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CHAP. XXXVII.
Whether fighting in small parties, or pickeering before a Battel be necessary; and how the temper of a new Enemy is to be found without them.
IN humane affairs (as we have said before) there is not only a perpetual and unavoidable difficulty in carrying them to their perfection, but there is always some concomitant mis∣chief so inseparable from it, that it is impossible to arrive at the one without the other. This is visible in all the actions of mankind, so that that perfection is acquir'd with much dif∣ficulty, unless you be so favoured by fortune, that by her force she overcomes that com∣mon and natural inconvenience: and of this, and duel betwixt Manlius Torquatus and the French-man put me in mind, where, as Livy tell us, Tantiea dimicatio ad universi belli e∣ventum momenti fuit, ut Gallorum exercitus, relictis trepidè Castris, in Tiburtem agrum, mox in Campaniam transierit; The success of that duel was of so much importance to the success of the War, that thereupon the French Army drew off in a great fear into the Tiburtine Coun∣try, and afterwards march'd away into Campania. From whence I infer, on the one side, that a good General is to avoid any thing that (carrying but small advantage with it) may have an ill influence upon his Army; to fight therefore in parties, and venture your whole fortune upon less than your whole Army, is rash and imprudent, (as I have said before, where I dissuaded the keeping of passes.) On the other side, I observe, when an experienced General comes against a new enemy that has the reputation of being stout, before he brings him to a Battel, he is obliged to try him by slight skirmishes and pickeerings, that by so doing he may bring his Souldiers acquainted with their discipline, and way of sighting, and remove that terror, which the fame and reputation of their courage had given them. And this in a General is of very great importance, and so absolutely necessary, that he who engages an unknown enemy with his whole Army, before he has made an essay of his courage, runs himself and his Army into manifest danger. Valerius Corvinus was sent by the Romans with an Army against the Samnites, a new enemy with whom they had never had any conflict before; and Livy tells us he sent small parties abroad, and caused them to entertain light skirmishes with the enemy, Ne eos novum bellum, ne novus hostis terreret; Lest his Souldiers should be terrified with a new war, and a new enemy. But then the dan∣ger is, that your men being overcome, their terror should be encreased; and that which you intended to animate, should discourage and dismay them: and this is one of those good things which have so near a conjunction with evil, that 'tis no hard matter to take one for the other. My advice therefore is, that a wise General abstains from any thing that may strike a terror into his Army; for then the Souldiers begin to apprehend, when they see their Comrades kill'd before their face. For which reason those pickeerings and slight skirmishes are to be avoided by all means, unless upon great advantage, or some more than ordinary hopes of success. Again, it is not his interest certainly to defend any pass, where he cannot upon occasion bring his whole Army to engage: neither are any Towns to be made good, but such as are of importance to the subsistance of his Army, and without which both that and himself must be ruined; and no such Towns are to be fortified, but where not only a good Garison may be disposed and supplyed, but where in case of a Siege your whole Army may be brought to relieve it: other Towns are rather to be quit∣ted than kept; for to abandon a Town whilst your Army is in the field, is no disrepute to you, nor discouragement to your Souldiers: but when you lose a place that you undertook, and every body expected you would defend, that abates much of your credit, and is a great prejudice to you; so that it will be with you as it was then with the French, a trifling loss will endanger the whole war.
Philip of Macedon (the Father of Perseus) a martial Prince, and of great reputation in his time, being invaded by the Romans, quitted and destroyed a great part of his Country, which he supposed he should be unable to defend, as judging it better, and more con∣sistent with his honour to suffer it to be possessed by the enemy as waste and neg∣lected, than to undertake, and not be able to defend it. The affairs of the Romans being in a very ill condition after the battel at Cannas, they refused their assistance to several of their friends and allies, giving them leave to defend themselves if they could: which resolutions are much better than to attempt to defend that which is not in our power; for in the first case we lose only our friends; but in the last, both our friends and our selves. To re∣turn therefore to our skirmishes, I say, that when ever for the discovery of the enemy, or acquainting his Souldiers with the way of their sighting, a General is constrained to make use of them, he is to do it with that art and advantage, that he may run no hazard of being worsted: or else to follow the example of Marius, (which is the better way of the two)