The two great influences against democracy in the past have been wealth and war. We may take the Medichi and Napoleon as illustrating these two. ... War operates by a different and more violent psychology. Fear makes men wish for a leader, and a successful general rouses the passionate admiration which is the obverse of fear. Since victory seems, at the moment, the one thing of real importance, the successful general easily persuades his country to entrust him with supreme power. So long as the crisis continues, he is judged indispensable, and when it is over he may have become very difficult to remove.
Source: Power, 1938.
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