H I STORY / POLITI C AL SC I E N CE
Makers of M odern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age EDITED BY PETER PARET WITH C OR DO N A. C RA I G AN D FE LIX C I L B F. RT
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&.nd i.ns,ig pp.i.t.i.lj!.I*flAAt.j.mp.a.s-weJ,).e&nj.m~ut even the bonds that training and discipline create cannot guarantee obedience. They must be reinforced by fear of harsh punishment. Severity and harshness are needed to hold a political body together. 2 9 "A prince must nq_t mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his. subjects ... united and faithful"; "it is much safer to be feared than loved." According to Machiavelli this general political rule was particularly appropriat e to the command of an army. Hannibal's "inhuman cruelty" was necessary to keep his forces, "composed of men of all nations and fighting in foreign countries," united; writers who admire Hannibal as a mighty hero and bfame him for his cruelty are thoughtless; his cruelty was a principal cause of his success. Coercion, however, needs to be supplemented by measures of a very different character. A spiritual bond that will inspire heroic action must ,, Discorsi, n, 3 3. ,s The Prince, ch. 10. ,. For this and the following, see the famous chapter 17 of The Prince: "An sit melius amari quam timeri, vel e contra."
25
O RI G I N S O F M O D E RN WAR
be created among the soldiers of an army. Such a bond is most directly produced by necessity; even if a situation is not hopeless, a general ought to emphasize that the dangers of defeat are great, so that the soldiers fight with the courage of desperation. The strongest incitement to courage and enthusiasm, however, is aroused by a feeling of personal involvement and moral obligation. War service must be considered fulfillment of a religious duty.3° Machiavelli believed that in the ancient world the pomp and show of religious ceremonies-"the ferocious and bloody nature of the sacrifice by the slaughter of many animals and the familiarity with this terrible sight"-intoxicated men with bellicose zeal. The Christian religion has created difficulties to the development of warlike virtues because it "places the supreme happiness in humility, lowliness and a contempt for worldly objects"; it has made men feeble. However, even if the relationship between religion and martial courage that existed in the ancient world cannot be revived, religion is compatible with love for one's country in Christianity, and sacrificing one's life for one's patria has been compared to the martyrdom of saints. In Machiavelli's thought the appeal to patriotism could be and was one of the most powerful forces in inspiring an army to heroic deeds. However, patriotic enthusiasm could be expected only of an army composed by men fighting for their native land. Machiavelli's most fun damental thesis, emphasized in all his writings, is that the military forces of a ruler or of a republic must be composed by the inhabitants of the state that the army is expected to defend. "The present ruin of Italy is , the result of nothing else than reliance upon mercenaries."3r "They are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal, overbearing among friends, cowardly among enemies; there is no fear of God, no loyalty to men.'' �f-sl!lt@W8S&"i•N•w-m etm{i:�erre�-5-i>�t,..�m�can exist only where the troops are natives of the same country and have lived together for some time." Thus, the first crucial step in military reform which Machiavelli envisages is that the state forms an army composed of its own inhabitants, that a state has its "proprie armi. "3 2 Machiavelli is convinced, however, that citizens will be willing to fight and die for their ruler or government only when they are content in the society in which they live. "There is a great difference between an army that is well content and fights for its own reputation and one that is ill disposed and has to fight only for the interests of others." This thesis JO Discorsi, n, 2; for patriotism as religious duty also in Christianity, see Ernst Kanto rowicz, "Pro Patria Mori in Medieval Political Thought" in his Selected Studies (New York, 196 5 ) , 308-24. " For this and the following, see particularly The Prince, ch. I 2 '' Discorsi, 1, 4 3 · . •
26
M A C H IAVELLI
of the close connection and interrelationship between political and mil itary institutions is the most important and also the most revolutionary argument of Machiavelli's notions.B From the draft of the law for the establishment of a Florentine Ordinanza on, the statement that "la justitia et le armi" belong together can be found in almost all his writings. In The Prince he wrote that "there must be good l'aws where there are good arms, and where there are good arms there must be good laws,"H and at the end of the Discorsi he gave this notion of the interdependence of military and political organization its most categorical formulation: "Al though I have elsewhere maintained that the foundation of states is a good military organization, yet it seems to me not superfluous to report here that without such a military organization there can neither be good laws nor anything else good."3s IV
