Chapter 116: Chaos In The Army
Of course, Carlo couldn’t see the scheming among the diplomatic representatives from various countries at the banquet. As the protagonist of this wedding, Carlo had already hurriedly left halfway through the dinner, leaving Duke Primó and Grand Duke Serrano to handle entertaining the foreign guests together.
As for Carlo, he naturally went to enjoy the spring night. Archduchess Sophie, after careful dressing, looked even more beautiful and alluring. Since she had already become his wife, Carlo naturally wouldn’t hold back.
For a qualified king, the most important thing is to branch out for the royal family. Other matters, including national development, can be ranked second; only producing heirs is the most important.
Why? Because the royal family needs someone to inherit. If a succession crisis leads to the throne falling to others, even if a great foundation is built, it will ultimately be in vain.
As the king of Spain, Carlo naturally wouldn’t use any contraceptive measures. First, things like intestine sheaths are uncomfortable to use; second, the royal family currently needs to add heirs.
After a long night, Carlo woke up early the next morning. Under the maidservant’s service, he washed up and put on his clothes. After instructing the maidservant to take care of Archduchess Sophie, he left the room.
Of course, the current Archduchess Sophie had another official identity: the mistress of the Madrid Royal Palace, Carlo’s queen.
Bathing in the warm sunlight outside the room, Carlo’s mood became extremely comfortable. Nothing is more comfortable than sleeping in, especially with a very cooperative beautiful queen by his side.
“What are today’s arrangements?” Carlo turned his gaze to Butler Loren beside him and asked with a smile.
“Prime Minister Primó needs to report to you on government diplomatic issues, scheduled for 2 p.m. after lunch. In the afternoon, there is also a farewell banquet for foreign guests and nobles. So far, these are the only two things.” Hearing Carlo’s question, Butler Loren immediately replied.
As the butler of the royal palace, Butler Loren was quite busy. In addition to managing some royal family property, he also needed to liaise with Carlo and government officials to plan Carlo’s schedule.
However, generally speaking, Carlo had few things to do in a day. Most of the time was spent on banquets and meetings or the like. Otherwise, it was occasional outings for hunting or sightseeing and other leisure activities.
This couldn’t be blamed on Carlo for being idle all day. It was really that most government affairs were handled single-handedly by Prime Minister Primó. Whether reforms or national development, Carlo didn’t need to worry too much.
The current progress of reforms and national development was very smooth, so Carlo naturally wouldn’t meddle.
For Carlo, the most important thing now was still to infiltrate his influence into the Spanish Army. Only by gradually controlling Spain’s military power could he continuously solidify his power and exert influence on the government.
The matter that Prime Minister Primó wanted to report on diplomacy was actually negotiating the alliance with the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The two countries’ royal families had already formed a marriage alliance, which had created the prerequisite conditions for the alliance between the two countries. The Austro-Hungarian Empire currently urgently needed a few allies to put up a front. Besides the Germans they had been contacting, Spain was probably the most promising to ally with the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
“How are the graduates of the Military Academy doing now?” Carlo seemed to remember something and quickly asked.
The first batch of graduates from the Military Academy had already graduated smoothly for over half a year. By rights, they should all have smoothly gone to the army and started their true military careers.
However, except for the few Military Academy graduates who went to the Guard, Carlo wasn’t too clear on the current status of the others.
After all, this past half year had been spent preparing for the wedding, plus some government meetings, and he had completely forgotten about this matter in the busyness.
“It’s going quite smoothly, Your Majesty,” Butler Loren answered. “Among the more than 400 graduates of the Military Academy, except for a small portion who went to the Guard, the rest have all joined the Royal Army and been dispersed to various troops.
But because the current Royal Army doesn’t have that many officer positions, many are currently serving as deputy platoon leaders and such deputy roles. It will probably take them a long time to turn into full positions.”
Hearing Butler Loren’s answer, Carlo was stunned for a moment, then thought of the current state of the Spanish Army and nodded.
The Spanish Army was originally not large in scale, with numbers maintained around 100,If only counting the troops garrisoned on the mainland, the number was even only 70,000 to 80,
And these Military Academy graduates’ military ranks were basically around lieutenant, theoretically enough to serve as platoon leaders to company commander deputies, low-level officers.
But the existing Spanish Army didn’t have so many officer vacancies for them to take up. Being able to create some deputy platoon leader nominal positions was already quite good.
It must be known that in this era, the soldiers’ service terms were far different from posterity. Posterity’s conscripts basically only needed to serve for two years, but in this era, soldiers’ service time was generally over ten years.
