THE
BRAIN OF AN ARMY
A POPULAR ACCOUNT
OF THE
GERMAN GENERAL STAFF
BY
SPENSER WILKINSON
NEW EDITION
WITH LETTERS FROM
COUNT MOLTKE AND LORD ROBERTS
WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE
& CO 1895
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
_THE COMMAND OF THE SEA_
_THE BRAIN OF A NAVY_
_THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE_
_and in conjunction with_
SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, BART.
_IMPERIAL DEFENCE_
[Transcriber's note: the errata items below have been applied to this
text.]
ERRATA.
page 9, line 6 for _have_ read _has_
page 10, line 21, for _occasion_ read _occasions_
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
Six years ago a Royal Commission, under the presidency of Lord
Hartington, was known to be inquiring into the administration of the
national defence. There was much talk in the newspapers about the
Prussian staff, and many were the advocates of its imitation in this
country. Very few of those who took part in the discussions seemed to
know what the Prussian staff was, and I thought it might be useful to
the Royal Commission and to the public to have a true account of that
institution, written in plain English, so that any one could understand
it. The essay was published on the 11th of February, 1890, the day on
which the Report of Lord Hartington's Commission was signed.
The essential feature of the Prussian staff system consists in the
classification of duties out of which it has arisen. Every general in
the field requires a number of assistants, collectively forming his
staff, to relieve him of matters of detail, to act as his confidential
secretaries, and to represent him at places where he cannot be himself.
The duties of command are so multifarious that some consistent
distribution of functions among the officers of a large staff is
indispensable. In Prussia this distribution is based on a thoroughly
rational and practical principle. The general's work is subdivided
into classes, according as it is concerned with administration and
discipline or with the direction of the operations against the enemy.
All that belongs to administration and discipline is put upon one side
of a dividing line, and upon the other side all that directly affects
the preparation for or the management of the fighting--in technical
language, all that falls within the domain of strategy and tactics.
The officers entrusted with the personal assistance of the general in
this latter group of duties are in Prussia called his "general staff."
They are specially trained in the art of conducting operations against
an enemy, that is in the specific function of generalship, which has
thus in the Prussian army received more systematic attention than in
any other. In the British army the assistants of a general are also
grouped into classes for the performance of specific functions in his
relief. But the grouping of duties is accidental, and follows no
principle. It has arisen by chance, and been stereotyped by usage.
The officers of a staff belong to the adjutant-general's branch or to
the quartermaster-general's branch, but no rational criterion exists by
which to discover whether a particular function falls to one branch or
to the other. That this is an evil is evident, because it is manifest
that there can be no scientific training for a group of duties which
have no inherent affinity with one another. The evil has long been
felt, for the attempt has been made to remedy it by amalgamating the
two branches in order to sever them again upon a rational plane of
cleavage.
But while the essence of the Prussian general staff lies deeply
embedded in the organization of the Prussian army, the interest of the
general public has been attracted by the fact that the great strategist
to whom the victories of 1866 and 1870 are ascribed was not the
commander of the Prussian army, but merely the chief of the general
staff of a royal commander-in-chief. It may well be doubted whether
this feature of the Prussian system is suitable for imitation
elsewhere. The Germans themselves evidently regard it as accidental
rather than essential, for in organizing their navy they have, after
much experiment and deliberation, adopted a different plan. They have
appointed their chosen admiral to be, not chief of the staff to an
Emperor who in war, as he takes the field with the army, cannot
undertake the command of the navy, but to be "the commanding admiral."
I refrained in the first edition of this essay from drawing from the
German institution which it describes a moral to be applied to the
British army, and was content with a warning against overhasty
imitation. At that time the nature of the relation between Moltke and
the King was still to some extent veiled in official language, and
nothing so far as I am aware had been published which allowed the facts
to rest upon well authenticated, direct evidence as distinguished from
inference. Since then the posthumous publication of Moltke's private
correspondence,[1] and of the first instalment of his military
correspondence,[2] has thrown a flood of light upon the whole subject.
I had the good fortune to be furnished with an earlier clue. As soon
as my essay was ready for the press I ventured to send a proof to Count
Moltke, with a request that he would allow me in a dedication to couple
his name with studies of which his work had been the subject. He was
good enough to reply in a letter of which the following is a
translation:--
BERLIN, January 20, 1890.
