Chapter 132 Military Organization Reform

Since Prime Minister Primo has already expressed his attitude, it is time for Carlo to express his opinion.

Carlo nodded, looking very agreeable: "Let's do as the Prime Minister said. Expanding the armed forces of the colonies is important, but we must not forget the development of Spain.

Also, when forming a colonial army, we must take into account the ideas of the indigenous soldiers to a certain extent. We can appropriately increase the salary and treatment of these indigenous soldiers, and distinguish them from the ordinary indigenous people in the colonies.

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

Obviously, European countries, including Spain, do not actually have enough troops to guard the colonies. The method they adopted is to maintain order in the colonies by forming an army composed of indigenous people in the colonies.

But there is also a problem with doing this, that is, the loyalty of these indigenous armies is not so reliable, and some of them may oppose or even hate the colonial countries.

In fact, the main problem is that these indigenous soldiers are also persecuted parties, and they are no different from those ordinary persecuted indigenous people.

If their treatment is slightly improved and they are given more rights than those of the natives, these native soldiers will naturally be divided from ordinary natives.

After all, it is true that the natives hate the colonists, and they also hate those native soldiers who kowtow to the colonists and take up the butcher knife against their compatriots.

As long as they get certain preferential treatment and enjoy rights that ordinary natives can't enjoy at all, ordinary natives will be malicious to them.

In fact, this strategy was submitted to Carlo's office long before Prime Minister Primo convened this meeting.

The reason why Prime Minister Primo deliberately didn't say it was naturally to leave some proposals for Carlo to say. After all, Carlo is the king of Spain, and he can't have no sense of presence at such a cabinet meeting.

It is a good thing for both Carlo and Primo to let Carlo express some opinions appropriately.

Of course, Carlo also knows the purpose of Prime Minister Primo. In other words, this may be some compromises made by Prime Minister Primo in order to let the royal family take the initiative to participate in the construction of technical schools.

Although it seems to be just a small suggestion, if the subsequent expansion of the colonial army ensures the stability of the Spanish colonies, Carlo will also get some credit for it.

Soldiers will be promoted for their merits, and officials will be promoted for their achievements. There are also certain benefits for the king to gain credit. The people under him will be more convinced of the king, and the people will have a better impression of the king.

Prime Minister Primo's proposal is to expand the colonial garrison to 20, that is, to expand the existing troops stationed in the colonies to 46,000.

Considering that most of the more than 10,000 soldiers are indigenous soldiers, it actually has little impact on Spain's finances.

After all, the salaries and specific welfare benefits of these indigenous soldiers are much worse. Colonies like Cuba and the Philippines can fully bear the expenses of the increased indigenous soldiers.

The weapons and equipment needed by these soldiers are also easy to solve. It just so happens that the Spanish native army is about to replace the latest Vitali M1872 rifles, and there are also a lot of eliminated muzzle-loading rifles. It is completely enough to select some equipment for the colonial army.

Although these muzzle-loading rifles are already backward products, it depends on who they are compared with. In addition to the local natives, the colonial army has to fight against some opposition forces within the colonies. These people basically have difficulty obtaining large quantities of advanced weapons and equipment, and muzzle-loading rifles are enough to deal with them.

Doing so can not only solve the problem of a large number of muzzle-loading rifles and ammunition stocks eliminated by the Spanish native army, but also reduce military expenditures as much as possible and reduce the impact of the expansion of the colonial army on the Spanish government.

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

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

The Spanish colonial army did expand, which was beneficial to the work of the Minister of Colonial Affairs. The expansion of the army did not affect the finances of the Spanish government, and it would not cause additional burdens for the Minister of Finance and the Finance Department.

Since we talked about the expansion of the colonial army, Carlo also asked about the progress of the reform of the Spanish native army.

Before the reform, the Spanish native army had a scale of 70,000 people. But more than 50,000 of the 70,000 troops were government troops during the reign of Queen Isabel. The quality of these soldiers was uneven. The purpose of this reform was to conduct a large-scale screening of officers and soldiers of the Spanish native army, leaving only those excellent officers and soldiers with good physical and ideological levels, and then expand the Spanish native army.

