{"id":12420,"date":"2016-02-29T07:09:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T13:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=12420"},"modified":"2016-02-29T07:09:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T13:09:29","slug":"military-history-removal-of-a-tenth-a-bloody-history-of-decimation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/02\/29\/military-history-removal-of-a-tenth-a-bloody-history-of-decimation\/","title":{"rendered":"Military History: “Removal of a Tenth”, a Bloody History of Decimation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Roman\"<\/h3>\n

\u201cThe practice of decimation didn\u2019t die with the Roman Empire. Military commanders throughout history have revived the tradition from time to time as a means of punishment.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

BY ALL ACCOUNTS<\/strong>, Luigi Cadorna<\/a> was an artless and pig-headed military commander.<\/p>\n

Of all the traditions from ancient Rome field marshal Luigi Cadorna could have chosen to revive for the Italian army, he reportedly choose decimation.<\/p>\n

The 64-year old field marshal was the Italian army\u2019s chief of staff at the outset of the First World War and would go on to become the architect of some of the conflict\u2019s most futile and disastrous offensives. In 1915 alone, his ill-conceived assaults on enemy Alpine strongholds cost his nation\u00a0more than 250,000 lives. But while hopeless as a strategist, administrator and a leader of men, Cardona did excel in one area: unalloyed ruthlessness.<\/p>\n

An inflexible disciplinarian, he callously broke the careers of officers that failed to carry out his absurd orders to the letter. Enlisted men under his command were frequently put in front of firing squads\u00a0for his own incompetence on the battlefield. In fact, nearly six percent of all soldiers in the Italian army were brought up on some charge or another by the aging tyrant and more than 750 men were executed on his watch \u2014 no nation shot more of its own during the First World War than Italy. [1<\/a>] It\u2019s even been claimed (although not without some controversy<\/a>) that after a 1916 mutiny by soldiers of the 141st Catanzaro Infantry Brigade, Cadorna tore a page from history and actually ordered the unit to suffer a good old-fashioned decimation.<\/p>\n

\"Decimation\"<\/p>\n

Decimation \u2013 Murder by Tens<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n

Disgraced Roman soldiers faced lethal beatings from their own squad mates. (Image source: WikiCommons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

While the term today is generally equated with a massive defeat, the Latin word decimation actually means \u201cthe removal of a tenth\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the age of the Roman legions, army units that mutinied, fled in the face of the enemy\u00a0or under-performed in combat could be singled out for group punishment in the form of decimation.<\/p>\n

Under such a sentence, a body of troops would be divided into sections of 10 men. One soldier from each group would be chosen at random, usually through a lottery. The unlucky infantryman would then to be beaten to death by his comrades. The sentences were carried out immediately regardless of the victim\u2019s rank, reputation or even involvement in the transgression in question. The fatal blows were typically with clubs \u2014 a practice the Romans called fustuarium<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

A lethal beating in the Roman Legion was called a \u2018fustuarium\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Incidentally, individual soldiers could also suffer bludgeoning for such crimes as theft, desertion, lying to a superior or even submitting one\u2019s self to sodomy. Interestingly enough, same-sex intercourse was perfectly legal under army regulations of the day, but only for the solider who was the dominant player in the act.<\/p>\n

After a sentence of decimation was carried out, the surviving soldiers in the disgraced cohort would be forced to make camp away from the larger army. The reduced unit would have to subsist for several days on raw barley. It didn\u2019t just taste terrible, but was also very hard on the stomach and intestines.<\/p>\n

Read the Remainder at Military History Now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe practice of decimation didn\u2019t die with the Roman Empire. Military commanders throughout history have revived the tradition from time to time as a means of punishment.\u201d BY ALL ACCOUNTS, Luigi Cadorna was an artless and pig-headed military commander. Of all the traditions from ancient Rome field marshal Luigi Cadorna could have chosen to revive…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3647,475,1286,4418,1898],"tags":[4968,4969,3823,4970,4971,4972],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}