DEAR SIR,--
I have read your essay on the German general staff with great interest.
I am glad that on p. 63 you dispose of the ever-recurring legend
according to which before every important decision a council of war is
assembled. I can assure you that in 1866 and in 1870-71 a council of
war was never called.
If the commander after consultation with his authorized adviser feels
the need of asking others what he ought to do, the command is in weak
hands.
If King William I. ever really used the expression attributed to him on
p. 58, he did himself a great injustice. The king judged the
perpetually changing military situation with an uncommonly clear eye.
He was much more than "a great strategist." It was he who took upon
himself an immeasurable responsibility, and for the conduct of an army
character weighs more than knowledge and science. I think your
excellent work would lose nothing if that passage were omitted.
You touch on p. 112[3] upon the relation between the commander and the
statesman. Neither of the two can set up for himself in advance a goal
to be certainly reached. The plan of campaign modifies itself after
the first great collision with the enemy. Success or failure in a
battle occasions operations originally not intended. On the other hand
the final claims of the statesman will be very different according as
he has to reckon with defeats or with a series of uninterrupted
victories. In the course of the campaign the balance between the
military will and the considerations of diplomacy can be held only by
the supreme authority.
It has not escaped your penetration that a general staff cannot be
improvised on the outbreak of war, that it must be prepared long
beforehand in peace, and be in practical activity and in close
intercourse with the troops. But even that is not enough. It must
know who is to be its future commander, must be in communication with
him and gain his confidence, without which its position is untenable.
Great is the advantage if the head of the State is also the leader in
war. He knows his general staff and his troops, and is known by them.
In such armies there are no pronunciamentoes.
The constitution, however, does not in every country admit of placing
the head of the State at the head of the army. If the Government will
and can select in advance the most qualified general for the post, that
officer must also be given during peace the authority to influence the
troops and their leaders and to create an understanding between himself
and his general staff. This chosen general will seldom be the minister
of war, who during the whole war is indispensable at home, where all
the threads of administration come together.
You have expressed the kind intention of dedicating your interesting
essay to me, but I suggest that you should consider whether without
such a dedication it would not still better preserve the character of
perfectly independent judgment.
With best thanks for your kind communication,
I am, dear sir, yours very truly,
COUNT MOLTKE,
Field Marshal.
It was hardly possible for Moltke, bound as he was by his own high
position, to have expressed more plainly his opinion of the kind of
reform needed in the British army, nor to have better illustrated than
by that opinion the precise nature of his own work.[4]
With Moltke's view that the peculiar position which he held was not
necessarily the model best suited for the circumstances of the British
army it is interesting to compare the judgment expressed quite
independently by Lord Roberts, who kindly allows me to publish the
following letter:--
SIMLA,
11_th September_, 1891.
DEAR MR. WILKINSON,--
I am much obliged to you for so kindly sending me _The Brain of an
Army_ and the other military works which reached me two or three mails
ago. Some of the books I had seen before, and _The Brain of an Army_ I
had often heard of, and meant to study whenever sufficient leisure was
vouchsafed to me, which, alas! is but seldom. I have now read it with
great interest.
One point that strikes me is the strong inclination evinced at present
to assume that the German system of apportioning the duties of command
and staff is deserving of universal adoption because under exceptional
circumstances, and with quite an exceptional man to act as head of the
Staff, it proved eminently successful in the wars between Prussia and
Austria and Prussia and France.
The idea of a Chief of the Staff who is to regulate the preparations
for and the operations during a campaign, and who is to possess a
predominant influence in determining the military policy of a nation,
is quite opposed to the views of some of the ablest commanders and
strategists, as summarized at pages 17 and 18 of Home's _Précis of
Modern Tactics_, Edition 1882; and I doubt whether any really competent
general or Commander-in-Chief would contentedly acquiesce in the
dissociation of command and responsibility which the German procedure
necessarily entails. That Von Moltke was the virtual
Commander-in-Chief of the German forces during the wars in question,
and that the nominal commanders had really very little to say to the
movements they were called upon to execute, seems to be clearly proved
by the third volume of the Field Marshal's writings, reviewed in _The
Times_ of the 21st August last. Von Moltke was a soldier of
extraordinary ability, he acted in the Emperor's name, the orders he
initiated were implicitly obeyed, and the military machine worked
smoothly. But had the orders not been uniformly judicious, had a check
or reverse been experienced, and had one or more of the subordinate
commanders possessed greater capacity and resolution than the Chief of
the Staff, the result might have been very different.
