The Rule of National Arms

The Rule of National Arms is the military principle that a Prince must defend the State through forces belonging to the political community itself. In the framework of The Prince, good laws and good arms are the foundations of every State, but laws cannot be secure without the power to enforce them. A ruler who relies on national arms possesses a resource that can defend the State in adversity, whereas one who depends on hired or foreign soldiers places his sovereignty at the mercy of Fortune and of men whose interests are not his own.

Definition and Political Foundation

The rule distinguishes three principal alternatives to national forces: Mercenary armies, Auxiliary troops, and armies composed partly of national and partly of foreign soldiers. National arms consist of subjects, citizens, and dependents who fight under the authority of the Prince or Republic. Their importance is not merely tactical. They bind military service to the political order, making defense part of the State’s own capacity rather than an external service purchased for a limited purpose.

The argument begins with a claim about political foundations. All States, whether new, hereditary, or composite, require good laws and good arms, and the two are connected because effective law depends on the ability to defend and enforce it. A Prince who cannot raise an army capable of taking the field against an assailant must retreat behind fortified towns and rely on circumstances beyond his control. National arms therefore represent more than soldiers in battle: they are the material basis on which authority, law, and security can endure.

The Failure of Mercenaries and Auxiliaries

Mercenary armies are condemned because their loyalty is limited to pay. They are described as disunited, ambitious, insubordinate, treacherous, insolent among friends, and cowardly before enemies. In peace they may plunder the people; in war they may disappear when their service becomes dangerous. Their lack of a political tie makes them unreliable precisely when the State most needs sacrifice. The military weakness produced by this dependence is presented as a major cause of the ruin of Italy, where foreign enemies found a country defended by forces unwilling to risk their lives for it.

Mercenary commanders create a further danger. If a captain is capable, he may use his position to pursue his own advancement, overthrowing the Prince or acting against his wishes. If he is incapable, his incompetence may ruin the State. The Prince or Republic must therefore command its own forces directly, or place a citizen in command while retaining the legal power to restrain or replace him. National arms do not remove the need for leadership, but they keep military power within a political framework instead of surrendering it to an autonomous professional.

Auxiliary troops are even more dangerous because they arrive united and remain under the control of another ruler or their own officers. If they are defeated, the Prince who summoned them is exposed; if they are victorious, he becomes their prisoner. The contrast is precise: mercenaries threaten through cowardice and inactivity, while auxiliaries threaten through valor that may place the State under foreign control. A ruler who chooses foreign assistance may therefore obtain a battlefield success that is politically indistinguishable from defeat.

The example of Pope Julius II makes the point concrete. When his Mercenary armies performed poorly during the enterprise against Ferrara, he called on Ferdinand of Spain for horse and foot soldiers. The decision placed him at the mercy of foreign arms, although fortune rescued him after the auxiliaries were defeated at Ravenna and the Swiss unexpectedly drove the victors from the country. The Florentines likewise brought ten thousand French men-at-arms to the siege of Pisa while possessing no soldiers of their own, thereby exposing themselves to exceptional danger. The Emperor of Constantinople summoned ten thousand Turkish soldiers into Greece; when the war ended, they refused to depart, and their continued presence began Greece’s servitude to the Infidel.

Historical Comparisons and Military Consequences

The text treats dependence on foreign arms as a recurring historical mechanism rather than an isolated error. Carthage was nearly ruined by its hired troops after the first war with Rome. The Thebans made Philip of Macedon commander of their army after the death of Epaminondas; after winning a victory for them, he deprived them of their liberty. The Milanese hired Francesco Sforza to fight the Venetians, but after defeating the enemy at Caravaggio he joined with them against Milan. His father, while serving Giovanna, Queen of Naples, abruptly abandoned her, forcing her to seek rescue by placing herself in the hands of the King of Aragon.

Even apparent successes with hired commanders are shown to rest on unstable circumstances. The Florentines were fortunate that some potentially threatening captains were unsuccessful, checked by rivals, or directed their ambitions elsewhere. Giovanni Acuto’s loyalty was never tested because he did not win decisively. The Sforzas were balanced by the Bracceschi, while Francesco Sforza sought Milan and Braccio turned toward the Church and the Kingdom of Naples. Paolo Vitelli, chosen by the Florentines as a prudent and highly renowned commander, would have held them completely in his power had he successfully reduced Pisa: dismissing him would have endangered them, while retaining him would have required submission to his will.

