themes, issues, ideas and proposals from his earlier, more widely read works, The Prince and The Discourses. To the contemporary reader, Machiavelli's dialogue may seem impractical and to under-rate the effectiveness of both firearms and cavalry. However, his theories were not merely based on a thorough study and analysis of classical and contemporary military practices. Machiavelli had served for fourteen years as secretary to the Chancery of Florence and "personally observed and reported back to his government on the size, composition, weaponry, morale, and logistical capabilities of the most effective militaries of his day." However, the native fighting force he assiduously oversaw was struck a catastrophic defeat in Prato in 1512 which lead to the downfall of Republican government.

Machiavelli wrote that war must be expressly defined. He developed the philosophy of "limited warfare"—that is, when diplomacy fails, war is an extension of politics. Art of War also emphasizes the necessity of a state militia and promotes the concept of armed citizenry. He believed that all society, religion, science, and art rested on the security provided by the military.the Art of war has the following main content with in it.

• A battle that you win cancels any other bad action of yours. In the same way, by losing one, all the good things worked by you before become vain.

• Since the handling of arms is a beautiful spectacle, it is delightful to young men.

• Knowing how to fight made men more bold, because no one fears doing what it seems to him he has learned to do. Therefore, the ancients wanted their citizens to be trained in every warlike action.

 • When they remain in garrison, soldiers are maintained with fear and punishment; when they are then led to war, with hope and reward.

• Without doubt, ferocious and disordered men are much weaker than timid and ordered ones. For order chases fear from men and disorder lessens ferocity.

• Never lead your soldiers to battle if you have not first confirmed their spirit and known them to be without fear and ordered; and never test them except when you see that they hope to win.

• Every little advantage is of great moment when men have to come to blows.

• To know in war how to recognize an opportunity and seize it is better than anything else.

• In the armies, and among every ten men, there must be one of more life, of more heart, or at least of more authority, who with his spirit, with his words, and with his example keeps the others firm and disposed to fight.

• In war, discipline can do more than fury.

• Sometimes it has been of great moment while the fight is going on, to disseminate words that pronounce the enemies' captain to be dead, or to have been conquered by another part of the army. Many times this has given victory to him who used it.

• It is much better to tempt fortune where it can favor you than to see your certain ruin by not tempting it.

• There is nothing as likely to succeed as what the enemy believes you cannot attempt.

• The greatest remedy that is used against a plan of the enemy is to do voluntarily what he plans that you do by force.

• You must never believe that the enemy does not know how to conduct his own affairs. Indeed, if you want to be deceived less and want to bear less danger, the more the enemy is weak or the less the enemy is cautious, so much more must you esteem him.

• The forces of adversaries are more diminished by the loss of those who flee than of those who are killed.

• And above all you ought to guard against leading an army to fight which is afraid or which is not confident of victory. For the greatest sign of an impending loss is when one does not believe one can win.

• Necessities can be many, but the one that is stronger is that which constrains you to win or to die.

• Present wars impoverish the lords that win as much as those that lose.

• War makes thieves, and peace hangs them.

Critiques

However at the time he was writing, firearms, both technologically and tactically, were in their infancy and the rushing of enemy missile armed troops, of artillery even, between salvos, by a charge of pikes and sword and shield men would have been a viable tactic. In addition Machiavelli was not writing in a vacuum; Art of War was written as a practical proposition to the rulers of Florence as an alternative to the unreliable condottieri mercenaries upon which all the Italian city states were reliant. A standing army of the prosperous and pampered citizens that would have formed the cavalry would have been little better. Machiavelli therefore "talks up" the advantages of a militia of those arms that Florence could realistically muster and equip from her own resources.

However, his basic notion of emulating Roman practices was slowly and pragmatically adapted by many later rulers and commanders, most notably Maurice of Nassau. and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden They would lay the foundations for the system of Linear Tactics which would dominate the warfare of Europe and the world until after the Napoleonic Wars.

While Machiavelli's influence as a military theorist is often given a backseat to his writings as a political philosopher, that he considered  to be his most important work is clear from his discussions of the military science and soldiery in other works. For example, in The Prince he declares that "a prince should have no other object, no any other thought, nor take anything as his art but that of war and its orders and discipline; for that is the only art which is of concern to one who commands."

In the course of the sixteenth century twenty-one editions appeared and it was translated into French, English, German, and Latin. Montaigne named Machiavelli next to Caesar, Polybius, and Commynes as an authority on military affairs. Although in the seventeenth century changing military methods brought other writers to the fore, Machiavelli was still frequently quoted. In the eighteenth century, the Marshal de Saxe leaned heavily on him when he composed his Reveries upon the Art of War (1757), and Algarotti—though without much basis—saw in Machiavelli the master who has taught Frederick the Great the tactics by which he astounded Europe. Like most people concerned with military matters, Jefferson had Machiavelli's Art of War in his library, and when the War of 1812 increased American interest in problems of war, The Art of War was brought out in a special American edition."

This continued interest in Machiavelli as a military thinker was not only caused by the fame of his name; some of the recommendations made in the Art of War—those on training, discipline, and classification, for instance—gained increasing practical importance in early modern Europe when armies came to be composed of professionals coming from the most different social strata. This does not mean that the progress of military art in the sixteenth century—in drilling, in dividing an army into distinct units, in planning and organizing campaigns-was due to the influence of Machiavelli. Instead, the military innovators of the time were pleased to find a work in which aspects of their practice were explained and justified. Moreover, in the sixteenth century, with its wide knowledge of ancient literature and its deep respect for classical wisdom, it was commonly held that the Romans owed their military triumphs to their emphasis on discipline and training. Machiavelli's attempt to present Roman military organization as the model for the armies of his time was therefore not regarded as extravagant. At the end of the sixteenth century, for instance, Justus Lipsius, in his influential writings on military affairs, also treated the Roman military order as a permanently valid model.

Conclusion

His writings are considered immoral, he teaches you to be appear to be meek as a lamb but deadly as a lion. How to conquer, how to placate, the importance of perception and how it is better to be feared than loved.
"The Art of War" is an interesting discussion of how armies should be armed and organized. The treatise is organized into several "books" and is shown as a discussion between three characters, one of which is Machiavelli. Based on his knowledge of Roman organization, combined with the technology of the day, he lays out a clear and well thought out plan to organize Italy's armies. This is not just a theoretical work, but one which was put into practice as well. At one point he was in charge of Florence's military forces; disregarding mercenaries in favor of citizen soldiers. This paid off as well as the city's forces defeated an invasion from another city state.

As a practical philosophy, this might not translate fully into today's world with discussions of archers and cavalry, but it has some overarching themes that still resonate. The reliance on citizen soldiers who are professional and dedicated to the state still hold true today. This might not be useful for everyone interested in modern military theory, but it does have useful insight in the development of military organization and as a historical document.