Machiavelli, Volume I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 456 pages of information about Machiavelli, Volume I.

Machiavelli, Volume I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 456 pages of information about Machiavelli, Volume I.
rootes of the same, where the enemies armie maie come:  For that in this case, havyng respecte unto the artillerie, the higher place shall gette thee disadvauntage:  Bicause that alwaies and commodiously, thou mightest of the enemies artillerie bee hurte, without beyng able to make any remedy, and thou couldest not commodiously hurte thesame, beyng hindered by thine owne men.  Also, he that prepareth an armie to faight a battaile, ought to have respecte, bothe to the Sunne, and to the Winde, that the one and the other, doe not hurte the fronte, for that the one and the other, will let thee the sight, the one with the beames, and the other with the duste:  and moreover, the Winde hindereth the weapons, whiche are stroken at the enemie, and maketh their blowes more feable:  and concerning the Sunne, it sufficeth not to have care, that at the firste it shine not in the face, but it is requisite to consider, that increasyng the daie, it hurte thee not:  and for this, it should bee requsite in orderyng the men, to have it all on the backe, to the entente it should have to passe moche tyme, to come to lye on the fronte.  This waie was observed of Aniball at Canne, and of Mario against the Cimbrians.  If thou happen to be moche inferiour of horses, ordaine thine armie emongeste Vines, and trees, and like impedimentes, as in our time the Spaniardes did, when thei overthrewe the Frenchmenne at Cirignuola.  And it hath been seen many times, with all one Souldiours, variyng onely the order, and the place, that thei have become of losers victorers:  as it happened to the Carthageners, whom havyng been overcome of Marcus Regolus divers tymes, were after by the counsaill of Santippo a Lacedemonian, victorious:  whom made them to go doune into the plaine, where by vertue of the horses, and of Eliphantes, thei were able to overcome the Romaines.  It semes unto me, accordyng to the auncient insamples that almoste all the excellente Capitaines, when thei have knowen, that the enemie hath made strong one side of his battaile, thei have not set against it, the moste strongest parte, but the moste weakest, and thother moste strongest thei have set against the most weakest:  after in the beginning the faighte, thei have commaunded to their strongest parte, that onely thei sustaine the enemie, and not to preace upon hym, and to the weaker, that thei suffer them selves to be overcome, and to retire into the hindermoste bandes of the armie.  This breadeth twoo greate disorders to the enemie:  the firste, that he findeth his strongest parte compassed about, the second is, that semyng unto him to have the victorie, seldome tymes it happeneth, that thei disorder not theim selves, whereof groweth his sodain losse.  Cornelius Scipio beyng in Spain, againste Asdruball of Carthage, and understanding how to Asdruball it was knowen, that he in the orderyng the armie, placed his Legions in the middest, the whiche was the strongest parte of his armie, and for this how Asdruball with like order ought to procede:  after
Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Machiavelli, Volume I from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.