According to the military reform plan submitted by Prime Minister Prim, the 70,000-strong native army will eventually be reduced to about 50,000 to ensure that the remaining officers and soldiers are elite.

Then expand the native army, select a part of the civilian population with good physical fitness and love for the country and the royal family to join the army, and increase the number of native troops to more than 100,000.

If the size of the army after the expansion of the colonial army is added, Spain will have an army of about 150,000 after completing the military reform in the future.

Although this army size is not as large as that of the great powers such as Britain, France, Germany and Austria, it is not much different from Italy, and it is also a level with many soldiers and generals in Europe.

The wars of this era are not as crazy as those during the First World War, nor are they as large-scale as the World War.

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

If it were put in the First World War 40 or 50 years later, the total number of soldiers mobilized in a single battle might exceed one million, or even reach the level of two or three million.

The number of soldiers mobilized in the entire war even exceeded 10 million, which is unimaginable for the great powers of this era.

At present, the three great powers with the largest number of army mobilizations are Germany, France and Russia. Because of its large population, it is not difficult for Russia to arm an army of millions.

However, due to the influence of industrial production capacity and soldiers' combat capabilities, the combat effectiveness of the Russian army is not as good as that of Germany and France.

Germany and France also have large populations, and with advanced military mobilization systems, they can equip millions of troops.

But unless they are faced with a war that determines the fate of their country, countries will not be so crazy. Whenever millions of troops are mobilized, no matter what the final outcome is, it will have a profound impact on the country's industrial and economic production.

If there are a large number of casualties in the war, it will not only affect the industrial and economic production at that time, but also affect the country's future development.

After the Spanish government determined to reform the army, it never hesitated.

While promulgating the Agricultural Rent Reduction and Minimum Income Act, the military reform of the Spanish army was also in full swing.

So far, the 70,000 Spanish native troops have been officially reduced to 50,000. Most of the 20,000 troops who were dismissed have been well resettled. They will go to the Seville Industrial Base, and some will wait for the operation of the Barcelona Industrial Base.

In short, these people will get better jobs and will not live much worse than before in the army.

After learning that the Spanish army had been reduced, Carlo decided to expand the Spanish army to more than 100,000 people after discussing with Prime Minister Primo and Archduke Serrano.

However, before expanding the Spanish army, it is necessary to make certain changes to the current Spanish army organization.

Spain currently has six types of military organizations, namely line infantry regiments, light infantry battalions, cavalry regiments, engineering regiments, colonial garrison regiments and guards regiments.

In the reform of the local army, the colonial garrison regiment and the guards regiment are excluded.

This also means that only the line infantry regiment, light infantry battalion, cavalry regiment and engineering regiment need to undergo reform.

For the reform of the army, Prime Minister Primo and Serrano are both military men, so they naturally have certain ideas.

Because of the experience of the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, the line infantry is destined to withdraw from the stage of history. The Spanish line infantry regiment can be merged with the light infantry battalion and reformed into the Spanish infantry regiment.

There is nothing much to say about the cavalry, which still plays a big role at present. The cavalry regiment and the engineering regiment basically do not need much reorganization, just need to strengthen the firepower and organization.

As the Minister of Defense, Serrano gave his own plan for the reorganization of the Spanish army.

The new Spanish infantry regiment will be composed of 4 infantry battalions, 1 grenadier battalion and an artillery battalion.

Grenadiers are an ancient branch of the army, and their role can be seen from their name. With the development of weapons, the main purpose of grenadiers is no longer to throw grenades, but this organization is still retained.

At present, the grenadiers in Spain are actually more elite infantry. Although it sounds like a grenadier battalion, it is actually a smaller and more elite infantry battalion.

The previous line infantry regiment had only one artillery company as a heavy firepower reserve, and the infantry regiment under the Serrano Grand Palace plan will have an entire artillery battalion to provide firepower support.

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

This also means that an infantry regiment alone has 24 artillery pieces, which is many times more than the original line infantry regiment.

The second update of 3,000 words, I wish you all a happy National Day!