In military nations a Chief of the Staff of the German type may perhaps
be essential, more especially when, as in Germany, the Emperor is the
head of the Army and its titular Commander-in-Chief. The reasons for
this are that, in the first place, he may not possess the qualities
required in a Commander-in-Chief who has to lead the Army in war; and
in the second place, even if he does possess those qualities, there are
so many other matters connected with the civil administration of his
own country, and with its political relations towards other countries,
that the time of a King or Emperor may be too fully occupied to admit
of his devoting that exclusive attention to military matters which is
so necessary in a Commander-in-Chief, if he desires to have an
efficient Army. A Chief of the Staff then becomes essential; he is
indeed the Commander-in-Chief.
In a small army like ours, however, where the Commander-in-Chief is a
soldier by profession, I am inclined to think that a Chief of the Staff
is not required in the same way as he is in Germany. With us, the man
of the stamp sketched in chapter iv. of _The Brain of an Army_ should
be the head of the Army--the Commander-in-Chief to whom every one in
the Army looks up, and whom every one on service trusts implicitly.
The note at page 12 [61] of your little book expresses my meaning
exactly. Blucher required a Scharnhorst or a Gneisenau "to keep him
straight," but would it not have been better, as suggested in your
note, "to have given Scharnhorst and Gneisenau the actual command"?
I think, too, that an Emperor or King would be more likely than a man
of inferior social standing to take the advice of a Chief of the Staff.
The former would be so immeasurably above all those about him that he
could afford to listen to advice--as the Emperor of Germany undoubtedly
did to that of Von Moltke on the occasion mentioned in the note at page
14 [64]. But the Commander of about much the same standing socially as
his Chief of the Staff, and possibly not much the latter's senior in
the Army, would be apt to resent what he might consider uncalled-for
interference; and this would be specially the case if he were of a
narrow-minded, obstinate disposition. Indeed, I think that such a
feeling would be almost sure to arise, unless the Commander-in-Chief
were one of those easy-going, soft natures which ought never to be
placed in such a high position.
My personal experience is, of course, very slight, but I have been a
Commander with a Chief of the Staff, and I have been (in a very small
way) the Chief of the Staff to a Commander, with whom I was sent "to
keep him straight." It was not a pleasant position, and one which I
should not like to fill a second time. In my own Chief of the Staff
(the late Sir Charles Macgregor) I was particularly fortunate; he was
of the greatest possible assistance to me; but without thinking myself
narrow-minded and obstinate, I should have objected if he had acted as
if he were "at the head of the Army."
I have been referring hitherto more to war than peace, but even in
peace time I doubt if a Chief of the Staff of the German type is
suitable to our organization, and to the comparative smallness of our
army. In war time it might easily lead to disaster. The less capacity
possessed by the nominal Commander-in-Chief the greater might be his
obstinacy, and the more capacity he possessed the more he would resent
anything which might savour of interference. Altogether I think that
the office of Chief of the Staff, as understood in Germany, might
easily be made impossible under the conditions of our service. My
opinion is that the Army Head-Quarters Staff are capable of doing
exactly the same work as the Grand General Staff of the German Army
perform, and that there is no need to upset our present system. We
have only to bring the Intelligence and Mobilization Departments more
closely into communication with, and into subordination to, the
Adjutant-General and Quarter-Master-General, as is now being done in
India with the best results.
You will understand that the foregoing remarks are based on the
assumption that in the British Service the office of Commander-in-Chief
is held by the soldier who, from his abilities and experience, has
commended himself to the Government as being best qualified to organize
the Army for war, and if requisite to take command in the field. If,
however, for reasons of State it is thought desirable to approximate
our system to the German system in the selection of the head of the
Army, it might become necessary to appoint a Chief of the Staff of the
German type to act as the responsible military adviser of the
Commander-in-Chief and the Cabinet. But in this case the
responsibility of the Officer in question should be fully recognised
and clearly defined.
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
FRED ROBERTS.
To SPENSER WILKINSON, Esq.
