# 24. Fortresses in General are much more Harmful than Useful

To the wiseacres of our times it may perhaps seem a foolish thing that when the Romans wanted to ensure the loyalty of the people of Latium and the city of Privernum it did not occur to them to build any sort of fortress to curb them and keep them loyal, especially as in Florence it is an accepted principle, so our wiseacres say, that Pisa and other such cities should be held by means of fortresses. Had the Romans been of their calibre, it would undoubtedly have occurred to them to build fortresses, but since their virtue, judgement, and power was of different order they did not do so. So long as Rome enjoyed freedom and was loyal to her institutions and to her efficienta constitution she never held either cities or provinces by means of fortresses save where they were already built. In view, then, of the way the Romans acted in this matter and of the way rulersb act today, it seems to me worth while considering whether it is good to build fortresses and whether they are harmful or useful to those who build them.

It must be borne in mind, then, that fortresses are constructed as a defence either against enemies or against subjects. In the first case they are unnecessary, and in the second case harmful. Let us begin by explaining why in the second case they are harmful. I maintain that when a prince or a republic is afraid of its subjects and fears they may rebel, the root cause of this fear must lie in the hatred which such subjects have for their rulers: a hatred which is due to their misbehaviour; and a misbehaviour which is due to their fancying they can hold them by force, or to their foolish way of governing them. And one of the things that makes rulers believe in force is the fact that they have fortresses to fall back on. For when mismanagement gives rise to hatred it is mainly due to a prince or a republic having fortresses; and, when this is the case, fortresses are far more harmful than useful. For, in the first place, they make you more foolhardy and violent in dealing with your subjects, as has been said. Next, they do not afford you internally that security you fancy they do. For no force and no violence is of the least use in controlling your people except under one of two conditions: either you have a good army which you can put in the field, as the Romans had; or your people are so exhausted, spent, disorganized and divided, that they cannot unite to do you hurt. For if you reduce them to poverty, ‘though despoiled, they still have arms’, and, if you disarm them, ‘their fury will provide them with arms’. If you kill their leaders and suppress all other signs of insurrection, like the heads of the Hydra other leaders will arise. If you erect fortresses, they are useful in time of peace because they give you more courage in ill-treating your subjects, but in time of war they are quite useless, for they will be attacked both by your enemies and by your subjects, and against both it is impossible for them to stand. And if there ever was a time when they were useless, it is now on account of artillery, for against its fire it is impossible to defend such small places where there are no embankments behind which men can retire, as we have shown above.

In discussing this question I am going to particularize. Do you, my prince, with your fortresses want to keep a firm hand on the people in your city? Do you, be you a prince or a republic, want to tighten your grip on a city you have taken during a war? I tell you, if you be a prince, that as a means of controlling your citizens, nothing can be more futile than a fortress for the reasons I have given: it makes you quicker to use, and less careful in using, harsh measures, and by such measures you make them long for your downfall, and they become so furious that, for this very reason, your fortress will afford you no protection. So obvious is this, that a wise and good prince never constructs fortresses if he wants to remain good and to avoid providing his sons with a reason for wanting to become bad, for he would have them rely not on fortresses, but on their subjects’ goodwill.

And if Count Francesco Sforza, having become Duke of Milan, was reputed a wise man, and yet built a fortress in Milan, I maintain that in this he was not wise, and the result has proved that this fortress did harm to his heirs instead of affording them security. For with a fortress they thought they were safe and could oppress their citizens and subjects, so lost no opportunity of doing them violence; with the result that they came to be detested beyond all measure, and lost their state to the first enemy who attacked them. Nor was this fortress any protection or of any service to them in time of war, while in time of peace it did them much harm, since, if they had not had it, yet had been so unwise as to treat their citizens harshly, they would have realized their danger sooner and would have withdrawn from it. In which case they would have been able to put up a more spirited resistance to the French attack with loyal subjects but without a fortress than with a fortress and disloyal subjects.

