22. Chapter XXII: Why Democratic Nations Are Naturally Desirous Of
Peace, And Democratic Armies Of War
The same interests, the same fears, the same passions which
deter democratic nations from revolutions, deter them also from
war; the spirit of military glory and the spirit of revolution
are weakened at the same time and by the same causes. The ever-increasing numbers of men of property -lovers of peace, the
growth of personal wealth which war so rapidly consumes, the
mildness of manners, the gentleness of heart, those tendencies to
pity which are engendered by the equality of conditions, that
coolness of understanding which renders men comparatively
insensible to the violent and poetical excitement of arms -all
these causes concur to quench the military spirit. I think it may
be admitted as a general and constant rule, that, amongst
civilized nations, the warlike passions will become more rare and
less intense in proportion as social conditions shall be more
equal. War is nevertheless an occurrence to which all nations
are subject, democratic nations as well as others. Whatever
taste they may have for peace, they must hold themselves in
readiness to repel aggression, or in other words they must have
an army.
Fortune, which has conferred so many peculiar benefits upon
the inhabitants of the United States, has placed them in the
midst of a wilderness, where they have, so to speak, no
neighbors: a few thousand soldiers are sufficient for their
wants; but this is peculiar to America, not to democracy. The
equality of conditions, and the manners as well as the
institutions resulting from it, do not exempt a democratic people
from the necessity of standing armies, and their armies always
exercise a powerful influence over their fate. It is therefore
of singular importance to inquire what are the natural
propensities of the men of whom these armies are composed.
Amongst aristocratic nations, especially amongst those in
which birth is the only source of rank, the same inequality
exists in the army as in the nation; the officer is noble, the
soldier is a serf; the one is naturally called upon to command,
the other to obey. In aristocratic armies, the private soldier's
ambition is therefore circumscribed within very narrow limits.
Nor has the ambition of the officer an unlimited range. An
aristocratic body not only forms a part of the scale of ranks in
the nation, but it contains a scale of ranks within itself: the
members of whom it is composed are placed one above another, in a
particular and unvarying manner. Thus one man is born to the
command of a regiment, another to that of a company; when once
they have reached the utmost object of their hopes, they stop of
their own accord, and remain contented with their lot. There is,
besides, a strong cause, which, in aristocracies, weakens the
officer's desire of promotion. Amongst aristocratic nations, an
officer, independently of his rank in the army, also occupies an
elevated rank in society; the former is almost always in his eyes
only an appendage to the latter. A nobleman who embraces the
profession of arms follows it less from motives of ambition than
from a sense of the duties imposed on him by his birth. He
enters the army in order to find an honorable employment for the
idle years of his youth, and to be able to bring back to his home
and his peers some honorable recollections of military life; but
his principal object is not to obtain by that profession either
property, distinction, or power, for he possesses these
advantages in his own right, and enjoys them without leaving his
home.
In democratic armies all the soldiers may become officers,
which makes the desire of promotion general, and immeasurably
extends the bounds of military ambition. The officer, on his
part, sees nothing which naturally and necessarily stops him at
one grade more than at another; and each grade has immense
importance in his eyes, because his rank in society almost always
depends on his rank in the army. Amongst democratic nations it
often happens that an officer has no property but his pay, and no
distinction but that of military honors: consequently as often as
his duties change, his fortune changes, and he becomes, as it
were, a new man. What was only an appendage to his position in
aristocratic armies, has thus become the main point, the basis of
his whole condition. Under the old French monarchy officers were
always called by their titles of nobility; they are now always
called by the title of their military rank. This little change
in the forms of language suffices to show that a great revolution
has taken place in the constitution of society and in that of the
army. In democratic armies the desire of advancement is almost
universal: it is ardent, tenacious, perpetual; it is strengthened
by all other desires, and only extinguished with life itself. But
it is easy to see, that of all armies in the world, those in
which advancement must be slowest in time of peace are the armies
of democratic countries. As the number of commissions is
naturally limited, whilst the number of competitors is almost
unlimited, and as the strict law of equality is over all alike,
none can make rapid progress -many can make no progress at all.
