Editing Decimation (punishment) (section)

==Post-classical instances==
{{more citations needed section |date=March 2025}}

=== 16th century ===
The Huguenot garrison of Brouage surrendered to Royalist forces in August 1577 during the [[French Wars of Religion]].  When the 800 survivors arrived at La Rochelle the city officials, judging their surrender to have been premature, decimated them.<ref>{{Cite book |chapter=Venice: August 1577 |title=Calendar of state papers relating to English affairs in the archives of Venice |volume=7, 1558–1580 |year=1890 |publisher=Her Majesty's Stationery Office |location=London |pages=558–564, Item 683 |chapter-url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/venice/vol7/pp558-564 |editor-last=Brown |editor-first=Randon |editor-last2=Bentinck |editor-first2=G Cavendish |via=British History Online }}</ref>

===17th century===
Von Sparr's [[cuirassier]] regiment in [[Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim]]'s corps fled the field during the 1632 [[Battle of Lützen (1632)|Battle of Lützen]] of the [[Thirty Years' War]]. The imperial commander, [[Albrecht von Wallenstein|Wallenstein]], appointed a court martial, which directed the execution of the officer in command, Colonel Hagen, together with Lt Col Hofkirchen, ten other officers and five troopers. They were beheaded with the sword, while two men found guilty of looting the baggage were sentenced to a less honourable death, by [[hanging]]. The remaining troopers were decimated, one in every ten cavalrymen being hanged; the others were assembled beneath the gallows, beaten, branded and declared outlaws. Their standards were burned by an executioner after the emperor's monogram had been cut from the fabric.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brnardic |first=Vladmir |title=Imperial armies of the Thirty Years' War |volume=2, Cavalry |url={{google books |id=2dqGAQAACAAJ |plainurl=y}} |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-84603-997-3 |page=8}}</ref>

{{cn span |text=Similarly, during the [[Battle of Breitenfeld (1642)]], near [[Leipzig]], Colonel Madlo's cavalry regiment was the first that fled without striking a blow. This was followed by the massive flight of other cavalry units, an early turning point in the battle. It ended in a decisive victory for the Swedish Army under the command of Field Marshal [[Lennart Torstenson]] over an [[Imperial Army (Holy Roman Empire)|Imperial Army]] under [[Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria]] and his deputy [[Ottavio Piccolomini]], Duke of Amalfi. |date=March 2025}}

{{cn span |text=Leopold Wilhelm assembled a court-martial in [[Prague]] which sentenced the Madlo regiment to exemplary punishment. Six regiments, which had distinguished themselves in the battle, were assembled fully armed, and surrounded Madlo's regiment, which was severely rebuked for its cowardice and misconduct, and ordered to lay down its arms at the feet of General Piccolomini. When they had obeyed this command, their ensigns (flags) were torn in pieces; and the general, having mentioned the causes of their degradation, and erased the regiment from the register of the imperial troops, pronounced the sentence that had been agreed upon in the council of war, condemning the colonel, captains and lieutenants to be beheaded, the ensigns (junior officers) to be hanged, the soldiers to be decimated and the survivors to be driven in disgrace out of the army. |date=March 2025}}

{{cn span |text=Ninety men (chosen by rolling dice) were executed at [[Rokycany]], in western [[Bohemia]], now in the Czech Republic, on December 14, 1642 by Jan Mydlář (junior), the son of [[Jan Mydlář]], the famous executioner from Prague. On the first day of the execution, the regiment's cords{{clarify|date=June 2016}} were broken by the executioner. On the second day, officers were beheaded and selected men hanged on the trees on the road from Rokycany to Litohlavy. Another version says that the soldiers were shot, and their bodies hanged from the trees. Their mass grave is said to be on the Black Mound in Rokycany, which commemorates the decimation to this day. |date=March 2025}}

===19th and 20th century===
On September 3, 1866, during the [[Battle of Curuzu]], during the [[Paraguayan War]], the Paraguayan 10th Battalion fled without firing a shot. President [[Francisco Solano López]] ordered the decimation of the battalion, which was accordingly formed into line and every tenth man shot.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=George |url={{google books |id=Tc616IzJK5QC |plainurl=y}} |title=The war in Paraguay: with a historical sketch of the country and its people and notes upon the military engineering of the war |date=1869 |publisher=Longmans, Green, and Company |pages=171–72 }}</ref>

In 1914, in France, there was a case in which a company of Tunisian ''[[tirailleurs]]'' (colonial soldiers) refused an order to attack and was ordered decimated by the divisional commander. This involved the execution of ten men.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fogarty |first=Richard |title=Race and war in France: colonial subjects in the French Army, 1914–1918 |date=2008 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-0-8018-8824-3 |lccn=2007-049546 |page=35}}</ref>