But the problem arose again: the current Spanish Army’s foundation was still that Revolutionary Army, and the officers’ military level wasn’t actually that high.
If the current army’s situation wasn’t changed, not only would Carlo’s deployment at the Military Academy completely fail, but the Spanish Army’s overall combat effectiveness wouldn’t change at all.
In the end, the Spanish Army also needed a reform. This reform had to eliminate those soldiers and officers whose overall level didn’t meet the standard, streamline part of the army, and hand the vacated officer quotas to these excellent trainees graduated from formal military academies.
Thinking of this, Carlo nodded and instructed Butler Loren: “It seems this matter still needs to be discussed with Prime Minister Primó.
Move it up to lunchtime. Tell Prime Minister Primó that I’m waiting for his arrival at the royal palace.”
Time passed quickly, and Prime Minister Primó arrived at the royal palace on time, respectfully waiting in the small dining room where lunch had already been prepared.
While enjoying the delicious lunch, Carlo casually brought up the current status of the Military Academy graduates and asked Prime Minister Primó’s attitude.
Prime Minister Primó naturally knew the status of these Military Academy graduates. In fact, having these Military Academy graduates serve as temporary positions like deputy platoon leaders was proposed by Prime Minister Primó.
There was no way around it; they couldn’t let these Military Academy graduates be ordinary soldiers. But if they made them officers, there weren’t enough officer vacancies, so they could only resort to this.
“Your Majesty, what do you mean?” Prime Minister Primó raised his question, waiting for Carlo to express his ideas.
In fact, Prime Minister Primó also had ideas for army reform. But army reform was a major matter that could even affect government stability.
After all, most in this army had participated in the last revolution, and it was precisely because of these people’s support in the army that Primó and Serrano could become the two pillars of the current Spanish Government.
If they rashly moved against the army, they were very likely to lose these soldiers’ support, thereby making the greatest reliance for Prime Minister Primó to promote reforms vanish into thin air.
But the problem was that the army’s issues were already there. If left alone, it wouldn’t fit Prime Minister Primó’s style.
First was the issue of low officer levels in the army, which would greatly affect the Spanish Army’s combat effectiveness. Such an army composed of the Revolutionary Army and the Government Army that surrendered to the Revolutionary Army was too chaotic in both organization and internal factions.
“Prime Minister Primó, I think we need to promote a reform to improve the Spanish Army’s combat effectiveness.” The army’s combat effectiveness was immensely important; Spain’s strength also depended on the army’s strength.
So for Carlo, army reform had to happen, and the sooner the better.
Hearing Carlo’s words, Prime Minister Primó didn’t rush to state his position, showing a thoughtful expression on his face.
Although reform was indeed important, pros and cons had to be considered. If army reform was promoted, the biggest beneficiary would absolutely be Carlo.
Who let Carlo control the Madrid Military Academy and the Zaragoza Military Academy? Just the over 400 Military Academy graduates each year already ensured that Carlo could control most of the low-level officers in the Spanish Army.
If these low-level officers were allowed to climb up step by step, perhaps in ten years, the middle and lower levels of the army would all be under Carlo’s control.
And for an army, the most important were actually these middle and low-level officers. High-level officers’ orders also needed to be passed down to middle-level troops for execution; the army’s combat effectiveness was also determined by these low-level troops.
This was also a point Prime Minister Primó considered. If reform was promoted, it would inevitably accelerate Carlo grasping power.
Although Prime Minister Primó didn’t mind too much, would doing so affect Spain’s reform? And the possible issues after promoting military reform made Prime Minister Primó ponder involuntarily.
Carlo naturally understood what Prime Minister Primó was hesitating about. At this time, reforming the army for Prime Minister Primó was like performing surgery on himself.
If the surgery succeeded, recuperating wouldn’t affect much. But if it failed, lightly it would be infection and inflammation; heavily it could be fatal.
“Prime Minister Primó, our army’s combat effectiveness compared to Europe’s top Germany, France, and Austro-Hungarian Empire is already far behind. If our goal is to compete with these countries, I think this military reform is very necessary.
Only by comprehensively reforming the country does Spain have hope of restoring the glory of the empire on which the sun never sets. And you, as the promoter of the reform, are destined to be remembered in Spanish history and become the hero of all Spaniards.” Carlo reiterated his support for reform and hinted that he would shape Prime Minister Primó as the hero promoting Spain’s reform, trying to get Prime Minister Primó to support this army reform.
Three thousand one hundred words, first update, seeking support! One more after 2 p.m.
