Notes for modern day Princes #3 Making conflict work for you

[Cain]

Duke Filippo being dead, the Milanese enlisted Francesco Sforza against the Venetians, and he, having overcome the enemy at Caravaggio, allied himself with them to crush the Milanese, his masters.
- Machiavelli, How Many Kinds of Soldiery There Are, And Concerning Mercenaries, The Prince

Once again, however, Victor Amadeus transformed an unfavourable situation by means of a diplomatic volte-face at the expense of Louis XIV (and Philip V). In secret negotiations, only concluded after Victor Amadeus had broken with his Bourbon allies in October 1703, the emperor and the Maritime Powers promised the duke military and financial aid and territorial gains in north Italy.
- Christopher Stores, relating the rise in power of the chronic backstabber, Duke Victor Amadeus, in War, Diplomacy and the Rise of the Savoy, 1690-1720

Of late, I have been reading the second book of the above two.  Its quite good, if you have an interest in the manoeuvring and power plays in Renaissance Europe.  For those who don't know the background, I'll do some filling in.

Savoy, like many Italian states of the period, was weak, and constantly in thrall to one of its larger, more powerful neighbours.  In this case, Savoy was allied with the French court.  It saw to its own internal affairs, but was sworn to follow France in all military and diplomatic matters.  The court of the Dukes of Savoy was not even allowed to host or send out foreign dignitaries.  It was entirely in the thrall of the Bourbon's.

Victor Amadeus was, however, not the sort of man who took to being told what to do.  He had ambitions, on increasing the power and territory of the Savoy, and that would naturally be at the expense of his French neighbours, who would no doubt be concerned over his intentions towards several towns in southern France, and with good reason.  Equally, the Bourbons had allies and land in other parts of northern Italy.  But the Sun King, Louis the XIV, had ambitions of his own.  Unfortunately for him, he wasn't very good at disguising them, and the states of Europe had joined together in an alliance to contain his power.

Fearing an attack by the Grand Alliance, and in particular the recently victorious Holy Roman forces, Louis struck first.  And Victor Amadeus, ever the shrewd one, saw his chance.  He immediately cut secret deals with the Quadruple Alliance, allowing full use of his land to invade France, in return for a few little concessions.  A town here and there, maybe some land in Italy, some sort of dynastic alliance with one of the premier noble families of Europe and perhaps an independent kingdom, recognized and assured by the alliance. 

In doing this, the Duke of Savoy soon became a dagger pointed at the throat of the French kingdom.  But the allies dragged their feet, concerning the fighting, and Victor started to doubt he would get the towns he wanted.  He also noted a disturbing rise in power of the Holy Roman Emperor in North Italy, an area he had designs on.  So then he performed a marvellous about-face, stabbing his former allies in the back and secured his own separate peace with Louis – only after a suitable demonstration of how dangerous a foe he could be, of course.  He got his expansion, the right to send and receive envoys, a marriage between his daughter and the Sun King's grandson, and much greater standing at the Royal Court.  Allying with French troops, he invaded the Spanish-backed state of Milan, and forced the allies to make the entire of Italy neutral, the better to take it from the great powers later.

However, despite such victories and the gains the Duke made, with the resumption of peace, he was once again resigned to the role of French satellite.  Not only that, but his treachery against the Empire was about to be paid back.  He was ordered to appear before Leopold to answer for his crimes, and possibly be stripped of his imperial fiefs.  An army was also dispatched to Italy, poised to attack if he declined to obey.  But Victor Amadeus was of course no loyal French vassal, and was not prepared to lose all that he gained for the sake of the Sun King.  Breaking with the French again, he made a pact with the empire and the Maritime Powers and gained financial and military aid for his expansion into Italy. 