Machiavelli's Art o f War was a successful book: in the course of the sixteenth century twenty-one editions appeared and it was translated into French, English, German, and LatinY Montaigne named Machia velli next to Caesar, Polybius, and Commynes as an authority on military affairs.37 Although in the seventeenth century changing military methods brought other writers to the fore, Machiavelli was still frequently quoted. In the eighteenth century, the Marshal de Saxe leaned heavily on him when he composed his Reveries upon the Art of War ( r 7 5 7), and Al garotti-though without much basis-saw in Machiavelli the master who had taught Frederick the Great the tactics by which he astounded Eu rope.38 Like most people concerned with military matters, Jefferson had Machiavelli's Art of War in his library,39 and when the War of r 8 I 2 increased American interest in problems of war, The Art of War was brought out in a special American edition.4° " Ibid. Sometimes it is difficult for Machiavelli to separate the usefulness of military measures from their impact on domestic policy. Machiavelli is very skeptical about the value of fortresses, but the question whether they serve to strengthen or to undermine a regime plays a crucial role in these discussions; see "To Fortify or Not to Fortify? Mach iavelli's Contribution to a Renaissance Debate" in J. R. Hale, Renaissance War Studies (London, 1983), 1 89-209. ,. The Prince, ch. 12. " Discorsi, III, 3 r . ,. See Sergio Bertelli and Piero Innocenti, Bib/iografia Machiavelliana (Verona, 1979). " Montaigne, Essais, bk. 2, ch. 34: "Observations sur les moyens de faire Ia guerre de Julius Caesar." '" Francesco Algarotti, lettres 8 and 9 of his work Scienza mi/itare del Segretario Fio rentino, in F. Algarotti, Opere, val. 5 (Venice, 1 791). ,. Catalogue of the Library of Congress 1815, i.e., Thomas Jefferson's library. •o The Art of War in Seven Books Written by Nicholas Machiavel . . . to Which Is Added Hints Relative to Warfare by a Gentleman of the State of New York (Albany, 1 8 1 5).
27
O R I G IN S OF M O D ERN WAR
This continued interest in Machiavelli as a military thinker was not only caused by the fame of his name; some of the recommendations made in The Art of War-those on training, discipline, and classification, for instance-gained increasing practical importance in early modern Europe when armies came to be composed of professionals coming from the most different social strata. This does not mean that the progress of military art in the sixteenth century-in drilling, in dividing an army into distinct units, in planning and organizing campaigns-was due to the influence of Machiavelli. Instead, the military innovators of the time were pleased to find a work in which aspects of their practice were explained and justified. Moreover, in the sixteenth century, with its wide knowledge of ancient literature and its deep respect for classical wisdom, it was com monly held that the Romans owed their military triumphs to their em phasis on discipline and training. Machiavelli's attempt to present Roman military organization as the model for the armies of his time was therefore not regarded as extravagant. At the end of the sixteenth century, for instance, Justus Lipsius, in his influential writings on military affairs, also treated the Roman military order as a permanently valid model. However, it ought also to be admitted that in several respects Mach iavelli misjudged what was possible and feasible in his own day. In the past, and sometimes still in our time, Machiavelli has been assigned a prominent place in the development of military thought be cause of his advocacy of conscription: his military thought was of a seminal character; he was able to foresee what would happen in the future. Although the assumption of the prophetic character of Machia velli's military ideas might be pleasing to students and admirers of Mach iavelli, it would be a mistake to attribute great importance to his advocacy of conscription. His idea of a conscript army was that of a city-state militia, a part-time military service patterned on the model of the ancient city-republics, but hardly suited for the army of a territorial state. More over, the future, at least in the two or three centuries following Machi avelli, did not belong to conscript armies but to that kind of soldier whom Machiavelli despised and ridiculed: the mercenary, the profes sional. A factor that Machiavelli clearly misjudged in its importance con tributed decisively to this development: the equipment of soldiers with firearms, and the increased role of artillery. As a result, specialized per sonnel and permanent military establishments formed the necessary core of any army. Expenses, particularly expenses for artillery, grew. Although Machiavelli was aware of the financial needs of any military organization, he certainly had not taken fully into account the growing costs of military equipment with guns and rifles, the interrelationship between economic 28
