Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/483

1885.] it would be, could we in our advanced civilisation carry on our warfare in this innocent way, and take each other prisoners with polite regret, only to let each other go to-morrow! Such a process would rob war of all fears; and if in certain eventualities it were understood that one party must accept defeat, how delightful to secure all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war at so easy a cost! There is indeed a great deal to be said in favour of this way of fighting.

This great success was, however, the beginning of Carmagnola's evil fortune. It is said that he might, had he followed up his victory, have pushed on to the walls of Milan and driven Philip from his duchy. But no doubt this would have been against the thrifty practices of the condottieri, and the usages of war. He returned to his headquarters after the fight without any pursuit, and all the prisoners were set free. This curious custom would seem to have been unknown to the Venetian commissioners, and struck them with astonishment. In the morning, after the din and commotion of the battle was over, they came open-mouthed to the general's tent with their complaint. The prisoners had in great part been discharged. Was Carmagnola aware of it? "What then," cried those lay critics, with much reason, "was the use of war? When all that was done was to prolong it endlessly – the fighting men escaping without a wound, the prisoners going back to their old quarters in peace?" Carmagnola, ever proud, would seem to have made them no reply; but when they were gone he sent to inquire what had been done with the prisoners, as if this unimportant detail was unknown to him. He was answered that almost all had been set free on the spot,

but that about four hundred still remained in the camp – their captors probably hoping for ransom. "Since their comrades have had so much good fortune," said Carmagnola, "by the kindness of my men, I desire that the others should be released by mine, according to the custom of war." Thus the haughty general proved how much regard he paid to the remonstrances of his civilian masters. "From this," says Sabellico, "there arose great suspicion in the minds of the Venetians. And there are many who believe that it was the chief occasion of his death." But no hint was given of these suspicions at the time; and as Carmagnola's bloodless victory deeply impressed the surrounding countries, brought all the smaller fortresses and castles to submission, and working with other misfortunes, brought Philip again with the ever-convenient legate to ask for peace, the general returned with glory to Venice, and was received apparently with honour and delight. But the little rift within the lute was never slow of appearing, and the jealous Signoria, fêted many a man whom they suspected, and for whom, under their smiles and plaudits, they were already concocting trouble. The curious "usage of war," thus discovered by the Venetian envoys, is frankly accounted for by a historian, who had himself been in his day a condottiero, as arising from the fear the soldiers had, if the war finished quickly, that the people might cry, "Soldiers, to the spade!"

A curious evidence of how human expedients are lost and come round into use again by means of that whirligig of time which makes so many revolutions, is to be found in Carmagnola's invention for the defence of his camp, of a double line of the country carts which