# CHAPTER 10 — That a Commander Cannot Avoid a Battle When His Opponent Insists on Fighting Under Any Circumstances

‘But the dictator was very reluctant to risk his fortune before it was absolutely necessary against an enemy who was becoming weaker with every day he had to linger in an unfriendly country.’ *

When an error persists into which all men or the majority of them fall, I cannot believe that it is a bad idea to criticize it repeatedly. Hence, even though I have demonstrated above how unlike our actions in great affairs are from those of ancient times, it does not, none the less, seem superfluous at present to repeat this. If in anything we deviate from ancient practices, we deviate especially in military engagements, where at present none of those things so highly esteemed by the ancients are practised. This difficult situation has arisen because republics and princes have imposed such duties upon others, and to avoid danger they have kept at a distance from this kind of exercise, and if we do occasionally witness a king of our times go to war in person, we do not believe, nevertheless, that his actions will give rise to other methods that deserve higher praise. Hence, if kings engage in such an exercise at all, they do so with great pomp and not for any other laudable purpose. Yet these kings make fewer mistakes than republics do, especially those in Italy, in that they sometimes review their armies in person and keep for themselves the title of commander; by placing their trust in others, republics do not, in any way, understand the matters pertaining to war, but on the other hand, they insist on making such decisions in order to appear to be acting like a prince, and in these decisions they commit a thousand errors.

Although I have spoken about some of these errors elsewhere, I wish at present to avoid remaining silent about a very important one. When these lazy princes or weak republics send forth one of their commanders, the wisest order they think they can give him is not to engage in battle for any reason but rather, above all else, to avoid any encounter; and in the belief that they are imitating the prudence of Fabius Maximus who, by deferring combat, saved their state for the Romans, they fail to understand that most of the time this order is worthless or harmful. Hence, it is necessary to draw this conclusion: a commander who wishes to remain in the field cannot avoid battle if the enemy insists on fighting under any circumstances. This kind of command is tantamount to saying: ‘Fight the battle when the enemy wants, not when you want to.’ For, if you want to remain in the field without engaging in battle, there is no other remedy more secure than to put at least fifty miles between you and the enemy and then to keep good spies, so that as he approaches you, you have time to fall back. There is another choice, that is, to shut yourself within a city; and both of these choices are extremely damaging. With the first, you abandon your countryside to the enemy, and a capable prince will prefer to tempt fortune in battle rather than to prolong the war with so much damage to his subjects. With the second choice, your loss is obvious, because by withdrawing with your army into a city, you necessarily come under siege, and very soon suffer hunger and eventually surrender. Thus, avoiding battle in these two ways is extremely damaging. The method that Fabius Maximus employed, remaining in strongholds, is good when you have such an able army that the enemy lacks the courage to come and to confront you on your own terms. No one can say that Fabius fled from the fight but, rather, that he wanted to engage the enemy on his own terms, because if Hannibal had marched to find him, Fabius would have waited for him and engaged him in battle, but Hannibal never dared fight Fabius on the latter’s terms. As a result, engaging in battle was avoided as much by Hannibal as by Fabius, but if one of them had decided to fight no matter what the circumstances, the other would have had only one of three remedies: the two mentioned above, or to run away.

That what I say is true can be clearly seen in a thousand examples, especially in the war that the Romans waged against Philip of Macedonia, the father of Perseus, * because when he was attacked by the Romans he decided not to go into battle, and in order to avoid it, he decided first to do as Fabius Maximus had done in Italy, and he camped with his army on the summit of a mountain, where he marshalled his forces, thinking that the Romans would not dare go to find him. But going there and fighting him, they drove him off the mountain-top, and being unable to resist, he fled with the greater part of his forces. What saved him from being totally destroyed was the rugged nature of the countryside, which prevented the Romans from following him. Not wishing to engage in battle, and being encamped near the Romans, he was forced to flee, and after he learned from this experience that it was not enough to remain on the mountaintops if he wished to avoid fighting, and since he did not wish to shut himself up inside his cities, he decided to choose the other method, that of remaining many miles away from the Roman camp. Hence, if the Romans were in one province, he went into another, and likewise, when the Romans moved out, he always moved in. Yet seeing at the end how, by prolonging the war in this way, his conditions were growing worse and his subjects were being oppressed first by him and then by the enemy, he decided to tempt the fortunes of war, and so he engaged the Romans in a proper battle. It is useful, therefore, to avoid combat when armies enjoy conditions similar to those of the army of Fabius or that of Gneus Sulpicius, * that is, to have an army so good that the enemy does not dare confront you inside your fortresses, and to have an enemy in your territory who has not gained much ground, so that he suffers from a lack of food. In this instance, the decision was useful for the reasons given by Livy: ‘But the dictator was very reluctant to risk his fortune before it was absolutely necessary against an enemy who was becoming weaker with every day he had to linger in an unfriendly country.’ * But in every other situation you cannot avoid battle, except with dishonour and danger to yourself, because to flee, as Philip did, is like being defeated, and with more shame, in so far as you have given less proof of your exceptional ability. And if Philip managed to save himself, another man would not have done so, unless he had been assisted by the countryside as Philip was.

No one would ever say that Hannibal was not a master of warfare, and in his confrontation with Scipio in Africa, if he had seen an advantage in prolonging the war he would have done so, and perhaps, being a good commander with a good army, he could have done so, as Fabius did in Italy, but since he did not, we must believe that some important motive prompted him. Thus, a prince who has put together an army and sees that, for lack of money or friends, he cannot keep such an army together for long is completely mad if he does not tempt fortune before that army falls apart, because by waiting he will certainly lose, and by trying he may win. Another thing to be considered carefully here is that even if one is going to lose, one must wish to acquire glory, and there is more glory in being defeated by force than by some other difficulty that has caused you to lose. Thus, Hannibal must have been constrained by this necessity. And on the other hand, had Hannibal delayed the battle and Scipio lacked the courage to go and confront him in his strongholds, Scipio would not have suffered, because he had already defeated Syphax and taken so many cities in Africa that he could remain safely and in comfort, as in Italy. This is not what happened to Hannibal when he was facing the opposition of Fabius, nor to those Gauls when they were facing that of Sulpicius.

It is even less possible for a commander to avoid engaging in battle when he and his army are attacking another country, because if he wants to march into an enemy’s country, he must go into battle when the enemy meets up with him, and if he besieges a city, he is even more obliged to go into battle; this happened in our times to Duke Charles of Burgundy who was besieging Morat, a Swiss city, when he was attacked by the Swiss and routed, and to the French army, which was besieging Novara, when it was likewise routed by the Swiss. *