M A CHIAVELLI
strength and military strength. Only rulers of larger territories could afford an army, and with its help force the estates or their smaller neigh bors under their control. Absolutism had to rely on standing armies; each .�was dependent upon the other. But Machiavelli�s.. influence.on.military thought reached .fa.r beyend., the technical-military sphere. If his view of the exemplary character of the Roman military organization might have misled him in underesti mating the impact of new weapons and of the economy on military developments, his admiration for Rome was crucial in opening his eyes to the role of war in modern times. In the centuries of the Middle Ages, the conduct of war had been the function of a particular class of society and had been shaped by its values and code of honor. The first and crucial lesson that Machiavelli drew from his study of the ancient world was that defense of a state was the task not of a special privileged group but should be the concern of all those who live in the same society. It was of even greater importance that the study of Roman historians helped him to understand the international system of his time: states were steadily growing and expanding; they were permanently involved in war, seeking to extend their power and territories, and fighting for their ex istence in fending off others trying to subdue them. Machiavelli was one of the first to grasp the competitive nature of the modern state system-· that as his reluctant follower, Fr�derick II of Prussia, wrote: "s'agrandir" is the "principe permanent" of the policy of a state-and to conclude that the existence of a state depends on its capacity for war. Because the life of the state depends on the excellence of its army, the political institutions must be organized in such a manner that they create favorable preconditions for the functioning of the military organ ization. That is one thesis that permeates all of Machiavelli's military discussions-in The Art of War, The Prince and the Discourses. The other thesis is that the aim of war is to subject the enemy to your will; a military campaign therefore must be a planned operation, under a unified command, culminating in a battle of decision. What the appro priate means are-what the correct strategy is-to carry out this aim will depend on the particular circumstances under which a campaign is conducted. Machiavelli's insight into the nature of war and the role of the military establishment in the structure of society is the foundation of his military thought; the problems that these questions raise are not bound to a particular historical period. Thus, even when, with the French Rev olution and the rise of Napoleon, military organization and the conduct of war had assumed new forms, Machiavelli's ideas retained their vitality. To a surprising degree, military thought since the sixteenth century 29
O RI G I N S OF M O D ERN WAR
has proceeded on the foundations that Machiavelli laid. This is not to say that Machiavelli's recommendations were accepted as final truth. Yet further discussion did not develop in opposition to his view, but rather as an expansion and enlargement of his ideas.4Wm6!toa.l.i1€�n. ..j,Jaw�(
.-itP'Im:r. Although Maurice enforced a stern code of conduct, he also rediscovered drill as a method to instill discipline. Following the suggestion of William Louis, the men were drilled daily with routines taken directly from the Roman models as described by Aelian and Leo, with the commands translated into Dutch, English, and German. 26 Of course, armies always had trained soldiers to handle weapons, but here the objective transcended the achievement of individual or unit proficiency. Proper execution of the manual of arms became the outward manifestation of discipline, with exercises designed to teach instant obedience to commands and to build unit cohesion. The reintroduction of drill into the army was an essential element of the Orangist reforms and a basic contribution to the modern military system. 2 7 A corollary of drill and unit cohesion was improved combat effectiveness. "Nature," Lipsius wrote, "brings forth some valiant men, but good order through industry makes more." 28 Daily exercises under arms permitted more precise evolutions, improved coordination of shot and Johan H. Huizinga, Dutch Civilization in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1968), 34-35; Geyl, The Revolt of the Netherlands, 235; Wijn, Krijgswezen, 9-10, 19-21. 2 ' Wijn, Krijgswezen, 40-43, 62-64; F. J. G. ten Raa and Franc;:ois de Bas, Het Staatsche Leger I568-1795 (Breda, 1913), 2:35. 26 Hahlweg, Heeresreform, 31, 39, 48, 25 5-64; Wijn, Krijgswezen, 480-81. 27 William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power (Chicago, 1982), 128-33. 2
