18th century total war

Chapter 420 The Punishment Battalion

The sharp whistle sounded again, and the officer with the pistol put his foot on the non-commissioned officer beside Alexei, and shouted sharply: "Attack!
Everyone rush forward for me, otherwise I will kill you all! "

The officers of the punishment battalion were not deserters who made mistakes, but officers from other troops. They had the power to kill or kill the soldiers who made mistakes in the punishment battalion.

By the same token, on the battlefield, these officers do not need to lead the charge, as long as they point their guns at the soldiers behind and charge.

However, even so, most officers are unwilling to serve in the punishment battalion. After all, everyone knows that the punishment battalion needs to go to the front line in person. When encountering a big battle, they even have to go to the front line continuously and fight desperately on the line of fire!

Bullets have no eyes on the battlefield, and even the relatively rearward supervisory officer of the punishment battalion is risking his life.

This naturally made these punishment battalion officers develop a hostility.

Even if they come to the punishment camp, they can automatically be promoted to a higher rank, and they can make double meritorious service on the battlefield, so they don't have to worry about the negative impact of casualties of soldiers under their command...

Even if none of the soldiers under the command of the officers of the punishment battalion died, the officers could avoid being punished as long as they gave reasonable reasons.

Put it in other troops, all the soldiers under your hands are dead, but you yourself live well, at least you have to go to the military court...

In addition, because there are not many officers in the punishment battalion, the officers at the company platoon level are temporarily served by non-commissioned officers. Naturally, non-commissioned officers made mistakes and were punished.

The officer of the punishment battalion, the minimum is the battalion commander, and there is no such thing as a deputy!
Moreover, the soldiers under the command of the officers of the punishment battalion are all large-scale, and there are very few situations where there is a lack of formation. After a battle is over, the various formations in the punishment battalion will either be fully supplemented, or the incomplete formations will be combined.

There are even occasional overscaling.

As a matter of course, the separation between the officers and subordinates of the punishment battalion made it easy for soldiers to beat officers with black guns on the battlefield.

In order to put an end to this phenomenon, there is a clear regulation in the punishment battalion that if an officer dies in battle, all the soldiers and non-commissioned officers under his command will be killed by eleven blows, and the rest will serve as the vanguard of the punishment battalion in the next battle!

The punishment battalion is not a battalion-level establishment, but a temporary large-scale formation.

After all, deserters on the battlefield and soldiers who violated military laws have never been a minority, not to mention that the advance legion itself is composed of supplementary soldiers and local garrison troops.

The supplementary soldiers come from the reserve militia system of the Europa Empire. The local garrison is almost the armed police of later generations, and its military discipline is far inferior to that of the imperial guards...

Alexei looked at the battalion commander who was blowing his whistle while punching and kicking the prostrate soldiers, grabbed his spear and rushed out of the ditch where he was with a face full of grief and indignation.

Although the officers in the punishment camp were lonely, those who could serve as officials in the punishment camp were not fools.

Even if there are military laws to restrain the soldiers under his command to retaliate, what if there is a stunned young man who is not afraid of death?
Therefore, the officers in the punishment camp will select a group of "confidants" among the soldiers and non-commissioned officers under their command to serve as their own bodyguards.

In this way, the task of supervising the battle does not need to be performed by him alone, and the object of hatred of the soldiers in the punishment battalion can also be distributed to the officers' personal guards.

Being able to become the confidant guards of the punishment battalion officers means that they can have a group of cannon fodder in front of them to attract firepower, and their survival rate on the battlefield is greatly increased, so they are naturally very happy.

It was the existence of the pro-guards that made the soldiers of the punishment battalion like Alexei unable to resist. Facing the beating and urging of the violent officer, they could only bite the bullet and charge.

Beside the officer who made the move, there were more than a dozen guards with live ammunition, pointing their guns at them!

The comrade-in-arms in the punishment camp is the weakest, and most of the reason comes from this wonderful officer-soldier system.

Of course, the disciplinary battalion is a temporary establishment of a punitive nature, and it will be disarmed immediately after the war ends, and there will be a lot of personnel turnover during the war.

Soldiers of the punishment battalion who have accumulated enough meritorious service and successfully applied for review can return to the current troop sequence.