Thus the desire of advancement is greater, and the opportunities
of advancement fewer, there than elsewhere. All the ambitious
spirits of a democratic army are consequently ardently desirous
of war, because war makes vacancies, and warrants the violation
of that law of seniority which is the sole privilege natural to
democracy.
We thus arrive at this singular consequence, that of all
armies those most ardently desirous of war are democratic armies,
and of all nations those most fond of peace are democratic
nations: and, what makes these facts still more extraordinary, is
that these contrary effects are produced at the same time by the
principle of equality.
All the members of the community, being alike, constantly
harbor the wish, and discover the possibility, of changing their
condition and improving their welfare: this makes them fond of
peace, which is favorable to industry, and allows every man to
pursue his own little undertakings to their completion. On the
other hand, this same equality makes soldiers dream of fields of
battle, by increasing the value of military honors in the eyes of
those who follow the profession of arms, and by rendering those
honors accessible to all. In either case the inquietude of the
heart is the same, the taste for enjoyment as insatiable, the
ambition of success as great -the means of gratifying it are
alone different.
These opposite tendencies of the nation and the army expose
democratic communities to great dangers. When a military spirit
forsakes a people, the profession of arms immediately ceases to
be held in honor, and military men fall to the lowest rank of the
public servants: they are little esteemed, and no longer
understood. The reverse of what takes place in aristocratic ages
then occurs; the men who enter the army are no longer those of
the highest, but of the lowest rank. Military ambition is only
indulged in when no other is possible. Hence arises a circle of
cause and consequence from which it is difficult to escape: the
best part of the nation shuns the military profession because
that profession is not honored, and the profession is not honored
because the best part of the nation has ceased to follow it. It
is then no matter of surprise that democratic armies are often
restless, ill-tempered, and dissatisfied with their lot, although
their physical condition is commonly far better, and their
discipline less strict than in other countries. The soldier
feels that he occupies an inferior position, and his wounded
pride either stimulates his taste for hostilities which would
render his services necessary, or gives him a turn for
revolutions, during which he may hope to win by force of arms the
political influence and personal importance now denied him. The
composition of democratic armies makes this last-mentioned danger
much to be feared. In democratic communities almost every man
has some property to preserve; but democratic armies are
generally led by men without property, most of whom have little
to lose in civil broils. The bulk of the nation is naturally
much more afraid of revolutions than in the ages of aristocracy,
but the leaders of the army much less so.
Moreover, as amongst democratic nations (to repeat what I
have just remarked) the wealthiest, the best educated, and the
most able men seldom adopt the military profession, the army,
taken collectively, eventually forms a small nation by itself,
where the mind is less enlarged, and habits are more rude than in
the nation at large. Now, this small uncivilized nation has arms
in its possession, and alone knows how to use them: for, indeed,
the pacific temper of the community increases the danger to which
a democratic people is exposed from the military and turbulent
spirit of the army. Nothing is so dangerous as an army amidst an
unwarlike nation; the excessive love of the whole community for
quiet continually puts its constitution at the mercy of the
soldiery. It may therefore be asserted, generally speaking, that
if democratic nations are naturally prone to peace from their
interests and their propensities, they are constantly drawn to
war and revolutions by their armies. Military revolutions, which
are scarcely ever to be apprehended in aristocracies, are always
to be dreaded amongst democratic nations. These perils must be
reckoned amongst the most formidable which beset their future
fate, and the attention of statesmen should be sedulously applied
to find a remedy for the evil.
