Delving into the records for the British army in Portugal in 1810-11, I look at the challenges of maintaining discipline and morale amongst the British troops during this period, and the way in which it sheds light on wider issues within the British army.
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I see this as sort of appatizer of what more to come. Again Zack White discusses a very universal problem of all armies of any time, with a focus on the Brits.
A more easy approach to amateurs, like me who have no spare time to delve into the archives it would be to read as many memoires as possible, especially of those authors who did not rise above Colonels and who started as common soldiers (French army in particular) - and there is plenty to detect.
One of my all time favourits memoire is that of the Saxon Vollborn who rises slowly through the ranks to end eventually as a captain, he well describes how in 1812 a highly disciplined army, the Saxon one, got slowly but gradually corroded in discipline just to plunder for the sake of food and how that corrupted at least some soldiers to look for more. Usually at first draconian punishments are statuated, stealing a silver spoon could cause execution, but the longer the campaign gets and the harsher the environment as well as the strife just to survive such incidents as stealing are not even mentioned any longer in the diaries.
Now have gone through I think all the podcasts on crime and punishment, and a lot of historical novels that can't pass up the subject I get they were evil yet not sure what else they could have done. What does shock me is the way over what I would think a human could take for example 300 lashes yet 1,000. I would have thought 25 to 50 would have been the limit. But as said getting a lot of information and even these over the top punishment doesn't seem to keep many from repeating offenders.