Because the punishment battalion has been acting as vanguard cannon fodder, the casualties are very high, and there has been 'fresh blood' flowing in!
This has resulted in the phenomenon of punitive battalions battling with iron.

In this kind of organization, it is really difficult to establish a solid comrade-in-arms.

Not to mention, the officers in the punishment battalion were all unkind, as if every living soldier in the punishment battalion was just a stepping stone to accumulate military merits in their eyes.

As long as the task can be completed, life and death are ignored!

As soon as Alexei rushed out of the temporary trench, he heard a series of rattling sounds, and the hand-cranked Gatling on the opposite side sprayed bullets, causing the soldiers of the punishment battalion who had just launched the charge to fall down a large area.

Including Alexei!

Of course, Alexei didn't fall because he was shot...

"Damn it!
Anyone who pretends to be dead at this time will be shot immediately after the war, and his family will be harmed! "

The officers at the back, seeing all the soldiers under their command being 'knocked down' by a round of fire, how could they not know what the soldiers were thinking, they couldn't help jumping into a rage, and shouted at the top of their voices.

The guard soldiers around shouted together, so that the soldiers in front could hear.

The voice of more than a dozen people shouting together was quite loud, at least Alexei, who had rushed not too far away, heard the threats.

And he is very clear that this is not a threat, if he keeps lying here, he will really be liquidated afterwards.

Deserters gathered in the punishment camp itself, and the punishment for passive avoidance of war was very severe.

If it were an ordinary army, it might not be so bad to pretend to be dead in battle to avoid bullets, but in the war zone that the punishment battalion is in charge of, there will be people from the gendarmerie responsible for checking after each battle, and the officers of the punishment battalion will also follow the inventory, which is very difficult. escaped.

If the punishment battalion failed to complete the mission due to passive avoidance of war, the punishment battalion officer whose interests were damaged would even report all the soldiers who participated in the attack.

At that time, it will not be the eleventh slaughter, but all the staff will be shot, and the rear will be notified, and the family members will be punished to a certain extent.

Punishments include, but are not limited to, prohibiting soldiers’ descendants and relatives from participating in various government civil service examinations, being blacklisted by all official institutions, fines, and so on.

Although the Europa Empire does not have the Internet and big data, and is unable to establish a complete personal reputation scoring system, it is still possible for the relevant government departments to enumerate a blacklist of dishonesty.

You know, the Wallace Business Alliance, which controls the business economy, is also a half-official business organization!

Including all large and medium-sized private enterprises!
Once you are included in this kind of dishonest blacklist, you basically don't even think about finding a job in these well-paid large and medium-sized private companies...

This punishment is very harmful to ordinary families.

Of course, this is just one of them.

Under the rule of the wise and mighty tyrant Li Wei, the entire Europa Empire was in a high-pressure political environment.

In terms of public opinion, all the reading materials available to the public are praising the entire empire. If you only read text messages, everyone will regard the Europa Empire as a harmonious society where everyone is equal and free, no different from heaven.

In society, the Europa Empire adheres to the strategy of heavy punishment and light reward.

Heavy penalties are to increase people's crime costs, while light rewards are to reduce the country's financial burden.

For example, if you find an expensive cultural relic, if you turn it over to the country, you can get a pennant and a bonus of ten yuan...

Well, this is a light reward!
Honor is definitely enough, but if you want money, forget it.

what?
You said that you want to keep cultural relics privately and not turn them in?
Come on, it's a mortal sin!
According to the value of cultural relics, the highest sentence can be directly sentenced to death!

Unless you hide the cultural relics and never take them out for the rest of your life, as long as you take them out, this thing is not a hard currency like gold, and it is impossible to erase all the traces.

At that time, the big person who got the cultural relic may be fine, but if you are found on top of a small person, basically the whole family will not want to end well!
The price of smuggling cultural relics is not something ordinary families can bear. It is better to exchange for a pennant of honor and some bonuses that are better than nothing.

At least, there is a pennant of honor, which is useful in some ways.

This is the political environment of the Europa Empire!
It can be said that without the suppression of the imperial guards, in the political environment of the Europa Empire, where heavy punishments are light and rewards low, it would be impossible for the country to live in peace and the people's dissatisfaction would have erupted long ago.

Of course, there is another huge factor in the internal stability of the Europa Empire, which is the ability to export a large number of poor people who cannot survive.