•
28 Justus Lipsius, Six Bookes of Politickes or Civil Doctrine, trans. William Jones (London, 1594), bk. 5, p. 13.
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O RI G I N S OF M O D ERN WAR
pike, and increased the rate of fire by the adoption of a new form of the countermarch, the so-called choric method, recommended to Maurice by William Louis in r 5 94· 29 Conforming to the general tendency toward smaller units, even the Spanish tercios were reduced to about r,soo men after 1 5 84, and Maurice cut down companies to 1 3 0 of all ranks, raised the ratio of shot to pike, and formed his units first ten and later six deep. He did not establish permanent major tactical formations, but for battle the companies were combined into battalions, initially 8oo, and later 5 so, strong, arrayed in a linear checkerboard pattern similar to the Ro man legionary deployment.3° Constant training as well as the more independent combat roles assumed by subunits in the Dutch tactical system required better-educated and a larger number of junior officers, and Maurice has been described as the progenitor of the modern European officer corps. More impor tantly, he changed the basic ethos of the profession. Influenced by his Calvinist upbringing and neoclassical teachings, he regarded command as a public trust, with authority derived not from noble birth but from a commission awarded by the state. Combined with the concept of un< conditional obedience within an established hierarchy of ranks, this pro vided the foundations of the modern command structure. In practice, of ,, course, things were different. Most senior positions in the Dutch service were held by relatives of the stadtholders and nobles predominated in the upper grades. Many foreigners were also employed as senior officers because they alone had the necessary expertise, and it was not until r 6 r 8 that fixed promotion criteria were introducedY The new tactical system has sometimes been criticized. One prom inent historian has claimed that the new order failed "to restore, both to horse and foot, the capacity for a battle-winning tactical offensive." The new combat formations were too rigid, too small for decisive assaults, and generally suitable only for the defensiveY But this assertion is not borne out by the facts. In the broken terrain of the Low Countries the Dutch did well enough in their only two major actions, the encounter at Tournhout in 1 59 7 and the battle of Nieupoort in r 6oo. At Tournhout the cavalry drove the Spanish horse off the field and then shattered the infantry; at Nieupoort the Dutch mounted charge first defeated the ene'• Hahlweg, Heeresreform, 6r - 68, 70-78. The choric countermarch is described by James Turner, Pallas Armate: Military Essayes of the Ancient Grecian, Roman, and Modern Art of War (London, r 6 8 3 ; repr. New York, 1968), 9-r r . J O Ten Raa and d e Bas, Staatsche Leger, 2 : 3 3 2-3 5 ; Wijn, Krijgswezen, 3 2-33. '' Wijn, Krijgswesen, 3 2-33. The introduction o f the concept o f professional officership is sometimes ascribed to Wallenstein. See Francis Watson, Wallenstein: Soldier under Saturn (London, 193 8), r 6 r . , Roberts, Essays in Swedish History, 6r-62.
