Whether Skirmishes Before an Engagement are Necessary, and How to Recognize a New Enemy If They are Avoided

It appears that in the actions of men (as we discussed at other times) there is found, in addition to the other difficulties when it is desired to conclude something successfully, that good is always accompanied by some evil, which so easily arises with that good, that it appears impossible to do without the one when desiring the other; and this is seen in all the things that men do. And, therefore, good is acquired with difficulty, unless you are aided by fortune in a way that she, with her power, overcomes the ordinary and natural difficulties.

The combat between Manlius Torquatus and the Gaul makes me remember this, of which Titus Livius says: So much influence did the momentous outcome of that fight have on the whole war, that the army of the Gauls, having precipituously retreated from their camps, fled across the Tiber, and then into the fields of Campania. For, on the one hand I consider that a good Captain ought to avoid entirely doing anything of little importance which can have a bad effect on his army; for to begin a battle where he cannot employ all his strength and where he risks his entire fortune, is a completely foolhardy thing, as I said above when I condemned the guarding of passes. On the other hand. I consider that a wise Captain, when he comes to encounter a new enemy which has reputation, finds it necessary before coming to an engagement for his soldiers to probe such enemies by skirmishes, so that they begin to know him and how to handle him and lose any terror which their fame and reputation may have given them. And this part [of his duties] in a Captain is most important, for he feels almost a necessity in himself which constrains him to do it, as it appears to him he would be going to a certain defeat unless by these light experiences he first removes that terror which the reputation of the enemy may have placed in their hearts. When Valerius Corvinus was sent by the Romans with the armies against the Samnites, who were new enemies, and in the past had never had a test of arms against each other, he made the Romans engage the Samnites in some skirmishes, where as Titus Livius says: Neither a new war or a new enemy should make them fear. None the less, there is a very great danger that if your soldiers are defeated in those slight battles, their fear and apprehension will increase, and that the opposite effects will ensue from what you designed, that is, you may have discouraged them where you had planned to reassure them. So that this is one of those things which has evil so near the good, and are so joined together, that it is an easy thing to adopt one [course] believing to have taken the other.

Upon this I say, that a good Captain ought to see to it with all diligence, that nothing springs up which, by some accident, can discourage his army. And that which can begin to discourage is to begin to lose, and, therefore, he should guard against small combats and not permit them unless he can engage in them with the greatest advantages and certain hope of victory: he ought............