The experience of Venice supplies another contrast. Its power grew safely while subjects of every rank bore arms in its wars, especially before its expansion onto the mainland. Once it adopted the Italian practice of land warfare and entrusted its campaigns to professional captains, the political risk changed. Carmagnola was first celebrated as a brave and skillful leader after defeating the Duke of Milan, but later appeared unwilling to continue the war. Because Venice feared losing its gains if it dismissed him, it eventually put him to death as a means of self-protection. Under later commanders, the danger came not from excessive victories but from defeats, including the loss at Vaila in a single day of what had taken eight hundred years to acquire. Mercenary gains were slow and limited; their losses were sudden and immense.

Auxiliaries, Mixed Armies, and National Security

The rule does not treat a mixed army as equivalent to a national one. The armies of France are described as partly national and partly mercenary. Such forces are better than purely mercenary or purely auxiliary armies, yet still inferior to forces wholly national. The example of France is especially pointed because the realm would have been invincible had the military ordinances of Charles VII been preserved and extended. A change that initially seemed attractive concealed a later danger, illustrating the difficulty of recognizing political weakness before it fully develops.

The decline of the Roman Empire is likewise traced to the employment of Gothic mercenaries. From the moment Rome relied on them, Roman strength began to wane, while the military virtue that had once belonged to the Romans passed to the Goths. The historical sequence expresses the rule’s deepest warning: a State that hires the means of its defense may gradually transfer its own capacity for coercion, discipline, and victory to the outsiders who were supposed to serve it.

The clearest formulation is that without national arms no Princedom is safe. Such a Princedom depends wholly on Fortune because it lacks the strength to defend itself in adversity. A reputation for power that is not founded on a national army is characterized as infirm and fleeting. Victory achieved through foreign aid is therefore not counted as true victory, since the apparent gain leaves the ruler dependent on the very force that produced it.

National Arms and the Durability of Rule

National arms also connect military security with popular allegiance. A Prince who keeps on friendly terms with the people has a reserve of support in danger; Nabis, Prince of Sparta, was able to resist the combined forces of Greece and a victorious Roman army because only a few of his subjects needed watching. Had the people been hostile, his defenses would not have been sufficient. Military power is thus strongest when the community does not regard the State as an enemy.

The same principle governs political transitions. A ruler who moves from popular to absolute government cannot safely assume that citizens who obeyed magistrates in peaceful times will obey the Prince directly when danger arrives. In calm conditions, people readily promise to die for the State; in troubled times, few may appear if they have no continuing need for the State and its ruler. A wise Prince must therefore create arrangements through which subjects feel that need in both favorable and adverse circumstances. National defense gives that relationship an institutional form: the people are not merely protected by the State but participate in the force that sustains it.

The rule also belongs to the broader problem of holding newly acquired territories. A Prince may use colonies as the keys of a Province instead of maintaining a large occupying army. Colonies cost less than soldiers, are more faithful, and give less widespread offence, while a permanent foreign force burdens the whole country and turns conquered inhabitants into enemies. Similarly, when a ruler acquires a State with different language, customs, and laws, residence in person permits disorders to be detected early and prevents officers from pillaging the population. Military security cannot be separated from administrative presence, local discipline, and the management of resentment.

For the same reason, free cities are difficult to hold. They may be destroyed, occupied by the Prince, or left under their own laws with a tribute and a dependent local government. The histories of Sparta and Rome illustrate the alternatives: Sparta’s oligarchies in Athens and Thebes ultimately failed, while Rome destroyed Capua, Carthage, and Numantia and never lost them. Greece resisted the Roman attempt to preserve freedom under its own laws until many cities were destroyed. The memory of freedom remains a military resource for the conquered and a danger to the conqueror, just as national arms remain the conqueror’s own indispensable resource.

Rule’s Significance for New Princes

The principle culminates in the distinction between temporary acquisition and durable rule. A new Prince is watched more closely than an hereditary Prince, but good actions can attach people to him more powerfully than antiquity of blood. If he strengthens his position with good laws, good arms, faithful friends, and great deeds, present well-being can make subjects defend his authority. National arms are the military expression of this transformation: they turn the ruler’s power from an appearance sustained by Fortune into a capacity rooted in the State and its people.

The failures of the Princes who lost their dominions in Italy are consequently attributed not only to defective arms but also to their inability to manage the people and nobles. States powerful enough to keep an army in the field are not overthrown without such weaknesses. The Rule of National Arms therefore operates as both a military prescription and a theory of political survival. A Prince who entrusts defense to outsiders may win battles while losing sovereignty; a Prince who arms the political community assumes the burdens of organization and loyalty, but gains the only foundation capable of enduring adversity.