The French, of course, fought back.  At one point, they even overran the Duchy of Savoy itself, leaving the Duke to fight a bitter guerrilla war in his own lands.  Turning an attack on his capital, Turin, he soon set the French on their heels, securing formerly held fortresses of theirs in the Alps, as well as taking land from former nobles of Milan, Gonzaga and other territories.  Having secured much of Italy, his own land in Savoy, the Alps fortresses and even Sicily, the Duke was at the height of his power.  The Spanish Kingdom, including its massive overseas possessions, were even promised to him in the event Charles V died without a heir.  He was forced to return Sicily, but in return got Sardinia, which while nowhere near as useful, still raised him to the status of a King, and acted as a constant threat on both Italy and France's coastal towns.

The point is this: the Duke would have been forced to live out the rest of his life as a minor noble and tool of the French court, had it not been for Louis XIV's own backstabbing and endless ambition, traits that led to the Nine Years War.  Without the war, Savoy could have never defied the Sun King and hoped to have survived.  Equally, by making himself invaluable to the Allies, he was also making himself invaluable to Louis, the better to extract concessions from him.  And these concessions that he extracted yet further magnified his importance to the European powers, to the point where, if anything, his influence and power were overstated by his allies and enemies alike.

War is the perfect time to take advantage of people.  The need to win allows for mercenaries to gain a foothold in areas they would otherwise be unwelcome.  And for those who have been relegated to the sidelines, the eruption of conflict makes for new opportunities, at least for those ambitious and inventive enough to find them.  The expenditure of resources calls for the need of new allies, the fall of such allies necessitates others to take their places and roles.

The problem is this: are you going to wait for forever, on the off chance you can involve yourself in such a war once it starts?  That's far, far too risky.  It may never happen.  If you do not force events, you will be held hostage to them.  Unless you determine from the start that you can yourself, through manipulation of others, can bring about the conditions for such a conflict, you may be left forever out of the game, waiting for something that will never happen.

Remember last time around, when I cautioned you to know who you were dealing with?  I said you should endeavour to know "Where is there bad blood, ongoing vendettas that can be manipulated, whose interests align?"  And I never say anything without a reason.  Sometimes, the only way you can scale the ladder is to make sure those at the top engage in just enough bloodletting that they exhaust each other, and themselves in the process.  You can either sit back and move only at the last moment, when all parties are too weak to resist, or else you can play one faction off against the other, using calculated betrayals to not only seize the resources necessary to build one's own power base, but also to remove potential competitors.  As in chess, during the endgame, even pawns become vitally important.  And every player in this game starts off as someone's pawn.

That's the theory, at least.  In the next part, I'll examine how this can work in practice.

[Aufenthatt]

[Aufenthatt]

Stab in the dark

Do you know anything about the situation in Prussia just after the 13 colonies had established themselves as a independent country?

[East Coast Hustle]

nice.

tell me, I've still not managed to get m hands on a copy of the discorsi. Is it worth buying as a separate volume or does it mostly cover the same material with the obvious differences in practical application?

[Cain]

Stab in the dark

Do you know anything about the situation in Prussia just after the 13 colonies had established themselves as a independent country?

No, but I could probably find out.

[Cain]

nice.

tell me, I've still not managed to get m hands on a copy of the discorsi. Is it worth buying as a separate volume or does it mostly cover the same material with the obvious differences in practical application?

There is quite a bit of material in it that one doesn't really see in The Prince, for example a discussion on the overthrow of Republics, conspiracies and assassinations, among other topics.  Because of the length and size of the work, he can also afford to go much more in depth with his discussions and dissections of Roman and Italian political life.  There are reflections of his more humanistic philosophy that you sometimes catch glimpses of in The Prince as well, more obvious in the Discourses, since he is not writing this for the Medici.

You can read it online here http://www.constitution.org/mac/disclivy_.htm although of course that is no substitute for dead tree format.

[Aufenthatt]

Stab in the dark

Do you know anything about the situation in Prussia just after the 13 colonies had established themselves as a independent country?

No, but I could probably find out.

Its ok, I found what I was looking for.