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THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
my horse and then, supported by advancing infantry, broke the Spanish front.33 Maurice's contributions to siege warfare are undisputed. He increased his siege train and began to assign a permanent role in his army to artillery, engineers, and supply, a~~~'8BS'i~OO®tii@;l.li..!jljlQr.a. ~y.i.!a.twdnc.i.~tlJe I-1Stt94r,.(;)@t>-'~·34 Until this time, soldiers had considered digging to be below their dignity and armies had had to rely on hired or impressed labor for such work. Aware that this was a poor practice, some commanders had taken up pick and shovel themselves to shame their men into following their example. Lipsius had recommended that "officers carry boards and planks ... to teach them and not commarid them."Js Maurice went further. He made shovels part of the standard infantry equipment and detailed men for work as needed. Extra pay, up to several times the normal rate, provided the incentive. During the long siege of Gertruidenberg in 1593, "three thousand pioneers worked night and day," but, so it is reported, "the soldiers liked the business, for every man so employed received his ten stivers a day additional wages, punctually paid."3 6 With reliable manpower at hand, Maurice was able to establish his siege lines rapidly or to throw up field works when necessary. ~!l:ll~~g the wishes of the States General and his own inclinations, sought limited objectives, basically the recovery of the territory of the Seven Provinces. Moreover, he sought to achieve this objective primarily by positional warfare and did not look to defeat the enemy's main force. Between 1589 and 1609 he captured more than twenty-nine fortresses and relieved three sieges, but fought only one battle, Nieupoort, and that reluctantly~!liJD:b'i:em'S.0lil.!tih~eC!lhnil!a.Ts'lglil'.mett~"i\'tff&~e a learned art, involving a fair amount of mathematical and architectural knowledge ..-A..lillX.tlb_g,r..@f•sei.. .
.
and the great Dutch scientistBJ\Wenil&~t\ were as famous in own day as engineers as they are in ours for their contributions to mathematics and mechanics. ~®ll$ldtaught fortification at Padua,4 Francis I of France, aware of the skill of the Italian engineers, took a number of them into his service, using them in his pioneer efforts to fortify his northern and eastern frontiers against the threat of Charles V. 3
F. Artz, Les debuts de /'education technique en France,
IJOO-I?OO
(Paris, 1938).
• J. J. Fahie, "The Scientific Works of Galileo," in Studies in the History and Method of Science, ed. Charles Singer (Oxford, 1921; repr. New York, 1975), 2:217.
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O RI G I N S O F M O D E RN WAR
· This first burst of building activity lasted throughout the reign of Henry . II, only to be brought to a halt by the civil wars. When the work was resumed under Henry IV and Sully, the Dutch were beginning to contest the primacy of the Italians in this field, and French engineers like Errard de Bar-le-Duc were available to replace the foreigners.s Errard is the titular founder of the.�!lllill�lf
70
VAU B A N
namics by experiments-perhaps the earliest dynamical experiments ever performed-on the relation between the angle of fire and the range of a projectile. His results, embodying the discovery that the angle of maxi mum range is forty-five degrees, brought about the widespread use of the artillerist's square or quadrant. But to Galileo is due the fundamental discovery that the trajectory of a projectile, for the ideal case that neglects such disturbing factors as air resistance, must be parabolic. This was made possible only by his three chief dynamical discoveries, the principle of inertia, the law of freely falling bodies, and the principle of the com position of velocities. Upon these discoveries, worked out as steps in his ballistic investigation, later hands erected the structure of classical physics. By the end of the seventeenth century the progress of the "New Learning" had become compelling enough to bring about the first ex periments in technical military education and the patronage of science by the governments of England and France. The Royal Society of London received its charter at the hands of Charles II in r 662, while four years later, with the encouragement of Colbert, the French Academie Royale des sciences was born. In both of these organizations, dedicated as they were at their foundation to "useful knowledge," many investigations were undertaken of immediate or potential value to the army and navy. Ballistic investigations, studies on impact phenomena and recoil, researches on improved gunpowder and the properties of saltpeter, the quest for a satisfactory means of determining longitude at sea: these, and many other subjects, preoccupied the members of both academies. In both countries able navy and army men are found among the diligent members. In France especially the scientists were frequently called upon for their advice in technical matters pertaining to the armed forces. Under Colbert's super vision scientists of the Academie des sciences carried out a detailed coast and geodetic survey as part of Colbert's great program of naval expan sion, and what is perhaps more important, they laid the foundations for modern scientific cartography so that in the following century, with the completion of the famous Cassini map of France, an army was for the first time equipped with an accurate topographic map of the country it was charged to defend. III
If we ask how these developments are reflected in the military lit erature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the answer is simple enough: the volume is, on the average, greater than the quality. Antiquity was still the great teacher in all that concerned the broader aspects of military theory and the secrets of military genius. Vegetius and Frontinus 71
O RIGINS O F M O D E RN WA R