In no way, then, do fortresses help you, for you will lose them either through the treachery of their keepers, or by some violent attack, or, by their being starved out. While, if you do want them to help you, and to enable you to recover a state you have lost, in which there remains to you only a fortress, you must have an army with which to attack those who have driven you out, and when you have such an army, you will recover your state anyhow, even if there be no fortress there; and this the more easily when your men are friendly and have not been badly treated owing to the arrogance a fortress instils. Experience then shows that this Milanese fortress was not the least use either to the Sforzas or to the French when with either of them things went wrong. On the contrary, to both it brought disaster and ruin in that it prevented them from considering whether there might not be a more honest way of maintaining their position.

Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, the son of Frederick, who was highly esteemed in his day as an army commander, was expelled from his state by Caesar Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI. When later, owing to an accident, he got back, he had all the fortresses in that district razed to the ground since he thought them mischievous. For with respect to his people who were fond of him, he did not need fortresses and, so far as his enemies were concerned, he realized he could not protect the fortresses, since he would require to have an army in the field to defend them. So he resolved to get rid of them.

Pope Julius, when he had expelled the Bentivogli from Bologna, erected a fortress in that city, and afterwards caused its inhabitants to be cruelly oppressed by one of his governors so that they rebelled; and straightaway he lost the fortress, which thus did not help him, but harmed him in as much as, had he acted otherwise, it would have helped him.

Niccolò da Castello, father of the Vitelli, on returning to his country from which he had been exiled, at once pulled down two fortresses which had been built there by Pope Sixtus IV, for he held that it was not the fortress, but the affection of his people which would preserve his state for him.

But of all such cases the most recent and the most noteworthy in every way as illustrating the futility of building fortresses and the utility of demolishing them, is what happened at Genoa not long ago. Everybody knows that in 1507 Genoa rebelled against Louis XII, King of France, who came in person with all his forces to reconquer it, and that, on recovering it, he constructed a fortress stronger than any at present known, since, situated on the point of a hill which juts into the sea, called by the Genoese Codefà, it was, owing to its position and to a number of other circumstances, impregnable, and commanded the port and a large part of the city of Genoa. It none the less came about that in 1512, when the French were driven from Italy, Genoa rebelled, despite the fortress; Ottaviano Fregoso seized the government; and, after a siege of sixteen months in which he used all possible devices, he starved the fortress out. Everyone then expected, and many advised, that it should be kept as a refuge in case of emergency, but Fregoso, like a prudent man, destroyed it, for he recognized that it is not fortresses but the wills of men that keep rulers in power. Thus, instead of relying on a fortress, he relied on virtue and sound sense, and so held his position and holds it still. And, whereas to change the government of Genoa, a thousand infantry used to suffice, its adversaries have since attacked it with ten thousand and have done it no harm. Hence one sees that dismantling a fortress did not hurt Ottaviano, and erecting one did not help the king. For so long as he could come with an army into Italy, he could recover Genoa without having a fortress there; but, when he could not come into Italy with an army, he could not hold Genoa, though he had the fortress. Thus, constructing the fortress was expensive to the king, and losing it shameful; whereas to Ottaviano the reconquering of the fortress brought glory and the demolishing of it advantage.

We come now to republics which erect fortresses not in their native land but in towns which they have acquired. If the instances already given, of France and of Genoa, do not suffice to show the fallacy involved, it should be enough if I cite those of Florence and Pisa. The Florentines erected fortresses to hold the city of Pisa, not considering that, since the Pisans had always been hostile to Florentine power, had enjoyed freedom and regarded rebellion as a means to freedom, it was necessary, if they were to retain Pisa, to adopt the Roman method, i.e. either to make it an ally or to destroy it. For the virtue of the fortresses became evident on the arrival of King Charles, to whom they surrendered owing either to the bad faith of their custodians or for fear of worse to come. Whereas if there had been no fortresses, the Florentines would not have based on them their power to hold Pisa; nor would the king have been able by means of them to deprive the Florentines of that city; for the means they had taken thus far might perchance have enabled them to keep it, and unquestionably would not have proved more disastrous than the fortresses.

