Chapter 80 Promotion and Troop Replenishment

On the very day of Mackensen’s meeting with Morin, his promotion order, along with other division-level commands, was officially delivered to the 16th Brigade.

【By order: Army Second Lieutenant Friedrich Morin is promoted to Army First Lieutenant and is transferred to serve as Company Commander of the 1st Company, 1st Battalion, 32nd Zwickau Infantry Regiment, 16th Infantry Brigade, 8th Infantry Division, 4th Army Corps, Imperial Army. End of Order!】

The good news was that, as the company with the first sequential number, it was traditionally the main company of the battalion, and would receive preferential treatment for equipment and personnel replenishment.

The bad news was that the main company also often meant they would be assigned the first wave assault mission during an offensive, and the casualties would naturally be the heaviest…

On the same day, the remaining units of the 8th Infantry Division arrived in succession, carrying a large number of reserve soldiers designated for the 16th Brigade on multiple military trains.

The entire camp instantly became lively, filled with new faces and noisy chatter. Morin’s 1st Company also received a large number of replacement soldiers.

According to the officer responsible for the handover, the training level of these reserve soldiers was satisfactory: their drills and shooting scores were up to par.

Many soldiers had even earned the ‘Sharpshooter’s Lanyard,’ indicating excellent shooting proficiency.

Their only drawback was that they had never seen a battlefield with bullets flying, nor had they seen blood.

Of the four Company Commanders in the 1st Battalion of the 32nd Zwickau Infantry Regiment, three, including Captain Hauser, were killed in the previous fighting.

This time, in addition to Morin’s promotion to Commander of the 1st Company, the two remaining Company Commander vacancies were filled by transfers from the reserve battalions of the 8th Infantry Division training new recruits back home.

Similarly, the Platoon Leader positions, which also had an extremely high casualty rate, were filled by transfers from the reserve battalions. The three Second Lieutenant Platoon Leaders assigned to Morin’s command…

happened to be his classmates from the Central Military Academy.

Unlike Morin, who was immediately sent to the front line by General Mackensen after graduation, these three Second Lieutenants, assigned to the 8th Infantry Division, went to the reserve battalions back home.

While training new recruits, it served as a ‘tutorial level’ for them as well.

They were initially delighted to be assigned a Platoon Leader position under a main battalion, feeling it was an affirmation of their competence by their superiors.

This optimistic mood vanished without a trace when they reported for duty and were led by a messenger to stand before Morin.

“Lieutenant Morin, these are the three Platoon Leaders assigned to the 1st Company.”

The messenger leading the way saluted Morin with respect.

In addition to his combat merits, Morin was known in the 1st Battalion as being easy to get along with, treating officers and soldiers equally.

This made him very ‘popular’ in the 1st Battalion.

Therefore, the messengers from the battalion headquarters viewed Morin with the reverence one holds for an idol when they encountered him in a non-combat state.

Morin nodded to the messenger, who left the 1st Company garrison after bringing the men. The three newly promoted Second Lieutenant Platoon Leaders were left standing awkwardly in the wind.

All three were dumbfounded when they saw Morin’s familiar face. None of them had expected to see Morin again under such circumstances.

Weren’t we all classmates in the same cohort?

How did you become our superior less than a month after leaving the military academy?

They couldn’t figure out how the playboy, whom their classmates viewed as only chasing women and utterly beyond hope, could become so fierce once he was on the battlefield.

However, upon seeing the Company Sergeant Major, who was radiating a certain killer aura, standing behind Morin, the three immediately snapped back to attention, standing stiffly and saluting Morin.

“Sir, Second Lieutenant Kahn (Barrack, Lahm), reporting for duty!”

“The 1st Company welcomes your arrival. You are needed now more than ever.”

Morin returned their salute, exchanged a few pleasantries, and then asked Klaus to summon the key company personnel for a ‘face-to-face introduction.’

Finally, he instructed the Platoon Sergeants of the three platoons to take their new Platoon Leaders back—just as Captain Hauser had done previously.

Currently, Morin’s 1st Company, aside from the three transferred Platoon Leaders, had its non-commissioned officer ranks filled by veterans who had survived the street fighting in Seville.

These veterans, who had followed Morin out of the hell of street fighting, had all been promoted in rank and position.

The former Platoon Sergeant Klaus was now the Company Sergeant Major, and the non-commissioned officers like Bowman were now the Platoon Sergeants for the three platoons.

