Orders and the ability of people to follow them is what distinguishes professional militaries
from the rabble of an armed mob.
Disobeying orders cuts at the very foundation of military discipline and can have disastrous
consequences beyond just the damage caused by an individual person.
But what happens when a soldier disobeys an order?
Some examples of insubordination worked out, such as when Admiral Nelson disobeyed orders
of naval doctrine to win the decisive battle of Trafalgar.
However, disobeying orders by individuals can also turn out very badly such as when
several Marines in Afghanistan desecrated the corpses of dead Taliban fighters and severely
damaged the US image in the region.
Disobeying an order can take a wide form of acts but can broadly be interpreted as breaking
some sort of military law or regulation or failing to carry out an action.
Some common examples of disobeying orders could be as trivial as failing to have a proper
uniform or being late to an appointed place of duty.
Disobedience can then go as severe as breaking lawful orders to not disturb civilian property,
to cowardice before the enemy and desertion.
All of the rules and regulations that troops must follow are usually codified in law such
as in the United States under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.
Punishments today for failure to obey orders pale in comparison to what was handed down
in the past depending on the country, era, and conflict.
While in the US military today, troops might face at worst-case scenario fines, some jail
time, and a less than honorable discharge, that was not always the case.
Rather, military justice in the past, even in the US military, was largely focused on
both corporal and collective punishment to mete out those who disobeyed orders and discourage
others from doing the same.
To get an idea of where military justice comes from, one must look back into ancient times
at one of the most successful and well-documented militaries: the Roman military.
The Roman military fought and won battles across three continents and against dozens
of enemies often to their numerical disadvantage.
To maintain order and discipline, the Roman army, both during the Republic and Empire,
would often issue death sentences for those who disobeyed orders.
Though not the most common sentence, the most well-documented punishment for disobeying
orders for entire units, usually in battle, was the decimation.
Coming from the latin word to remove a tenth, it was the ultimate punishment to render to
units who failed to perform satisfactorily to a commander’s orders.
Though carried out sparingly through the 800 years of Roman history, its impact was well-noted.
If a unit was selected for decimation, the entire unit would be separated into ten-man
groups and each man would draw lots.
The one unlucky enough to be chosen would be beaten to death by the other nine men in
his group and the rest would be forced to live outside the protection of the camp for
an undetermined amount of time until the commander decided that they could rejoin the rest of
the army.
Probably the most well-known, though hotly debated and probably fictional, story of decimation
was that of the Theban Legion in 265 AD.
The Theban Legion was commanded by a man named Mauritius and was recruited primarily from
amongst the Coptic Christians in Egypt.
It was during this time that Roman authorities were really trying to crack down on Christians
in the empire and the idea of having Christians in the ranks displeased the emperor.
Despite their doubts of the loyalty of the legion, the Romans sent them to Gaul to quell
an uprising.
After a successful campaign, the men were ordered to take part in a ritual to the Roman
Emperor Maximian honoring him as a god.
The Christian men refused to do so and were then ordered to be decimated.
After the first decimation, the men were resolute in their belief not to partake and were decimated
again and again until the entire unit had killed itself.
Then, those not present at the battle but who had been guarding other posts along the
way were summarily executed by the Romans.
Though this is the most fantastical story of decimation, there were multiple, verified
occurrences of the practice such as during the war on Spartacus, the infamous slave rebellion
the TV show was based on, where several hundred men were killed.
There were also several occurrences in the late Roman Republic but the practice seems
to have died off by the time the Roman Empire came around, which casts even more doubt on
the story of the Theban Legion.
From the fall of the Roman empire until the mid-1800s, the majority of the world’s militaries
would rely on corporal punishment for soldiers and sailors to keep them in line.
One of the best examples of pre-modern militaries was that of the Russian army.
After the ascension of Peter the Great to power, he wanted to transform the Russian
military into a respectable and feared force on par with any from Western Europe.
To do so, he would implement traditions that would become the backbone of Russian military
discipline for years to come.
