Chapter 133: Military Organization Reform

Since Prime Minister Primo had already stated his position, it was time for Gao Da to begin expressing his own.

Gao Da nodded, looking very much in agreement: "Let's do as the Prime Minister says. Expanding the armed forces in the colonies is certainly important, but we must not forget the development of Spain itself."

"Furthermore, when forming colonial armies, we must to some extent consider the sentiments of those native soldiers. We can appropriately increase the salaries and benefits of these native soldiers, distinguishing them from the ordinary natives in the colonies."

"In this way, we can ensure that these native soldiers will be more loyal to us, rather than trying to find ways to cooperate with those natives."

Clearly, European countries, including Spain, did not actually have enough troops to garrison their colonies. The method they adopted was to maintain order in the colonies by forming armies composed of natives.

But doing so also presented a problem: the loyalty of these armies composed of natives was not that reliable, and some among them might even oppose or harbor hatred toward the colonial nation.

In fact, the main problem was that these native soldiers were also among the persecuted; they were no different from the ordinary persecuted natives.

If one were to slightly improve their treatment and grant them more rights relative to those natives, it would naturally divide these native soldiers from the ordinary natives.

After all, it is true that the natives hate the colonizers, but they would equally hate those native soldiers who grovel before the colonizers and take up butcher knives against their own compatriots.

As long as they receive certain preferential treatment and enjoy rights that ordinary natives simply cannot enjoy, the ordinary natives will harbor malice toward them.

In fact, this strategy had already been submitted to Gao Da's office long before Prime Minister Primo convened this meeting.

And the reason Prime Minister Primo deliberately did not mention it was, naturally, to leave some proposals for Gao Da to bring up. After all, Gao Da was the King of Spain; he could not attend such a cabinet meeting without having any presence at all.

Appropriately letting Gao Da express some opinions was a good thing for both Gao Da himself and Primo.

Gao Da, of course, also knew Prime Minister Primo's purpose. In other words, this might be a compromise made by Prime Minister Primo to get the royal family to actively participate in the construction of technical schools.

Although it seemed like just a small suggestion, if the subsequent expansion of the colonial army ensured the stability of the Spanish colonies, Gao Da would also gain some credit for it.

Soldiers gain credit to improve their military rank, and officials gain political achievements to be promoted. There are also certain benefits for a king gaining credit; those under him will trust the king more, and the public will have a better impression of the king.

Prime Minister Primo's proposal was to expand the colonial garrison regiments to 20, which meant expanding the existing troops stationed in the colonies to 46, 00 men.

Considering that the vast majority of the more than 10, 00 people to be added were native soldiers, it actually did not have much impact on Spain's finances.

After all, the salaries and specific welfare benefits of these native soldiers were much lower, and colonies like Cuba and the Philippines could fully afford the expenses of the increased native soldiers.

The weapons and equipment needed by these soldiers were also easy to solve. It just so happened that the Spanish domestic army was about to be re-equipped with the latest Vitali M1872 rifles, and there were quite a number of muzzle-loading rifles being phased out; selecting some to equip the colonial army was more than enough.

Although these muzzle-loading rifles were already products of the past, it depended on who they were being compared to. Aside from the local natives, the colonial army had to contend with some opposition forces within the colonies; these people could basically hardly obtain large quantities of advanced weapons and equipment, and muzzle-loading rifles were sufficient to deal with them.

Doing this could not only solve the large inventory of muzzle-loading rifles and ammunition phased out by the Spanish domestic army but also minimize military expenditures as much as possible, reducing the impact of the colonial army expansion on the Spanish government.

With Prime Minister Primo's final decision and Gao Da's approval, a unified opinion on the expansion of the colonial army was quickly reached.

The Minister of Colonial Affairs and the Minister of Finance were both very satisfied with this, as the final result was within their acceptable range.

The Spanish colonial army had indeed been expanded, which was beneficial to the work of the Minister of Colonial Affairs. And the expansion of the army did not affect the finances of the Spanish government, so it would not cause an extra burden for the Minister of Finance and the finance department.

Since the matter of colonial army expansion had been discussed, Gao Da also asked about the progress of the reform of the Spanish domestic army.

Before the reform, the Spanish domestic army had a scale of 70, 00 men. However, more than 50, 00 of these 70, 00 troops were government troops from the time of Queen Isabella; the quality of these soldiers was uneven. The purpose of this reform was to conduct a large-scale screening of the officers and soldiers of the Spanish domestic army, leaving only those excellent officers and soldiers whose physical fitness and ideological level passed, and then expand the Spanish domestic army.