When a nation perceives that it is inwardly affected by the
restless ambition of its army, the first thought which occurs is
to give this inconvenient ambition an object by going to war. I
speak no ill of war: war almost always enlarges the mind of a
people, and raises their character. In some cases it is the only
check to the excessive growth of certain propensities which
naturally spring out of the equality of conditions, and it must
be considered as a necessary corrective to certain inveterate
diseases to which democratic communities are liable. War has
great advantages, but we must not flatter ourselves that it can
diminish the danger I have just pointed out. That peril is only
suspended by it, to return more fiercely when the war is over;
for armies are much more impatient of peace after having tasted
military exploits. War could only be a remedy for a people which
should always be athirst for military glory. I foresee that all
the military rulers who may rise up in great democratic nations,
will find it easier to conquer with their armies, than to make
their armies live at peace after conquest. There are two things
which a democratic people will always find very difficult -to
begin a war, and to end it.
Again, if war has some peculiar advantages for democratic
nations, on the other hand it exposes them to certain dangers
which aristocracies have no cause to dread to an equal extent. I
shall only point out two of these. Although war gratifies the
army, it embarrasses and often exasperates that countless
multitude of men whose minor passions every day require peace in
order to be satisfied. Thus there is some risk of its causing,
under another form, the disturbance it is intended to prevent.
No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a
democratic country. Not indeed that after every victory it is to
be apprehended that the victorious generals will possess
themselves by force of the supreme power, after the manner of
Sylla and Caesar: the danger is of another kind. War does not
always give over democratic communities to military government,
but it must invariably and immeasurably increase the powers of
civil government; it must almost compulsorily concentrate the
direction of all men and the management of all things in the
hands of the administration. If it lead not to despotism by
sudden violence, it prepares men for it more gently by their
habits. All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a
democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and the
shortest means to accomplish it. This is the first axiom of the
science.
One remedy, which appears to be obvious when the ambition of
soldiers and officers becomes the subject of alarm, is to augment
the number of commissions to be distributed by increasing the
army. This affords temporary relief, but it plunges the country
into deeper difficulties at some future period. To increase the
army may produce a lasting effect in an aristocratic community,
because military ambition is there confined to one class of men,
and the ambition of each individual stops, as it were, at a
certain limit; so that it may be possible to satisfy all who feel
its influence. But nothing is gained by increasing the army
amongst a democratic people, because the number of aspirants
always rises in exactly the same ratio as the army itself. Those
whose claims have been satisfied by the creation of new
commissions are instantly succeeded by a fresh multitude beyond
all power of satisfaction; and even those who were but now
satisfied soon begin to crave more advancement; for the same
excitement prevails in the ranks of the army as in the civil
classes of democratic society, and what men want is not to reach
a certain grade, but to have constant promotion. Though these
wants may not be very vast, they are perpetually recurring. Thus
a democratic nation, by augmenting its army, only allays for a
time the ambition of the military profession, which soon becomes
even more formidable, because the number of those who feel it is
increased. I am of opinion that a restless and turbulent spirit
is an evil inherent in the very constitution of democratic
armies, and beyond hope of cure. The legislators of democracies
must not expect to devise any military organization capable by
its influence of calming and restraining the military profession:
their efforts would exhaust their powers, before the object is
attained.
The remedy for the vices of the army is not to be found in
the army itself, but in the country. Democratic nations are
naturally afraid of disturbance and of despotism; the object is
to turn these natural instincts into well-digested, deliberate,
and lasting tastes. When men have at last learned to make a
peaceful and profitable use of freedom, and have felt its
blessings -when they have conceived a manly love of order, and
have freely submitted themselves to discipline -these same men,
if they follow the profession of arms, bring into it,
unconsciously and almost against their will, these same habits
and manners. The general spirit of the nation being infused into
the spirit peculiar to the army, tempers the opinions and desires
engendered by military life, or represses them by the mighty
force of public opinion. Teach but the citizens to be educated,
orderly, firm, and free, the soldiers will be disciplined and
obedient. Any law which, in repressing the turbulent spirit of
the army, should tend to diminish the spirit of freedom in the
nation, and to overshadow the notion of law and right, would
defeat its object: it would do much more to favor, than to
defeat, the establishment of military tyranny.
After all, and in spite of all precautions, a large army
amidst a democratic people will always be a source of great
danger; the most effectual means of diminishing that danger would
be to reduce the army, but this is a remedy which all nations
have it not in their power to use.