# CHAPTER 23 — That One Should Not Jeopardize All of One’s Fortune or All of One’s Forces; and, for This Reason, Defending Passes Is Often Dangerous

It has never been judged a wise course of action to endanger your entire fortune without committing all of your forces. This can be done in several ways. One way is to do as Tullus and Mettius did, when they entrusted the entire fortune of their native cities and the skill of so many men, as many as both had in their respective armies, to the skill and fortune of three of their fellow citizens, who constituted only a very small part of each ruler’s forces. Nor did they realize that in adopting such a course of action, all the labour their predecessors endured in organizing the republic in order to make it live long in freedom and to make its citizens the defenders of their own liberty had been rendered almost vain, since it was in the power of so few to lose it. Nothing could have been more ill-considered than what those kings did.

The same kind of trouble almost always befalls those who, just as the enemy arrives, plan to hold difficult positions and to guard passes, because this decision will almost always be harmful unless you are comfortably able to keep all of your forces in this difficult position. In this case such a decision should be taken, but if the position is so rugged that you cannot keep all your forces there, the decision is dangerous. I am led to think this way by the example of those who, having been attacked by a powerful enemy in their own country, which is surrounded by mountains and alpine terrain, have never attempted to engage the enemy on the passes and on the mountain slopes but have instead gone forth to meet the enemy elsewhere, or when they have not wished to do this, have awaited the enemy’s attack within these mountains but in favourable locations rather than in mountainous ones. The explanation for this is the one mentioned above: that is, it is impossible to utilize many men in guarding mountainous positions, both for the reason that it is impossible to live there for a lengthy period of time and for the reason that, in narrow positions capable of containing only a few troops, you cannot hold out against an enemy who comes to attack you in great numbers, and it is easy for the enemy to attack in great numbers, because his intention is to pass and not to stop, while the defender awaiting the attack cannot wait with a large force, since he must camp there for a longer period of time in places which are, as I have said, constricted and barren, not knowing when the enemy might want to pass through. Thus, once you have lost the pass you have decided to hold and in which your people and your army had placed their trust, in most instances your people and your remaining troops are seized with such terror that without being able to test their skill, you remain the loser; and thus, you come to the point of having lost your entire fortune with only part of your forces.

Everyone knows the difficulty with which Hannibal crossed the Alps dividing Lombardy from France and with what difficulty he crossed those dividing Lombardy from Tuscany; the Romans nevertheless waited for him first on the Ticino River and then in the plains of Arezzo, preferring that their army be destroyed by the enemy in positions where it might also have a chance of victory rather than to lead it over the Alps to be destroyed as the result of an unfavourable site.

Anyone who reads all the history books in a sensible way will discover very few able commanders who have attempted to hold similar passes, for the reasons previously stated, and for the reason that it is impossible to close them all, since mountains are like open country, having not only familiar and often-frequented roads but many others which, if unknown to foreigners, are well known to the people of the area, with whose assistance you will always be guided to any location against the will of the one who opposes you. Of this a very recent example can be cited: in 1515, when Francis, king of France, planned to pass into Italy to recover control of Lombardy, the major objection raised by those who were opposed to his enterprise was that the Swiss would hold him back in the mountains. As experience later demonstrated, their objection was raised in vain, because by avoiding the two or three positions defended by the Swiss that king came by another unknown route, * and was in Italy and approaching the enemy before they realized it. Thus, their terrified troops retreated to Milan, and all the peoples of Lombardy went over to the French side, having given up the opinion that the French would be held back in the mountains.