Machiavelli on War: "Let Christ be your army captain"

Following Niccolo Machiavelli’s typology of knowledge, there are three types of books about him: the pop books that depict an inaccurate caricature of him as an teacher of evil Machiavellianism that reflects what the unread can understand and fits their suspicion and attraction to portrayals of him as an evildoer through the works of interpreters (ex: Ten Books the Screwed Up the World; Thoughts on Machiavelli, The New Machiavelli); the second does not understand Machiavelli and only reads his works by cherry picking quotations to manipulate readers via their own Machiavellian agenda (ex: Machiavelli: The Art of Teaching People What to Fear); the third are books that directly read all of Machiavelli’s works and endeavors to understand them more or less as Machiavelli would (Raymond Belliotti, Machiavelli’s Secret: The Soul of the Statesman; Maurizio Viroli, Machiavelli, Catherine Zuckert, Machiavelli’s Politics).  To this third category must now be added Christopher Lynch’s fine book Machiavelli on War.  

Lynch superbly amasses overwhelming evidence that Machiavelli’s life and writings are all about war, preparation for war, and continuous consciousness of the threat of wars and conspiracies.  This is not because Machiavelli or the author Christopher Lynch are smitten with war, are war hawks or pacifists, or have a political agenda. Even if we omit or minimize Machiavelli’s central focus on war, surely war or civil insurrection will nonetheless arise and infiltrators who are war conscious will take over their country. Witness current events.

It is difficult for me to think of a contemporary book that is so relevant to our current worldwide situation.  For Machiavelli’s era was the same as ours. Run by oligarchs and corporate fascists who have taken over governments by coups, conspiracies and choreographed public spectacles, where wars are fought by proxy and mercenary soldiers for banker’s interests (fiat vs. gold backed money), where new war technology has made infantry less critical than, say, long spearmen in Machiavelli’s day or drone warfare in our era.

Christopher Lynch’s book makes the case that as Christianity became led by “unarmed prophets” propagating unconditional love even of one’s enemies, they did so to the extreme of self-destruction of the Florentine nobility class and its next generation. This theme echoes that of British historian Edward Gibbon in his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that asserts Rome fell because of effeminate Christianity.   

Lynch quotes Machiavelli: where “there are no soldiers, it is due to a defect of the prince”.  Stated differently: where there is a constitutional separation between politicians and the military it is going to lead to softness and corruption that will ruin the nation. To Machiavelli, glory is reserved for men of action who saved their states from destruction and slavery or occupation and plundering, such as Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and Agathocles.  When states are left in the hands of contemplative academics, humble religionists, establishment popes, bribed infiltrators, or a mercenary captain of the army, the state is left in the hands of organized crime networks writes Lynch. 

Not mentioned in Lynch’s book, but the closest modern-day comparison is the redemption of Egypt by its  army from a coup and color revolution by the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 that ruled by terrorism, murder of police and soldiers, and rigged elections.  This would not have been possible in present day America whose military is under civilian rule.  Unlike the U.S., Egypt’s military is the constitutional backstop to any takeover of the government under their constitution which was drafted by the French.  Former head of the Egyptian army Abdel el Sisi, however, did not act unilaterally or tyrannically, but assembled a broad coalition of the Egyptian Supreme Court, the Muslim University in Cairo, the Coptic Christian Pope, the military and police, and the broadcast media to remove an illegitimate president and regime. But most importantly, 60 million Egyptians brought their living couches outside and flooded the streets to sit all day to demonstrate they wanted the Muslim insurgents removed from government.  This was called the “Couch Party Movement” (see Wikipedia).  If Machiavelli were alive, he would likely have approved of such an action ratified by the people as he called common people the saving grace of Florence despite their fickleness and lack of consciousness about war.

