CHAPTER XXXVII.: whether skirmishes are necessary before coming to a general action, and how to know a new enemy if skirmishes are dispensed with.

It seems that in all the actions of men, besides the general difficulties of carrying them to a successful issue, the good is accompanied by some special evil, and so closely allied to it that it would seem impossible to achieve the one without encountering the other. This is evident in all human affairs, and therefore the good is achieved with difficulty, unless we are so aided by Fortune that she overcomes by her power the natural and ordinary difficulties.

I am reminded of the truth of this by the combat between Manlius Torquatus and the Gaul, of which Titus Livius says: “So decisive was the influence of this action upon the whole war, that the army of the Gauls, after having precipitately left their camp, retreated behind the Tiber, and thence into Campania.” I consider, then, on the one hand, that a good captain should avoid every unimportant action that may nevertheless

produce a bad effect upon his army. For he must be altogether reckless to engage in any action in which he cannot employ his entire force, and where yet he hazards his whole fortune, as I have already demonstrated elsewhere in condemning the guarding of passes. On the other hand, I consider that a prudent general, who has to encounter a new and untried enemy that has a reputation, should, before engaging in a general action, afford his troops the opportunity of testing such an enemy by slight skirmishes; so that, by learning to know him somewhat, and how to meet him, they may be relieved of any fear which the fame and report of the enemy may have caused them. I look upon this as a most essential duty of a general; in fact, he will feel the necessity of it himself when he sees that he would be marching to certain defeat, unless by some such slight experience he first removes the terror which the enemy’s reputation may have engendered in the hearts of his troops. When Valerius Corvinus was sent by the Romans against the Samnites, who were new enemies, with whom his troops never before had measured themselves, he made them engage the Samnites first in some slight skirmishes, “lest,” as Titus Livius says, “a new war and a new enemy should cause them fear.” Nevertheless, there is great danger lest a defeat in such slight combats should increase that fear and apprehension in your soldiers, and thus produce the very opposite effect from what you designed; for in such event, instead of reassuring them, they will be discouraged. So that this is one of those cases where the evil lies so near the good, and is so commingled with it, that it is easy to encounter the one in thinking to take the other.

On this subject, then, I say that a skilful commander should avoid with the utmost care everything that can possibly tend to discourage his army. And as nothing is so likely to do this as a check in the beginning, a general should beware of small combats, and should not permit them unless he can engage in them with decided advantage and the certain hope of victory. He should not attempt to guard any passes where he cannot employ his whole force; nor should he hold any strong places except such as would involve his own destruction in their loss; and then he should manage their defence in such a manner that, in case of their being besieged, he may go to their relief with his entire force. All other places he should leave undefended;

for the loss of any place that a general abandons, without his army having experienced any reverse, will neither dim the glory of his arms nor his hope of victory. But the loss becomes a danger and real misfortune when you had intended to defend it, and every one believes that you attempted to do so; it is then that a matter of so little moment may cause the loss of the whole war, as in the case of the Gauls. Philip of Macedon, father of Perseus, a man of warlike character and much renown in his day, having been attacked by the Romans, judged that he would not be able to defend all his possessions, and therefore abandoned a portion of them after having laid them waste, convinced that the loss of his reputation in having failed to defend them would be more pernicious to him than the loss of the country which he abandoned a prey to the enemy as a thing of little value. The Romans, after the defeat of Cannæ, when their affairs were in a very bad condition, refused all aid to a number of their allies, and even to some of their own subjects, advising them to defend themselves as best they were able. This was a much wiser course than to undertake a defence which they could not make good; for in that case they would have sacrificed both their friends and their own strength, whilst as it was they only lost their friends.

But to return to the subject of skirmishes. I say that if a general is unavoidably forced to engage in some against a new enemy, he should do so only with such advantages on his side as to expose him to no danger of defeat. Or rather, he should do as Marius did (which in fact would be the better way) when marching against the Cimbrians. This savage people, who came to plunder Italy, spread general terror before them by their numbers and ferocity, and because they had already defeated one Roman army. Marius, therefore, deemed it necessary, before engaging in battle with them, to do something to disabuse the minds of his army of the erroneous opinion which fear had caused them to form of the enemy. And, as a most sagacious commander, he encamped his army several times in positions where the Cimbrian hordes had to pass in view of them. Thus, he wanted his soldiers, from the security of their intrenchments, to become accustomed to the sight of that enemy; so that, seeing that irregular multitude, encumbered with all sorts of impediments, partly armed with useless weapons

and partly without arms, they might be reassured, and become eager to meet them in battle. This was a wise proceeding on the part of Marius, and should be diligently imitated by others, so as to avoid the dangers which I have pointed out above, and not to be obliged to do as the Gauls, “who, alarmed by some slight cause, retreated behind the Tiber into Campania.” Having cited Valerius Corvinus in this discourse, I will, according to his own words, point out in the next chapter what a general should really be.