The colonial area of ​​the Europa Empire today is larger than that of the British Empire.

Large areas of North African and South African colonies, America except North America, are all colonies of the Europa Empire, and even North America has a Mexican colonial governor, occupying nearly a quarter of North America!

These lands are all sparsely populated, and some places require manpower, so they can no longer survive in the Europa Empire, and they can completely cross the ocean.

It just so happens that these colonies lack labor, especially in mining areas with a high death rate!

Those mine bosses are even willing to advance the shipping fare in advance, and wantonly deceive the poor who can't survive to cross the ocean and work hard for them.

It is precisely because the Europa Empire has such a huge flood outlet, coupled with the firm suppression of the absolutely loyal imperial guards in the country, that ensures that the Europa Empire is as stable as Mount Tai under the rule of the tyrant.

Facts have proved that the stability of a country does not depend on whether the monarch is wise and benevolent, but depends on the specific national conditions of the country.

To put it simply, as long as people do not starve to death on a large scale, and there is no threat of powerful foreign enemies, the monarchy and bureaucratic class in this country are not stupider than pigs, and they will not destroy the country.

Throughout the ages, the reasons for the subjugation of the country are nothing more than two.

People can't eat, or foreign enemies invade.

Those darlings of the era who are remembered by history are just taking advantage of the trend to rise.

The times make heroes, but where can heroes come from without the times?

If he was born in a peaceful age of singing and dancing, Zhu Yuanzhang would probably starve to death as a beggar!
In the same way, if in Li Wei's previous life in the history of the world, Germany had not suffered from an economic crisis, socially, Mark was not as good as paper, and the mustache and mustache had great skills, he would just be a failure in art.

The rattling sound was intermittent, giving Alexei and other punishment battalion soldiers a chance to charge forward.

The intensive charge has not been eliminated on the North American battlefield, but the queuing and shooting tactics of going forward have been completely abandoned.

The troops of the Europa Empire had long abandoned the queuing and shooting tactic, while the American puppet army had to use bloody lessons to eliminate their familiar queuing and shooting tactic.

Fortunately, most of the battles of the American puppet army were in a defensive state, otherwise they would have been killed by Maxim of the advance legion of the Europa Empire.

War is the best catalyst for military change.

The task of Alexei's unit was to capture the few residential houses in front. It was such a seemingly simple task that Ariake's battalion suffered over a hundred casualties in just over half an hour of fighting!
Among them, more than a dozen people were shot dead by their own officials and their guards...

There is no way, the soldiers in the punishment battalion cannot have any morale. To put it bluntly, they are criminals in essence, their lives are not cherished, and they hate the officers so much that it is not easy to launch an attack.

How could it be possible to forge ahead?

Therefore, the officers of the punishment battalion, every time before the start of the battle, they have to come to kill chickens and monkeys, some of them are on the battlefield, and some of them are offering flags before the start of the battle...

Compared with other troops, the environment of the punishment battalion is simply two extremes!
What Alexei didn't know was that the resoluteness of the punishment battalion on the North American battlefield had a lot to do with the order of Karl, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the North American Expeditionary Force.

Karl ordered that no soldier in the punishment camp could return alive, which naturally made the living environment of the punishment camp extremely bad.

Under the suppression of the machine gun, soldiers who jumped up and charged were killed from time to time until there was a sound of jamming.

Hearing this familiar voice, Alexei showed ecstasy, got up and squatted on the ground, and raised his gun to aim at the anxious American puppet soldiers behind the hand-cranked Gatling.

In the past, it would have been very dangerous for him to aim like this, but without the suppression of machine gun fire, Alexei was not the only one standing up and aiming on the battlefield.

After a burst of gunfire, there was no one standing next to the hand-cranked Gatling.

The surviving soldiers of the punishment battalion rushed up excitedly, followed by an officer who didn't treat them as human beings. If they dared to be lazy at this time, they would be taken away by the gendarmerie and killed!
As a deserter in the punishment camp, there is no chance of redemption again!
Even if you were blown out halfway and failed to participate in the charge, you will be executed as a deserter who passively avoids the battle afterwards.

This is an inhuman punishment camp!
Fortunately, after the American puppet army on the opposite side realized that their machine guns could not fire, their low morale suddenly drained.

Alexei turned his back to the sky and said with emotion: "I'm alive again!"

(End of this chapter)