ient in order to conquer.

The nations which have performed the greatest warlike achievements knew
no other discipline than that which I speak of. Amongst the ancients
none were admitted into the armies but freemen and citizens, who
differed but little from one another, and were accustomed to treat
each other as equals. In this respect it may be said that the armies
of antiquity were democratic, although they came out of the bosom
of aristocracy; the consequence was that in those armies a sort of
fraternal familiarity prevailed between the officers and the men.
Plutarch's lives of great commanders furnish convincing instances of the
fact: the soldiers were in the constant habit of freely addressing their
general, and the general listened to and answered whatever the soldiers
had to say: they were kept in order by language and by example, far
more than by constraint or punishment; the general was as much their
companion as their chief. I know not whether the soldiers of Greece and
Rome ever carried the minutiae of military discipline to the same
degree of perfection as the Russians have done; but this did not prevent
Alexander from conquering Asia--and Rome, the world.

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. *a 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