For offenses as minor as losing one’s flint for a musket, beatings and whippings were
authorized.
It was also up to the most senior officer closest to the soldier to order the punishment
so there would be a wide variety in punishments and there was no uniformity.
As a last resort, Russian officers could even condemn a man to exile in Siberia, being forced
out of the army with only the clothes on his back.
This kind of crude treatment was also seen in both the British and later American militaries
of the time.
Starting in the British army and then being used by colonial troops in America, a common
method of military punishment was called riding the mule.
The mule in this case was not your favorite farm animal but rather a wooden device shaped
to look like a mule that a man was forced to sit on.
Upon the conclusion of a court-martial, a man could be forced to sit on the mule for
hours or even days at a time.
To make the suffering even worse, weights or sometimes muskets were tied to the feet
of the prisoner to keep him squarely on the mule.
Though the tip was usually rounded or blunted off, the prisoner would still face a considerable
amount of pain.
Another common method in the British and American militaries to punish those who disobeyed orders
was to have their wrist tied to a high pole and then be allowed to support themselves
with just one foot on a sharpened stake.
What makes this punishment so brutal was the fact that in order to prevent the spike from
cutting into their foot, the condemned would have to support all their weight on their
wrist which would cause them immense pain.
Because of the great amount of pain this would cause and the potential for permanent bodily
injury, this punishment, unlike riding the mule, would only be carried out in fifteen
minute increments.
Despite these two methods being primarily army methods of punishment, that does not
mean the British and American navies did not have their own means of punishing those who
disobeyed orders.
From the beginning of the Continental Navy until the mid-1850s, flogging was the most
common way sailors were disciplined when underway.
Once the accused was whipped, he would then be sent back to work with no period of confinement.
Navy commanders did not like the idea of confinement underway since it would only make the workload
on those who followed the rules greater and corporal punishment was seen as a way to hold
people accountable without making those who followed the rules suffered.
It was during this time that the Navy decided to use a more progressive form of punishments
for Sailors by incorporating fines, confinement, reduction in rank, and dishonorable discharges
as a way to retain only professional Sailors.
Though the days of corporal punishment are long over, some hold outs from this period
continued in US Navy tradition until as recently as 2018, such as the punishment of only eating
bread and water for minor offenses for three days at a time.
Additionally, in the Navy going to non-judicial punishment is still called Captain’s Mast
in reference to the days of sail where Sailors were tied to a mast and whipped.
The legacy of more progressive punishments beyond corporal punishment and execution continued
into the American Civil War.
Especially during the early months of the war, desertion was common and practically
unpunished.
It was not until August of 1862 that the first deserters would be executed, but this punishment
would only be carried out sparingly by both sides throughout the war with death sentences
usually only carried out against serial offenders.
Rather, both North and South adopted alternative punishments to death sentences, especially
as the war dragged on and they needed all the manpower they could get.
For disobeying orders, soldiers could have brands put on their bodies like D for deserter,
be forced to sit on the mule, be confined in prison, forfeit their pay, and lose leave.
Though losing leave might not seem like a big deal to someone who had been through countless
battles and possibly been away from home for years, not having time to spend with loved
ones would have been quite a blow.
After the Civil War, Western militaries kept death sentences on the books for crimes like
treason, cowardice, and desertion, but these were rarely, if ever, carried out.
Rather, the British military created a new, codified military justice regulation manual
in the 1880s that gave legal definitions of military crimes and the recommended punishments
for commanders to follow.
Among the most famous of these was Field Punishment Number One and it would be carried out over
sixty thousand times during the First World War.
Field Punishment Number One was seen as the worst punishment a man could get besides being
executed.
Meted out for a variety of infractions like refusing to advance, unauthorized retreating,
and cowardice before the enemy, it was a frightening experience.
Depending on the circumstances of the case, a man could be strapped to a pole in the open
for days, weeks, or even months, as in the case of some conscientious objectors who refused
to fight.
During this time, the men would be exposed to enemy fire and the elements all while in
a stress position that would not allow them to rest comfortably while on the pole.