The Report of Lord Hartington's Commission, which appeared in the
spring of 1890, seemed to justify the apprehension which had caused me
to write, for it recommended the creation, under the name of a general
staff, of a department bearing little resemblance to the model which it
professed to copy. The Commission, however, was in a most awkward
dilemma. It was confronted in regard to the command of the army with
two problems, one of which was administrative, the other
constitutional. The public was anxious to have an army efficient for
its purpose of fighting the enemies of Great Britain. The statesmen on
the Commission were intent upon having an army obedient to the
Government. The tradition that the command of the army being a royal
prerogative could be exercised otherwise than through the constituted
advisers of the Crown was not in practice altogether extinct. It can
hardly be doubted that the Commission was right in wishing to establish
the principle that the army is a branch of the public service,
administered and governed under the authority of the Cabinet in
precisely the same way as the post office. No other theory is possible
in the England of our day. But the attempt to make the theory into the
practice touched certain susceptibilities which it was felt ought to be
respected, and the Commission perhaps attached more importance to this
kind of consideration than to the necessity of preparing the war office
for war.
It was no doubt of the first importance to guard against the recurrence
of a state of things in which all attempts to bring the army into
harmony with the needs of the time and of the nation were frustrated by
an authority not entirely amenable to the control of the Secretary of
State. Not less important, however, was the requirement that any
change by which this result, in itself so desirable, might be attained
should at the same time contribute to the supreme end of readiness for
conflict with any of the Great Powers whose rivalry with Great Britain
has in recent times become so acute.
In the war of which a part is examined in the following pages a chief
of the staff is seen drafting the orders by which the whole army is
guided. He has no authority; the orders are issued in the name of the
commander,--that is in Prussia, of the king. When, as was the case in
1866 and in 1870-1, the king shows his entire confidence in the chief
of the staff by invariably accepting his drafts, the direction of the
army, the generalship of the campaign, is really the work of the chief
of the staff, though that officer has never had a command, and has been
sheltered throughout under the authority of another. The generalship
or strategy of the campaigns of 1866 and 1870-1 was Moltke's, and
Moltke's alone, and no one has borne more explicit testimony to this
fact than the king. At the same time no one has more emphasized the
other fact, that he was covered by the king's responsibility, than
Moltke himself.
The work of generalship can rarely be given to any one but the
commander of an army. When the commander owes his position to other
than military considerations, as is the case in Prussia, where the king
is born to be commander-in-chief as he is born to be king, he is wise
to select a good professional general to do the work. But where a
government is free to choose its commander, that officer will wish to
do his own work himself, and will resent the suggestion that an
assistant should prompt and guide him. The Hartington Commission
proposed at the same time to abolish the office of commander-in-chief,
and to create that of a "chief of the staff." This new officer was to
advise the Secretary of State--that is, the Government--upon all the
most important military questions. He was to discuss the strength and
distribution of the army, and the defence of the Empire; to plan the
general arrangements for defence, and to shape the estimates according
to his plan. In a word, he was to perform many of the most important
duties of a commander-in-chief. But he was to be the adviser or
assistant, not of a military commander, but of a civilian
governor-general of the army.
An army cannot be directed in war nor commanded in peace under the
immediate authority of a civilian. There must be a military commander,
the obedient servant of the Government, supported by the Government in
the exercise of his powers to discipline and direct the army, and
sheltered by the Government against all such criticism as would weaken
his authority or diminish its own responsibility. The scheme
propounded by the Hartington Commission evaded the cardinal question
which has to be settled: that of the military command of the army in
war. War cannot be carried on unless full and undivided authority is
given to the general entrusted by the Government with the conduct of
the military operations. That officer will necessarily be liable to
account to the Government for all that is done, for the design and for
its execution.
The Report of the Commission made no provision whatever for the command
of the army in war. The proposed "chief of the staff" was to be
entrusted during peace with the duty of the design of operations. Had
the Commission's scheme been adopted, the Government would, upon the
near approach of war, still have had to select its commander. The
selection must fall either upon the "chief of the staff" or upon some
other person. But no general worth his salt will be found to stake his
own reputation and the fate of the nation upon the execution of designs
supplied to him at second-hand. No man with a particle of self-respect
would undertake the defence of his country upon the condition that he
should conduct it upon a plan as to which he had never been consulted,
and which, at the time of his appointment, it was too late to modify.
