In this way he not only wins over his soldiers but also bribes the inhabitants, surprises the enemy and contrives matters so that even his opponents acknowledge his strength of character. But all this does not suffice to hold together a free corps whose members either come from the Lumpenproletariat or are soon assimilated into it. What is needed in addition is a higher ideal.
The partisan leader must therefore have a nucleus of idées fixes , he must be a man of principle in permanent pursuit of his mission to redeem the world. By means of sermons at the front and sustained didactic propaganda he must impart a consciousness of this higher ideal to every man individually and in this way he will transform the whole troop into sons within the faith. If this higher ideal is tinged with philosophy or mysticism or anything that surpasses normal understanding, if it is something Hegelian by nature (as was the case with the ideas that General Willisen [62] tried to infuse into the Prussian army), then so much the better. For this ensures that the noble consciousness will enter into each and every partisan and the deeds of the whole corps thereby attain to a speculative consecration which exalts them far above the level of ordinary unreflecting courage and in any case the fame of such an army depends less on its achievements than on its messianic calling. The strength of a corps can only be enhanced if all the warriors are made to swear an oath that they will not survive the destruction of the cause for which they are fighting and would prefer to be massacred to the last man beneath the apple tree on the frontier while singing a hymn. Of course, such a corps and such a leader inevitably feel degraded by contact with ordinary profane soldiers and they will make every effort either to keep at a distance from the army or else to shake off the society of the uncircumcised. They hate nothing more than a large army and a large war where their cunning buttressed by spiritual faith can achieve little if the normal rules of war are disregarded. The partisan leader must then be a crusader in the full sense of the word, he must be Peter the Hermit and Walther von Habenichts [63] rolled into one. Faced with the heterogeneous elements and the informal mode of life of his corps he must always uphold virtue. He must not allow his men to drink him under the table and so he must only drink in solitude, for instance at night in bed. If it should happen to him, as it might to any fallible human being, that he find himself returning to barracks late at night after inordinate indulgence in the pleasures of this life, he will take care not to enter through the main gate, but to go round the side and climb over the wall to avoid giving offence. Feminine charms should leave him cold, but it will make a good impression if he, like Cromwell, takes his NCOs or a tailor's apprentice into his bed from time to time.
In general he cannot lead too strict and ascetic a life. Behind the cavalieri della ventura in his corps stand the cavalieri del dente [64] who live mainly from requisitions and free quarters to all of which Walther von Habenichts has to turn a blind eye so that Peter the Hermit has always to be at hand with the consolation that such unpleasant measures contribute to the salvation of the nation and so are in the interest of the victims themselves.
All the qualities that the partisan leader must possess in wartime reappear in peacetime in a modified form but one that can scarcely be regarded as an improvement. Above all else he must preserve the core of the regiment for later on and hence keep his recruiting officers in a state of constant activity. The core consisting of the remnants of the free corps and the general mob of émigrés is put into barracks either at government expense (as in Besançon) or by some other means. The consecration in the service of an ideal must not be lacking and it is provided by a barracks-communism that ascribes a higher significance to the custom of holding ordinary civic actions in contempt. As this communist barracks is no longer subject to the articles of war, but only to the moral authority and the dictates of self-sacrifice, it is inevitable that quarrels should break out over the communal funds. From these disputes moral authority does not always emerge unscathed. If there is an artisans' club anywhere in the vicinity it can be employed as a recruiting base and the artisans are given the prospect of a jolly life full of adventures in exchange for the oppressive work of the present. By pointing to the higher ethical significance of the barracks for the future of the proletariat, it is even possible to induce the club to make financial contributions. In both the barracks and the dub the sermonising and the patriarchal and gossipy style of personal relations will not fail to impress. Even in peacetime the partisan does not lose his indispensable assurance and just as in wartime every setback spurred him on to proclaim victory on the morrow, so now he is for ever expounding on the moral certainty and the philosophical inevitability with which "it" will start to happen within the next fortnight. As he must needs have an enemy and as the noble man is necessarily opposed by the ignoble ones he discovers in them a raging hostility towards himself, he imagines that they hate him merely because of his well-deserved popularity and would gladly poison him or stab him. With this in mind he resolves always to conceal a long dagger beneath his pillow. Just as the partisan leader in war will never succeed unless he assumes that the population reveres him, likewise in peace he will not indeed manage to form any lasting political groupings but he will constantly suppose them to exist and from this all sorts of strange mystifications can arise. The talent for requisitioning and obtaining free quarters appears again in the form of a cosy parasitism.