In Machiavelli’s day it was the invasion of Florence in 1494 by Charles VIII of France that is described by Lynch as the Pearl Harbor or 9/11 of that era. The French invaded Florence without resistance, including rape and plunder.  Machiavelli attributes this to the passivity and piety of Catholic priest and leader Savaronola, who Machiavelli called an “unarmed prophet”.  Thereafter, Spanish papal forces sacked Florence and the banking oligarchs - the Medici family - eventually grabbed power over the city-state and burned Savaronola at the stake.  Into this vacuum of power came Lorenzo di Medici, a ruthless and amoral military leader who Machiavelli praised for his boldness in murdering his mercenary war generals rather than allowing them to rise and take over the City. But when he dropped his guard and went to a banquet hosted by a rival, Medici was himself murdered by surprise.

From this Machiavelli developed his view that the “the ends justify the means” but only in true, not manipulated, emergencies of war, insurrection, corruption, population invasions, and coups.

Machiavelli was not aware that plagues are manipulated public spectacles and not outbreaks of microbes, rat infestations, or God’s punishment for collective sins (example: American Indian smallpox epidemic was precipitated by US government relocating them by force from water-rich lands to remote, dry reservations, by drastically reducing the bison population and their food supply, and elimination of their leaders).

However, Machiavelli’s warning about public spectacles such as dramatic executions, arson fires that destroy entire cities (Rome) or burn crops, bread and circuses entertainment, and daring terrorism, are some of a prince’s most important tools for social control and mental and physical enslavement. The “Machiavellian” trick that Machiavelli warns of by teaching Lorenzo Medici about it in his book The Prince, is to make what is planned by elites seem as acts of nature, God or gods, fate and coincidence, or blamed on a patsy enemy.  Machiavelli once conspired with Leonardo da Vinci to divert the course of the Arno River to steal the water from the City of Pisa as a war tactic.  Machiavelli: “Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration”.  Lynch’s deficiency is he omits any discussion of spectacles in his book as part of warfare other than to cite Machiavelli that “the public have a taste for the spectacular”. 

In all other non-emergency circumstances, Machiavelli specified that wherever otherwise possible the state should be guided according to conventional Christian morality (Raymond Angelo Belliotti, Machiavelli’s Secret). 

This is not a book that will please war hawks or the religious, however.  Lynch points out that Machiavelli pointed to the actual lives of heroic military leaders, not the thoughts of philosophers or dogma of priests, to reform the Florentine republic (see Machiavelli’s “A Discourse on the Remodeling of the Government of Florence”). Machiavelli gained his “Realpolitik” or Realism perspective from being a war strategist and tactician (Machiavelli, “The Art of War”, “A Provision for Infantry”) and an ambassador dealing firsthand with amoral foreign military leaders and rulers (“The Legations” dispatches dealing with Cesare Borgia). This is despite he was a playwright (“The Mandragola”), a novelist “The Ass”), a poet (several sonnets), and a song writer (“Carnival Songs” and “Serenade”).  Almost entirely unknown, Machiavelli was a moralist who was concerned about unchecked and degenerate eroticism (Clizia – a satiric and humorous play), about the ruination of states by the ambition of their rulers (An Exhortation “On Ambition”), about the greed of the Florentines (An Exhortation “On Ingratitude and Envy”), and was an advocate for rulers seeking forgiveness for actions they must sometimes do to save their republics (An Exhortation “On Penitence”).  

Lynch does point out that when Machiavelli was questioned who should be the Florentines’ military leader, he replied “Let Christ be your captain”.   This side of Machiavelli is not discussed as much as I would have liked to see in Lynch’s book.  But it is omitted entirely in almost all books on Machiavelli.  So, if you’re looking for a book to prove your confirmation bias that Machiavelli was an irreligious warmonger and evildoer, you can find such books everywhere. But, at least, Lynch is one of the very few, writers to bring this side of Machiavelli to the attention of his readers.  

This book review finds Niccolo Machiavelli is one of the most maligned figures in world history by nearly everyone, even his faithful supporters. It makes one wonder about other maligned persons in history such as Caesar, Caligula, and Gaddafi.

Perhaps Christopher Lynch’s book is one step in the right direction of gaining nuanced clarity about Machiavelli’s character, particularly what must be his intentionally shrouded religious and moral character. Highly recommended first-rate book.