According to the military reform plan submitted by Prime Minister Primo, the 70, 00-strong domestic army would eventually be reduced to about 50, 00 to ensure that the officers and soldiers remaining were elites.

Then, the domestic army would be expanded by selecting from the public some people with good physical fitness who loved the country and the royal family to join the army, raising the number of the domestic army back to over 100, 00.

If the size of the army after this colonial army expansion was added, Spain, after completing its military reform, would have an army of about 150, 00 men.

Although this army size could not compare to great powers like Britain, France, Germany, and Austria, it was not much different from Italy, and it belonged to the level of having many soldiers and generals in Europe.

Wars in this era were not as crazy as in the First World War, nor were there wars on the scale of a world war.

Like the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, which attracted the attention of most of Europe a few years ago, the total number of soldiers mobilized by both sides added up to only a little over 1 million.

If it were the First World War forty or fifty years later, the total number of soldiers dispatched in a single battle could exceed one million, or even reach the level of two or three million.

And the number of soldiers mobilized for the entire war even exceeded ten million, which was unimaginable for the great powers of this era.

Currently, the great powers with the largest number of mobilized army personnel were Germany, France, and Russia. Because of its large population, it was not difficult for Russia to arm over a million troops.

However, due to the influence of industrial production capacity and the combat capability of soldiers, the combat effectiveness of the Russian army could not compare to that of Germany and France.

Germany and France also had relatively large populations, and coupled with relatively advanced military mobilization systems, they could also arm over a million troops if they gritted their teeth.

But unless they faced a war that determined the fate of the nation, no country would be that crazy. Whenever a million troops were mobilized, regardless of the final outcome, it would have a profound impact on the country's industrial and economic production.

If heavy casualties were suffered in the war, it would not only affect the industrial and economic production at that time but also affect the future development of the country.

After the Spanish government determined to carry out military reform on the army, it never hesitated.

While enacting the agricultural rent reduction and minimum income bills, the military reform of the Spanish army was also being carried out vigorously.

As of now, the 70, 00-strong Spanish domestic army had been officially reduced to 50, 00. Most of the 20, 00 troops who were laid off had been well placed; they would go to the Seville industrial base, and some would wait for the operation of the Barcelona industrial base.

In short, these people would all get better jobs and would not live much worse than they did in the army before.

Upon learning that the Spanish army had completed its reduction, after discussing with Prime Minister Primo and Grand Duke Serrano, Gao Da decided to also launch an expansion of the Spanish domestic army, expanding the Spanish domestic army to over 100, 00 men.

However, before expanding the Spanish army, it was necessary to make certain modifications to the current organization of the Spanish army.

Spain currently had six types of military organizations: line infantry regiments, light infantry battalions, cavalry regiments, engineer regiments, colonial garrison regiments, and guard regiments.

In the reform of the domestic army, the colonial garrison regiments and guard regiments were excluded.

This also meant that only the four types—line infantry regiments, light infantry battalions, cavalry regiments, and engineer regiments—needed to undergo reform.

Regarding the reform of the army, Prime Minister Primo and Serrano were both from military backgrounds, so they naturally had certain ideas.

Because of the experience of the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, line infantry were destined to withdraw from the stage of history. Spain's line infantry regiments could be merged with light infantry battalions and reformed into Spanish infantry regiments.

There was nothing much to say about cavalry; they still had a great role at present. Cavalry regiments and engineer regiments basically did not need major reorganization, only strengthening their firepower and organization.

Regarding the reorganization of the Spanish army, Serrano, as the Minister of Defense, gave his own plan.

The new Spanish infantry regiment would have 4 infantry battalions, 1 grenadier battalion, and 1 artillery battalion under its command.

Grenadiers were a relatively ancient branch of the military, and their role could be seen from their name. With the development of weapons, the main purpose of grenadiers had long since ceased to be throwing hand grenades, but this organization was still retained.

Currently, Spain's grenadiers were actually relatively elite infantry. Although it sounded like a grenadier battalion, it was actually just an infantry battalion with fewer people and more elite soldiers.

The previous line infantry regiment only had one artillery company as a heavy firepower reserve, while under Grand Duke Serrano's plan, the infantry regiment would have an entire artillery battalion to provide fire support.

The artillery company of the original line infantry regiment only had four cannons, while the artillery battalion of the new infantry regiment had four artillery companies, and each artillery company was equipped with 6 cannons.

This also meant that a single infantry regiment alone possessed 24 cannons, which was many times more than the number of cannons in the original line infantry regiment.

The second update of three thousand words, wishing everyone a happy National Day!

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(End of chapter)