were deemed indispensable; and the most popular book of the century, Henri de Rohan's Parfait capitaine, was an adaptation of Caesar's Gallic Wars. Without doubt the most important writing concerned with the art of war fell into two classes: the pioneer works in the field of international law; and the pioneer works of military technology. Machiavelli had been the theorist for the age of unregulated warfare, but his influence was waning by the turn of the seventeenth century. Francis Bacon was perhaps his last illustrious disciple; for it is hard to find until our own day such unabashed advocacy of unrestricted war as can be found in certain of the Essays. But by Bacon's time the reaction had set in. Men like Grotius were leading the attack against international anarchy and against a war of unlimited destructiveness. These founding fathers of international law announced that they had found in the law of nature the precepts for a law of nations, and their central principle, as Talleyrand put it once in a strongly worded reminder to Napoleon, was that nations ought to do one another in peace, the most good, in war, the least possible evil. It is easy to underestimate the influence of these generous theories upon the actual realities of warfare, and to cite Albert Sorel's black picture of international morals and conduct in the period of the Old Regime. Actually the axioms of international law exerted an undeniable influence on the mode and manner of warfare before the close of the seventeenth century.6 If they did not put an end to political amoralism, they at least hedged in the conduct of war with a host of minor prescriptions and prohibitions that contributed to making eighteenth-century warfare a relatively humane and well-regulated enterprise. These rules were known to contending commanders and were quite generally followed. Such, for example, were the instructions concerning the treatment and exchange of prisoners; the condemnation of certain means of destruction, like the use of poison; the rules for the treatment of noncombatants and for arranging parleys, truces, and safe.-conducts; or those concerned with despoiling or levying exactions upon conquered territory and with the mode of terminating sieges. The whole tendency was to protect private persons and private rights in time of war, and hence to mitigate the evils. In the second class, that of books on military technology, no works had greater influence or enjoyed greater prestige than those of Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, the great military engineer of the reign of Louis XIV. His authority in the eighteenth century was immense, nor had it 6 The notion has been stressed by Hoffman Nickerson, The Armed Horde, I793-I939 (New York, 1940) , 3 4 -40.
72
VAUBAN
appreciably dimmed after the time of Napoleon.? And yet Vauban's lit erary legacy to the eighteenth century was scanty and highly specialized, consisting almost solely of a treatise on siegecraft, a work on the defense of fortresses, and a short work on mines. 8 He published nothing on military architecture, and made no systematic contribution to strategy or the art of war in general; yet his influence in all these departments is undeniable. It was exerted subtly and indirectly through the memory of his career and of his example, and by the exertions and writings of a number of his disciples. But by this process many of his contributions and ideas were misunderstood and perverted, and much that he accom plished was for a long time lost to view. Thanks to the work of scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, who have been able to publish an appreciable portion of Vauban's letters and manuscripts, and to peruse and analyze the rest, we have a clearer understanding of Vauban's career and of his ideas than was possible to his eighteenth-century admirers. He has increased in stature, rather than diminished, in the light of modern studies. We have seen the Vauban legend clarified and documented; we have seen it emended in many important points; but we have not seen it exploded. The Vauban legend requires some explanation. Why was a simple engineer, however skillful and devoted to his task, raised so swiftly to the rank of a national idol? Why were his specialized publications on siegecraft and the defense of fortresses sufficient to rank him as one of the most influential military writers? The answers are not far to seek: these works of Vauban were the authoritative texts in what was to the eighteenth century a most impor tant, if not the supremely important, aspect of warfare. In the late sev enteenth century and throughout the eighteenth century, warfare often appears to us as nothing but an interminable succession of sieges. Almost always they were the focal operations of a campaign: when the reduction of an enemy fortress was not the principal objective, as it often was, a 7 An eighteenth-century writer on the education of the nobility suggests that the five most important authors a student should study are Rohan, Santa Cruz, Feuquieres, Montecuccoli, and Vauban. Cf. Chevalier de Brucourt, Essai sur /'education de /a noblesse, nouvelle edition corrigee et augmentee (Paris, 1748), 2:262-63. 8 The works published in his lifetime were two: a work on administrative problems, called the Directeur general des fortifications (The Hague, 1685, reprinted in Paris, 1 725), and his Dixme Royale (The Hague [?], 1707). A number of spurious works, however, had appeared before his death, purporting to expound his methods of fortification. His three treatises best known to the eighteenth century were printed for the first time in a slovenly combined edition titled Traite de l'attaque et de /a defense des places suivi d'un traite des mines (The Hague, 1 737). This was reprinted in 1742 and again in 1771. The Traite de /a defense des places was published separately by Jombert in Paris in 1769. No carefully prepared editions were published until 1795.