The punishment would usually be carried out for only a certain number of hours each day
so as to allow the men time to eat, rest, use the bathroom, and then go at it again
the next day.
Though this was incredibly cruel, it paled in comparison to the most extreme punishments
given by some of the other warring nations.
Italy and Austro-Hungary were two of the major powers in the First World War though they
get little mention in Western memory.
That might be for good reason since there are some facts that the leadership of these
countries might want to forget.
Harkening back to the days of Imperial Rome, Supreme Italian Commander Luigi Cardona brought
back the Roman use of decimation starting in 1916.
During his many fruitless assaults on the Isonzo Front (pronounced I-SAWN-ZO), troop
morale was low due to high casualties and nothing to show for it.
One unit of the Italian army, the 141st Catanzaro Infantry Brigade, refused to participate anymore
in the senseless slaughter and had to be forced at gunpoint to go to the front.
Cardona was so infuriated at the incident that he ordered a decimation of the most guilty
company and ten men were selected at random and shot.
Though Italy was not the only country to carry out a decimation, since France did so in 1914
of a company that had retreated in battle, it was most notable due to the fact that Cardona
wanted this to be a mainstream policy since he viewed the average Italian soldier as just
a brute that could only be dealt with by force.
Austro-Hungary was also a very guilty party for carrying out death sentences.
Though outranked by Italy, Britain, and France as far as number of death sentences issued,
Austro-Hungary executed 98% of those condemned.
This appalling figure is in spite of the countless extrajudicial executions for offenses like
cowardice that occurred in the field without official records.
Despite the horrors of World War One, some militaries would continue and even expand
punishments for those who could not follow orders, with the new Red Army being the most
notable example.
Though the committee that formed after the February 1917 revolution outlawed flogging
of troops, as was common during the war, in the ensuing Civil War and years after the
Red Army adopted even more draconian tactics.
Harkening back to the days of the tsars, generals and admirals in the Soviet military relied
upon a secret police force to infiltrate the ranks and report any behavior not conforming
to military discipline or communist ideals.
Those unlucky enough to be reported by the police would often be interrogated under torture
to admit their crimes.
These coerced confessions could then be used against them to send them to labor camps in
Siberia if they were lucky, or to their deaths if not.
These punishments were routinely carried out throughout the Russian Civil War and reached
a crescendo during the Great Purges of the 1930s.
Once World War Two started, only those troops serving the Soviet Union and Germany faced
the most severe punishments for disobeying orders.
Both countries had what were called penal battalions.
These were organizations of men who had either been convicted for any number of crimes in
military court or who might have been civilian prisoners.
Either way, both sides used these units as a deterrent against disorder in the ranks
since they were often given the most dangerous and least survivable missions.
Even if one was lucky enough to survive the hell that was the Eastern Front, if you were
a Russian soldier, that did not mean you were out of the woods yet.
Issued in the summer of 1942, Stalin’s famous General Order No. 227 became a show of just
how desperate the situation had become.
The order created blocking detachments of troops that were ordered to shoot down all
those withdrawing without orders.
It also made surrendering to the enemy a crime and for many Soviet prisoners of war their
liberation from the hands of the Germans were not joyous.
Because this order made it a crime to surrender to the Germans, hundreds of thousands of ex-Soviet
POWs found themselves transferred from a concentration camp to a GULAG after being liberated for
betraying their Motherland.
From Roman times through the end of the Second World War, professional militaries sought
a variety of cruel and inhumane means of disciplining those who could not conform.
From corporal punishment through the liberal use of the death penalty, the punishments
for disobedience in the military varied wildly depending on the country and the conflict.
Despite this wide disparity in punishments, the one commonality is that at least today
those in professional militaries across the world who are accused of crimes against military
rules and regulations are afforded due process of law and appropriate punishments.
Though units will never be decimated anymore, militaries do desire to hold people who disobey
accountable and to avoid having to resort to the methods of the past; those who show
a track record of rule breaking are simply kicked out.