In addition, many brave soldiers had been promoted to NCO rank, taking over the positions previously held by Bowman and others…

After receiving the three ‘old classmates,’ Morin initially worried that they might not get along with veterans like Klaus and Bowman.

But the facts proved that this was entirely his overthinking.

Rookie officers who had never been on a real battlefield, no matter if they were officers or aristocrats…

Simply could not compare in presence to these veterans who had climbed out of the blood and corpses of Seville.

When his former classmates saw that even the company clerks, field kitchen, and quartermaster soldiers seemed to be radiating an ‘aura of blood,’ they all became as meek as kittens, not daring to exhale loudly.

Whatever Morin said, they listened. Their execution of orders was swift and decisive.

As for the reserve battalion soldiers assigned to the 1st Company, although they were all raw recruits with no combat experience, for Morin, new recruits had their advantages.

Their training time was not long, so their combat mindset and training patterns were not yet fixed, making it easier for Morin to train and shape them according to his own ideas.

Before the next battle, Morin hoped his company would be at least more flexible.

He didn’t want to see these young soldiers charging in line formation toward enemy machine gun nests.

The veterans who had been tested in street fighting became Morin’s most capable assistants in implementing the new training model.

Company Sergeant Major Klaus, along with the Platoon Sergeants and other NCOs, executed every one of Morin’s instructions without compromise.

Soon, the replacement soldiers in the 1st Company discovered that they were undergoing a training regimen entirely different from what they had experienced in the rear.

Because the Saxon Army had always emphasized discipline and focused on formation drills, these reserve battalion soldiers had always been trained according to the 1906 edition of the ‘Infantry Training Manual’ for formation movements.

This manual was eight years old.

And the formation drills in this version were essentially no different from the ‘1812 Regulations’ or the ‘1847 Regulations’…

In the daily training of the reserve battalion, the majority of the time was spent on these visually pleasing drills: dense formation changes, uniform marching, precise turns…

And how to perform precise line firing and initiate a charge according to the commander’s drum beats and flag signals.

But Morin directly drastically compressed these traditional training elements, retaining only the basic formation drills necessary for maintaining organization and discipline.

He eliminated the dense formation changes that were impossible to execute under enemy fire…

Aside from the regular basic formation, shooting, and bayonet training, the 1st Company soldiers practiced physical conditioning the most, especially long-distance marches with full gear.

In the traditional Saxon Imperial Army, physical training was already a significant component, and full-gear marches were not uncommon.

The primary goal of these drills was to ensure the unit’s basic marching speed and field maneuverability.

But in the 1st Company, in addition to basic physical conditioning, Morin added a large amount of more intense, battle-realistic tactical maneuver training.

Especially short-distance sprints, falling prone, and crawling—all performed at the squad (two sections) and platoon level.

These movements, etched into Morin’s mind, were broken down step-by-step by him. He had two clerks sketch the breakdown of his movements, which were then copied and distributed to the company NCOs responsible for training.

In his view, the basic military quality of the Saxon soldiers, especially their rifle shooting accuracy, was top-notch in all of Europa and could even be touted as exemplary.

But their operational thinking and formations were completely stuck in the ‘previous version.’

That style of attack—advancing in dense formations to the rhythm of drumbeats toward enemy machine gun nests—would be nothing but an extremely efficient form of suicide in future battles.

Since the Crown Prince wanted reform, Morin would start with his own company and attempt to make some changes.

Morin required the company to operate in platoons as the basic unit in combat. The three platoons were no longer to be clustered together densely as in the past but were to coordinate with each other while maintaining a certain distance.

Within each platoon, they repeatedly drilled the coordination and mutual covering between small teams.

He demanded that soldiers, during a charge, no longer prioritize uniformity but utilize all available terrain and cover to close with the enemy and eliminate them as quickly as possible.

This kind of training was extremely demanding on the soldiers’ physical fitness.

A single training session often involved continuous, intense sprints of fifty, a hundred, or even longer meters, all in full gear.

The daily intensity was aimed squarely at squeezing the last bit of energy out of the soldiers’ bodies.

And on the training ground, the company’s NCOs shouted their commands hoarsely, repeating the tactical movements over and over.

“Faster! Faster! You’re running slower than my grandmother!”

“Prone! Get your butts on the ground! Do you want to be cut in half by machine gun fire on the battlefield if you stick up too high?”

“3rd Platoon! Where is your covering fire? Why are the attacking teams already charging while you’re still maneuvering?”

(End of this Chapter)

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