26. Chapter XXVI: Some Considerations On War In Democratic
Communities
When the principle of equality is in growth, not only amongst a
single nation, but amongst several neighboring nations at the same time,
as is now the case in Europe, the inhabitants of these different
countries, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of language, of customs,
and of laws, nevertheless resemble each other in their equal dread of
war and their common love of peace.
[15] It is in vain that ambition or anger puts
arms in the hands of princes; they are appeased in spite of themselves
by a species of general apathy and goodwill, which makes the sword drop
from their grasp, and wars become more rare. As the spread of equality,
taking place in several countries at once, simultaneously impels their
various inhabitants to follow manufactures and commerce, not only do
their tastes grow alike, but their interests are so mixed and entangled
with one another that no nation can inflict evils on other nations
without those evils falling back upon itself; and all nations ultimately
regard war as a calamity, almost as severe to the conqueror as to the
conquered. Thus, on the one hand, it is extremely difficult in
democratic ages to draw nations into hostilities; but on the other hand,
it is almost impossible that any two of them should go to war without
embroiling the rest. The interests of all are so interlaced, their
opinions and their wants so much alike, that none can remain quiet when
the others stir. Wars therefore become more rare, but when they break
out they spread over a larger field. Neighboring democratic nations not
only become alike in some respects, but they eventually grow to resemble
each other in almost all. [16] This
similitude of nations has consequences of great importance in relation
to war.
If I inquire why it is that the Helvetic Confederacy made
the greatest and most powerful nations of Europe tremble in the
fifteenth century, whilst at the present day the power of that
country is exactly proportioned to its population, I perceive
that the Swiss are become like all the surrounding communities,
and those surrounding communities like the Swiss: so that as
numerical strength now forms the only difference between them,
victory necessarily attends the largest army. Thus one of the
consequences of the democratic revolution which is going on in
Europe is to make numerical strength preponderate on all fields
of battle, and to constrain all small nations to incorporate
themselves with large States, or at least to adopt the policy of
the latter. As numbers are the determining cause of victory,
each people ought of course to strive by all the means in its
power to bring the greatest possible number of men into the
field. When it was possible to enlist a kind of troops superior
to all others, such as the Swiss infantry or the French horse of
the sixteenth century, it was not thought necessary to raise very
large armies; but the case is altered when one soldier is as
efficient as another.
The same cause which begets this new want also supplies
means of satisfying it; for, as I have already observed, when men
are all alike, they are all weak, and the supreme power of the
State is naturally much stronger amongst democratic nations than
elsewhere. Hence, whilst these nations are desirous of enrolling
the whole male population in the ranks of the army, they have the
power of effecting this object: the consequence is, that in
democratic ages armies seem to grow larger in proportion as the
love of war declines. In the same ages, too, the manner of
carrying on war is likewise altered by the same causes.
Machiavelli observes in "The Prince," "that it is much more
difficult to subdue a people which has a prince and his barons
for its leaders, than a nation which is commanded by a prince and
his slaves." To avoid offence, let us read public functionaries
for slaves, and this important truth will be strictly applicable
to our own time.
A great aristocratic people cannot either conquer its
neighbors, or be conquered by them, without great difficulty. It
cannot conquer them, because all its forces can never be
collected and held together for a considerable period: it cannot
be conquered, because an enemy meets at every step small centres
of resistance by which invasion is arrested. War against an
aristocracy may be compared to war in a mountainous country; the
defeated party has constant opportunities of rallying its forces
to make a stand in a new position. Exactly the reverse occurs
amongst democratic nations: they easily bring their whole
disposable force into the field, and when the nation is wealthy
and populous it soon becomes victorious; but if ever it is
conquered, and its territory invaded, it has few resources at
command; and if the enemy takes the capital, the nation is lost.
This may very well be explained: as each member of the community
is individually isolated and extremely powerless, no one of the
whole body can either defend himself or present a rallying point
to others. Nothing is strong in a democratic country except the
State; as the military strength of the State is destroyed by the
destruction of the army, and its civil power paralyzed by the
capture of the chief city, all that remains is only a multitude
without strength or government, unable to resist the organized
power by which it is assailed. I am aware that this danger may be
lessened by the creation of provincial liberties, and
consequently of provincial powers, but this remedy will always be
insufficient. For after such a catastrophe, not only is the
population unable to carry on hostilities, but it may be
apprehended that they will not be inclined to attempt it.
In accordance with the law of nations adopted in civilized
countries, the object of wars is not to seize the property of
private individuals, but simply to get possession of political
power. The destruction of private property is only occasionally
resorted to for the purpose of attaining the latter object. When
an aristocratic country is invaded after the defeat of its army,
the nobles, although they are at the same time the wealthiest
members of the community, will continue to defend themselves
individually rather than submit; for if the conqueror remained
master of the country, he would deprive them of their political
power, to which they cling even more closely than to their
property. They therefore prefer fighting to subjection, which is
to them the greatest of all misfortunes; and they readily carry
the people along with them because the people has long been used
to follow and obey them, and besides has but little to risk in
the war. Amongst a nation in which equality of conditions
prevails, each citizen, on the contrary, has but slender share of
political power, and often has no share at all; on the other
hand, all are independent, and all have something to lose; so
that they are much less afraid of being conquered, and much more
afraid of war, than an aristocratic people. It will always be
extremely difficult to decide a democratic population to take up
arms, when hostilities have reached its own territory. Hence the
necessity of giving to such a people the rights and the political
character which may impart to every citizen some of those
interests that cause the nobles to act for the public welfare in
aristocratic countries.
