Chapter 584 Rubber and Deserters

At this time, the Austrian Empire did not default on military pay as in history, so most of the troops were fully staffed.

The weapons and food reserves in the fortress were enough to last for more than a year. In addition, since the rubber trees in the Zhenla area finally matured, the Austrian army began to fully equip rubber shoes.

Of course, this still caused opposition from some officers, and the reasons were somewhat incredible.

"Too ugly!"

A noble officer roared and threw the new M1845 military rubber shoes on the ground. This khaki "garbage" was completely inferior to his noble black leather shoes.

Another officer: "It's really not good-looking, but this thing is quite durable. And it only stipulates that soldiers must wear it. There is no unified requirement for officers. There is only one bottom line, that is, decent."

After hearing the latter's words, the former was relieved and asked: "What if those soldiers also think it's too ugly?"

In fact, this is completely a waste of worry. The shoes of this era are expensive, and generally speaking, they are neither durable nor comfortable.

Of course, there are also some shoes that are both durable and comfortable, but the price is not affordable for ordinary soldiers.

Generally speaking, these new canvas rubber shoes are durable and more comfortable than most shoes of this era. The most important thing is that they are free.

Then let's talk about the appearance. Franz has seen and worn the old yellow rubber shoes, 99-style, 07-style, and 21-style. The newer the better.

But considering the actual situation at that time, the 07-style and 21-style could not be made at all, and the old yellow rubber shoes were too low-end, so the 99-style was finally selected. However, since camouflage canvas could not be produced in this era, yellow cloth could only be used instead. This can be regarded as a kind of inheritance of yellow rubber shoes.

However, ordinary soldiers did not think it was ugly. On the contrary, because the style and color of the shoes were unified, they felt very cool.

In fact, there was no so-called standardized military shoes in this era. Countries with better conditions would at most hire a few military shoemakers to help make shoes, but most of them were handmade products with varying levels of quality and a variety of materials.

The earliest standard military shoes appeared in Prussia in 1866. On the eve of the Austro-Prussian War, the then Iron Chancellor Bismarck equipped more than 50,000 soldiers with brown cowhide boots in order to boost morale.

So the Austrian soldiers at this time were still very supportive of this standard equipment, and the logistics troops also praised the rubber tires.

The hollow rubber tires equipped by the Austrian army at this time had too many advantages over the old wooden wheels. Whether it was shock absorption, pressure resistance, wear resistance, or friction with the ground, the former completely crushed the latter.

So the Austrian troops were not only powerful in places with railway lines, but also had the best field supply capacity in Europe at this time.

The emergence of hollow tires led to a revolution in the wheel manufacturing industry of the Austrian Empire, and the wheel standards that had not been unified for thousands of years also changed at this time.

All wheels must be produced according to the tire standards, otherwise even the best wheels would be difficult to sell.

Because even if the wheels are wrapped with rubber, they are still far from the effect of hollow tires.

Let's get back to the point. According to Marshal Radetzky, with the training level and firepower of the Kingdom of Sardinia, it is impossible to conquer northern Italy with only 100,000 people.

The old man even thought that he could keep the enemy out of the country, but Franz still denied this crazy idea. After all, by then, Marshal Radetzky might not be able to deploy troops as easily as he does now.

Then Franz asked another sharp question.

"Marshal, if a war breaks out between us and the Italian nationalists, how many Italians will rebel?"

Radetzky was a little surprised, but he still thought about it seriously.

"If we follow past experience, it should be 5%-8%, usually their number is less than half of the deserters."

The old marshal joked.

In the 19th century, deserters have always been a big problem. Take Russia as an example. Even in non-wartime, the deserter rate is as high as more than 5%.

In the Mexican-American War of the same period, the deserter rate of both sides was more than 20%, and the deserter rate of some Mexican troops was as high as 35%.

Cruel wars, infectious diseases, poor treatment, and withholding of military pay may all lead to desertion. The Austrian Empire is a country with many mountains, swamps, and complex terrain.

Often, several soldiers would get together, steal weapons from the army, and flee into the mountains and swamps.

The chief officer usually would not report deserters, nor would he send troops to encircle and suppress them. He would only report the natural loss of firearms. This is also an important reason why soldiers were only given a small amount of bullets.

And these deserters usually have to survive. They are unwilling to work hard, and they do not have means of production such as land tools, so most of these people choose to become bandits.

The rampant banditry in turn affects economic development and food production. The country has no food and money to appease the army, let alone money to suppress bandits, resulting in a vicious cycle.

However, at this time, the economy of the Austrian Empire has made great progress, so military pay and food are guaranteed. Although the treatment is slightly lower than the wages of workers, it is still much better than the same period in history.

In addition, Austria has almost won every war in the wars it has participated in over the years, so the morale of the army is relatively high, and there has been no large-scale desertion.

However, the phenomenon of desertion has not been eliminated, especially when fighting jointly with the German armies, the number of deserters increased significantly.

Although Marshal Radetzky said it in a joke, Franz knew that the desertion problem would seriously plague the country in the future.

In fact, Franz has not considered solving this problem, but all he can do is solve the worries of these soldiers.

At the same time, victory and heroes are used to numb their nerves. It is not yet known how much other ideas, such as loyalty to the emperor, patriotism and religion, can play a role.

As for the military reform to improve organization, Count Latour was very talkative in this regard. After receiving the approval of Archduke Karl, the former was determined to comprehensively promote the staff system.

Franz actually planned to directly extend this staff system to the company level and use it as political commissars for future generations. However, the actual situation was that Austria simply could not produce so many qualified officers, and most of them failed to pass the political review.

In the end, we could only take a few steps back to the regiment level, but since there was no field radio, it was still difficult to achieve unified command.

During this period, Archbishop Rauscher also asked Franz whether he could use military chaplains to replace the role of staff. After all, the church was absolutely loyal to the empire.

This was immediately rejected by Franz. Although there are many chaplains in the army, these people generally do not understand military affairs and are prone to extremes. If a wave of hot-blooded soldiers were sent or surrendered, wouldn't it be a big loss? Already?

Mainly because this approach reminded Franz of the political commissar system of the Soviet Union and the Hammer in later generations. In order not to "repeat the same mistakes", he must be cautious.