The Art of War - Khamkoo

proposition does not do any harm either to the country or the men;
rather, to the young, it ought to be delightful, for where, on holidays
they remain basely indolent in their hangouts, they would now attend
these exercises with pleasure, for the drawing of arms, as it is a beautiful
spectacle, is thus delightful to the young men. As to being able to pay
(more to) the lesser number, and thereby keeping them more content and
obedient, I reply, that no organization of so few can be made, who are
paid so continually, that their pay satisfies them. For instance, if an army
of five thousand infantry should be organized, in wanting to pay them
so that it should be believed they would be contented, they must be given
at least ten thousand ducats a month. To begin with, this number of
infantry is not enough to make an army, and the payment is unendurable
to a State; and on the other hand, it is not sufficient to keep the men
content and obligated to respect your position. So that in doing this although
much would be spent, it would provide little strength, and
would not be sufficient to defend you, or enable you to undertake any
enterprise. If you should give them more, or take on more, so much more
impossible would it be for you to pay them: if you should give them less,
or take on fewer, so much less would be content and so much less useful
would they be to you. Therefore, those who consider things which are
either useless or impossible. But it is indeed necessary to pay them when
they are levied to send to war.
But even if such an arrangement should give some hardship to those
enrolled in it in times of peace, which I do not see, they are still recompensed
by all those benefits which an army established in a City bring;
for without them, nothing is secure. I conclude that whoever desires a
small number in order to be able to pay them, or for any other reason
cited by you, does not know (what he is doing); for it will also happen, in
my opinion, that any number will always diminish in your hands, because
of the infinite impediments that men have; so that the small number
will succeed at nothing. However, when you have a large organization,
you can at your election avail yourself of few or of many. In addition
to this, it serves you in fact and reputation, for the large number will
always give you reputation. Moreover, in creating the organization, in
order to keep men trained, if you enroll a small number of men in many
countries, and the armies are very distant from each other, you cannot
without the gravest injury to them assemble them for (joint) exercises,
and without this training the organization is useless, as will be shown in
its proper place.
COSIMO
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