It should never be forgotten by the princes and other
leaders of democratic nations, that nothing but the passion and
the habit of freedom can maintain an advantageous contest with
the passion and the habit of physical well-being. I can conceive
nothing better prepared for subjection, in case of defeat, than a
democratic people without free institutions.
Formerly it was customary to take the field with a small
body of troops, to fight in small engagements, and to make long,
regular sieges: modern tactics consist in fighting decisive
battles, and, as soon as a line of march is open before the army,
in rushing upon the capital city, in order to terminate the war
at a single blow. Napoleon, it is said, was the inventor of this
new system; but the invention of such a system did not depend on
any individual man, whoever he might be. The mode in which
Napoleon carried on war was suggested to him by the state of
society in his time; that mode was successful, because it was
eminently adapted to that state of society, and because he was
the first to employ it. Napoleon was the first commander who
marched at the head of an army from capital to capital, but the
road was opened for him by the ruin of feudal society. It may
fairly be believed that, if that extraordinary man had been born
three hundred years ago, he would not have derived the same
results from his method of warfare, or, rather, that he would
have had a different method.
I shall add but a few words on civil wars, for fear of
exhausting the patience of the reader. Most of the remarks which
I have made respecting foreign wars are applicable a fortiori to
civil wars. Men living in democracies are not naturally prone to
the military character; they sometimes assume it, when they have
been dragged by compulsion to the field; but to rise in a body
and voluntarily to expose themselves to the horrors of war, and
especially of civil war, is a course which the men of democracies
are not apt to adopt. None but the most adventurous members of
the community consent to run into such risks; the bulk of the
population remains motionless. But even if the population were
inclined to act, considerable obstacles would stand in their way;
for they can resort to no old and well-established influence
which they are willing to obey -no well-known leaders to rally
the discontented, as well as to discipline and to lead them -no
political powers subordinate to the supreme power of the nation,
which afford an effectual support to the resistance directed
against the government. In democratic countries the moral power
of the majority is immense, and the physical resources which it
has at its command are out of all proportion to the physical
resources which may be combined against it. Therefore the party
which occupies the seat of the majority, which speaks in its name
and wields its power, triumphs instantaneously and irresistibly
over all private resistance; it does not even give such
opposition time to exist, but nips it in the bud. Those who in
such nations seek to effect a revolution by force of arms have no
other resource than suddenly to seize upon the whole engine of
government as it stands, which can better be done by a single
blow than by a war; for as soon as there is a regular war, the
party which represents the State is always certain to conquer.
The only case in which a civil war could arise is, if the army
should divide itself into two factions, the one raising the
standard of rebellion, the other remaining true to its
allegiance. An army constitutes a small community, very closely
united together, endowed with great powers of vitality, and able
to supply its own wants for some time. Such a war might be
bloody, but it could not be long; for either the rebellious army
would gain over the government by the sole display of its
resources, or by its first victory, and then the war would be
over; or the struggle would take place, and then that portion of
the army which should not be supported by the organized powers of
the State would speedily either disband itself or be destroyed.
It may therefore be admitted as a general truth, that in ages of
equality civil wars will become much less frequent and less
protracted. [17]
[15]
It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that the
dread of war displayed by the nations of Europe is not solely
attributable to the progress made by the principle of equality
amongst them; independently of this permanent cause several other
accidental causes of great weight might be pointed out, and I may
mention before all the rest the extreme lassitude which the wars
of the Revolution and the Empire have left behind them.
[16]
This is not only because these nations have the same
social condition, but it arises from the very nature of that
social condition which leads men to imitate and identify
themselves with each other. When the members of a community are
divided into castes and classes, they not only differ from one
another, but they have no taste and no desire to be alike; on the
contrary, everyone endeavors, more and more, to keep his own
opinions undisturbed, to retain his own peculiar habits, and to
remain himself. The characteristics of individuals are very
strongly marked. When the state of society amongst a people is
democratic -that is to say, when there are no longer any castes
or classes in the community, and all its members are nearly equal
in education and in property -the human mind follows the
opposite direction. Men are much alike, and they are annoyed, as
it were, by any deviation from that likeness: far from seeking to
preserve their own distinguishing singularities, they endeavor to
shake them off, in order to identify themselves with the general
mass of the people, which is the sole representative of right and
of might to their eyes. The characteristics of individuals are
nearly obliterated. In the ages of aristocracy even those who
are naturally alike strive to create imaginary differences
between themselves: in the ages of democracy even those who are
not alike seek only to become so, and to copy each other -so
strongly is the mind of every man always carried away by the
general impulse of mankind. Something of the same kind may be
observed between nations: two nations having the same
aristocratic social condition, might remain thoroughly distinct
and extremely different, because the spirit of aristocracy is to
retain strong individual characteristics; but if two neighboring
nations have the same democratic social condition, they cannot
fail to adopt similar opinions and manners, because the spirit of
democracy tends to assimilate men to each other.
[17]
It should be borne in mind that I speak here of
sovereign and independent democratic nations, not of confederate
democracies; in confederacies, as the preponderating power always
resides, in spite of all political fictions, in the state
governments, and not in the federal government, civil wars are in
fact nothing but foreign wars in disguise.