I conclude, therefore, that for the purpose of holding one’s own country fortresses are hurtful, and that for the purpose of holding acquired towns they are futile. The authority of the Romans is enough for me here, for round the towns they wanted to hold by force they did not build walls but pulled them down. And, if against this my view anyone should cite in ancient times the case of Tarentum, and in modern times Brescia, both of which places were regained, thanks to fortresses, after their subjects had revolted, I answer thus. To recover Tarentum Fabius Maximus at the beginning of his year of office, was sent with a whole army, which would have sufficed for its recovery even if there had been no fortress there; and though Fabius made use of it, if it had not been there he would have adopted other means which would have produced the same effect. What use there is in a fortress I do not know, if, to recover a town, one needs a consular army and a Fabius Maximus to command it. Moreover, that the Romans would have recovered it in any case, is seen from the example of Capua, where there was no fortress, but which the Romans retook by the valour of the army.

But let us turn to Brescia. I maintain that what happened in that rebellion is a rare occurrence. Rarely when a town rebels does it happen that the fortress remains in your hands and that you have a large army in the neighbourhood, as the French then had. For Monsieur de Foix, the king’s commander, had an army at Bologna, and when he heard that Brescia was lost, he went without delay to deal with the revolt, in three days reached Brescia, and with assistance from the fortress recovered the town. Here again, then, for the fortress at Brescia to be of any use, it needed a Monsieur de Foix and a French army to relieve it after three days march. The case of Brescia, therefore, is not enough to refute examples of the opposite kind; for in wars recently waged, numbers of fortresses have been taken and retaken with the same fortune that has attended the taking and retaking of open country, not only in Lombardy, but in the Romagna, in the kingdom of Naples, and in every part of Italy.

As to building fortresses for defence against external foes, I maintain that they are unnecessary where peoples or kingdoms have good armies and that to those who have no such armies they are useless; for good armies without fortresses suffice for defence, and fortresses without good armies are no defence. This is borne out by the experience of men of high repute as rulers and in other matters, for instance, the Romans and the Spartans; for if the Romans did not build fortresses, the Spartans not only abstained from doing this, but did not permit their cities to have walls, because they chose to rely for defence on the virtue of the individual, and wanted no other. Hence, when a Spartan was asked by an Athenian whether the walls of Athens did not look fine, he answered: ‘Quite! provided it be ladies who live there.’

The ruler, then, who has good armies, may sometimes find it useful, though not essential, to have fortresses on the coast and on the frontiers of his domains to hold off the attack of an enemy till he gets properly going. But, if he has not a good army, to have fortresses within his state or on its frontiers is either harmful or useless: harmful because he so easily loses them and, when lost, they make war on him; or, if they should chance to be so strong that the enemy cannot capture them, they get left behind by the hostile army and so come to be useless. For, when good armies do not meet with very strong opposition, on entering a country they pay no attention to cities and fortresses, which they may leave behind them. We see this in ancient history just as we have seen it done by Francesco Maria, who in quite recent times, when on his way to attack Urbino, left behind him ten of the enemy’s cities, without bothering about them.

The ruler, then, who can muster a good army, can do without fortresses, and the ruler who has not a good army had better not build them. The best thing he can do is to fortify the city where he dwells, to keep it provisioned and its inhabitants well disposed, so as to hold off an enemy’s attack till he can either come to terms or get outside help to relieve him. All other plans are expensive in time of peace and useless in time of war. In view, then, of all I have said, it will be seen that, as the Romans were wise in their other institutions, so, too, were they prudent when they decided in the case of the Latins and the Privernates to dispense with fortresses and took more virtuous and wiser means of securing their loyalty.