Italian general [[Luigi Cadorna]], when he was commander-in-chief of the Italian Army during the [[first world war]] used both decimation and summary executions of stragglers for units that retreated without orders or fled the field of battle. It was also used to punish offences by units when determining the ringleaders was not possible. During the war there were at least five cases of decimation, with about a dozen soldiers killed in each case.{{sfn|Statiev|2012|p=480 n. 18}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Huw |last=Strachan |year=2003 |title=The first world war |isbn= |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=London |oclc=52694792 |page= }}</ref>{{page needed |date=March 2025}} Most of the men executed by Cadorna's harsh discipline were, however, by the form of the summary executions of individual stragglers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Keegan |first=John |title=The first world war |date=1998 |publisher=Hutchinson |isbn=978-0-09-180178-6 |location=London |pages=375f }}</ref> The first well-documented incident was in May 1916, when twelve men (including an officer and three sergeants) were drawn by lot and shot for having been part of a unit that fled when under attack. The commanding officer who undertook the summary executions – which did not have to be reported up the chain of command before being executed – was commended by Cadorna.{{sfn|Wilcox|2005|pp=82–83}} The most famous instance of decimation under Cadorna's command was the killing, in two groups on 16 July 1917, of sixteen and twelve soldiers from the 6th company of the 142nd regiment of the Catanzaro brigade. The first were killed after the brigade rebelled during the night; the following twelve were killed for having fired on other Italian troops. All of the men were selected for death by lot.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Guerrini |first1=Irene |last2=Pluviano |first2=Marco |title=Discipline and military justice (Italy) |url=https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/discipline-and-military-justice-italy/#toc_the_decimations |website=International encyclopedia of the first world war |date=2014-10-08 |at=¶ The Decimations }} Guerrini & Pluviano identify at least eight cases of decimation under Cadorna's command.</ref>{{sfn|Wilcox|2005|p=92}} After the significant Italian defeat at the [[Battle of Caporetto]] in 1917, Cadorna was sacked and the new Italian commander-in-chief immediately ended the practice;{{sfn|Wilcox|2005|p=83}} this harsh discipline, exemplified by decimation, in Italian ranks was regardless ineffective at creating an effective army.{{sfn|Wilcox|2005|p=100. "Although Cadorna's regime succeeded... in keeping reluctant soldiers in line, it could not provide motivation or commitment where these were absent, and most crucially could not create offensive spirit"}}

During the [[German Revolution of 1918–1919]], 29 men from the [[Volksmarinedivision]] were executed after 300 men turned up to receive their discharge papers and back pay.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Conrad |first=Andreas |date=11 March 2019 |title=Novemberrevolution: Gedenken an Tote der März-Unruhen 1919 in Berlin |language=de |trans-title=November Revolution: Commemoration of those killed in the March 1919 riots in Berlin |work=Tagesspiegel |url=https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/gedenken-an-tote-der-marz-unruhen-1919-in-berlin-6874264.html |access-date=1 January 2024}}</ref> The Red Army also engaged in decimation during the [[Russian Civil War]]. By May 1920, [[Leon Trotsky]] had twice ordered decimation, with the killing of every tenth man in two occasions where units had retreated without orders on the Volga front.{{sfn|Statiev|2012|pp=479–80}} The practice in the Red Army ended after 1920.<ref>{{harvnb|Statiev|2012|p=482}}. A story in {{cite book |last=Beevor |first=Antony |title=Stalingrad |location=London |publisher=Viking |year=1998 |page=117 |mode=cs2}}, that an unnamed commander at Stalingrad shot every tenth man while reviewing his soldiers in single file is unsourced and "cannot be taken as a fact". {{harvnb|Statiev|2012|pp=482–83 n. 35}}.</ref>

{{cn span |text=Decimation can be also used to punish the enemy. In 1918, during the [[Finnish Civil War]], [[White Guard (Finland)|White]] troops, after conquering the [[Red Guards (Finland)|Red]] city of [[Varkaus]], [[summary execution|summarily executed]] around 80 captured Reds in what became known as the [[Lottery of Huruslahti]]. According to some accounts, the Whites ordered all the captured Reds to assemble in a single row on the ice of Lake Huruslahti, selected every tenth prisoner, and executed him on the spot. The selection was not entirely random though, as some prisoners (primarily Red leaders) were specifically selected for execution and other individuals were intentionally spared. |date=March 2025}}

During the [[Spanish Civil War]], 46 men of the Republican [[84th Mixed Brigade]] were executed by firing squad at [[Mora de Rubielos]] on 20 January 1938.{{sfn|Engel|1999|p=113}} The reason for the decimation was due to the brigade's poor performance in the harsh winter combat actions in the later stages of the [[Battle of Teruel]] and the soldiers of the brigade being branded as disloyal and untrustworthy.{{sfn|Engel|1999|p=112}}