73
O R IGINS O F M O D E RN WAR
siege was the inevitable preliminary to an invasion of enemy territory. Sieges were far more frequent than pitched battles and were begun as readily as battles were avoided. When they did occur, battles were likely to be dictated by the need to bring about, or to ward off, the relief of a besieged fortress. The strategic imagination of all but a few exceptional commanders was walled in by the accepted axioms of a war of siege. In an age that accepted unconditionally this doctrine of the strategic primacy of the siege, Vauban's treatises were deemed indispensable and his name was necessarily a name to conjure with. Yet only a part of the aura and prestige that surrounded Vauban's name arose from these technical writings. He has appealed to the imag ination because of his personal character, his long career as an enlightened servant of the state, his manifold contributions to military progress out side of his chosen speciality, and his liberal and humanitarian interest in the public weal. From the beginning it was Vauban the public servant who aroused the greatest admiration. With his modest origin, his diligence and honesty, his personal courage, and his loyalty to the state, he seemed the reincarnation of some servitor of the Roman Republic. Indeed, Fon tenelle, in his famous eloge, describes him as a "Roman, whom the century of Louis XIV seems almost to have stolen from the happiest days of the Republic." To Voltaire he was "the finest of citizens." Saint-Simon, not content with dubbing him a Roman, applied to him, for the first time with its modern meaning, the word patriote.9 In Vauban, respected public servant, organizational genius, enlightened reformer, seemed to be em bodied all the traits which had combined, through the efforts of countless lesser persons, to forge the new national state. Still more felicitously did Vauban's technical knowledge, his skill in applied mathematics, his love of precision and order, and his membership in the Academie des sciences, symbolize the new importance of scientific knowledge for the welfare of the state. Cartesian reason, the role of applied science in society both for war and peace, the esprit geometrique of the age: all these were incarnated in the man, visible in the massive outline of the fortresses he designed. v
Vauban's career was both too long and too active for anything but a summary account in an essay of this sort. Scarcely any other of Louis XIV's ministers or warriors had as long an active career. He entered the royal service under Mazarin when he was in his early twenties and was • Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, Lettres intimes inedites adressees au Marquis de Puy zieulx (r699-I705). Introduction et notes de Hyrvoix de Landosle (Paris, 1924), r6-r7.
74
VAUBAN
still active in the field only a few months before his death at the age of seventy-three. J;>.�a.r.ing...th.is-haJ.f-G@fltur..:y-Gf-Ge-aseless-dfeFt-he-c:c:mG:Heted •m.&adi]f..t1.fuy�g��illl.·cl.cd'IJeWM11!f.r61an 1F>1 s.,.f6>J:�&.WeH,..€1:v:el""li"'f!i>fOTt furi'Cl'ff'd t�-s's·�
cj;pd,b@:l!lil.