Accordingly, if the scheme of the Commission had been adopted, it would
have been necessary to entrust the command in war to the officer who
during peace had been chief of the staff. But this officer being in
peace out of all personal relation with the army could not have the
moral authority which is indispensable for its command. The scheme of
the Hartington Commission could therefore not be adopted, except at the
risk of disaster in the event of war.
While I am revising the proof of this preface come the announcements,
first, that Lord Wolseley is to succeed the Duke of Cambridge, and,
secondly, that though the title of Commander-in-Chief is to be
retained, the duties attaching to the office are to be modified and its
authority diminished.
The proposed changes in the status of the Commander-in-Chief show that
the present Government is suffering from the pressure of an anxiety
exactly like that which paralysed Lord Hartington's Commission, while
from the speeches in which the new scheme has been explained the idea
of war is altogether absent. The Government contemplates depriving the
Commander-in-Chief of his authority over the Adjutant-General and the
Quartermaster-General, as well as over the heads of some other military
departments.
The Adjutant-General's department embraces among other matters all that
directly concerns the discipline, training, and education of the army;
while such business as the quartering and movements of troops passes
through the office of the Quartermaster-General. These officers are to
become the direct subordinates of the Secretary of State. In other
words, the staff at the headquarters of the army is to be the staff,
not of the nominal Commander-in-Chief, but of the Secretary of State,
who is thus to be made the real Commander-in-Chief of the army.
This is evidently a momentous change, not to be lightly or rashly
approved or condemned. The first duty is to discover, if possible, the
motives by which the Government is actuated in proposing it. Mr.
Balfour, speaking in the House of Commons on the 31st of August,
explained the view of the Government.
"What," he said, "is the substance and essence of the criticisms passed
by the Harrington Commission upon the War Office system, which has now
been in force in this country for many years? The essence of the
criticisms of the Commissioners was that by having a single
Commander-in-Chief, through whom, and through whom alone, army opinion,
army matters, and army advice would come to the Secretary of State for
War, you were, in the first place, throwing upon the Commander-in-Chief
a burden which no single individual could possibly support; and,
secondly, you were practically destroying the responsibility of the
Secretary of State for War, who nominally is the head of the
department. If you put the Secretary of State for War in direct
communication with the Commander-in-Chief alone, I do not see how the
Secretary of State for War can be anything else than the administrative
puppet of the great soldier who is at the head of the army. He may
come down to the House and express the views of that great officer, but
if he is to take official advice from the Commander-in-Chief alone it
is absolutely impossible that the Secretary of State should be really
responsible, and in this House the Secretary of State will be no more
than the mouthpiece of the Commander-in-Chief."
Mr. Balfour's first point is that the burden thrown upon a single
Commander-in-Chief is too great for one man to bear. Marlborough,
Wellington or Napoleon would, perhaps, hardly have accepted this view.
But supposing it were true, the remedy proposed is infinitely worse
than the disease. In 1887 the Royal Commission, over which the late
Sir James Stephen presided, examined with judicial impartiality the
duties of the Secretary of State for War. That Commission in its
report wrote as follows:--
"The first part of the system to be considered is the Secretary of
State. On him we have to observe, _first_, that the scope of his
duties is immense; _secondly_, that he performs them under extreme
disadvantages. He is charged with five separate great functions, any
one of which would be sufficient to occupy the whole time of a man of
first-rate industry, ability, and knowledge.
"_First_, he is a member of the Cabinet, and a Member of Parliament, in
which capacity he has to give his attention, not only to the matters of
his own department, but to all the leading political questions of the
day. He has to take part in debates on the great topics of discussion,
and on many occasions to speak upon them in his place in Parliament.
"_Secondly_, he is the head, as has been already observed, of the
political department of the army. He may have to consider, and that at
the shortest notice, the whole conduct of a war; all the important
points connected with an expedition to any part of the globe; political
questions like the abolition of purchase; legislative questions like
the Discipline Act, and many others of the same kind.
"_Thirdly_, he is the head of the Ordnance Department, which includes
all the questions relating to cannon, small arms, and ammunition, and
all the questions that arise upon the management of four great
factories, and the care of an enormous mass of stores of every
description.
"_Fourthly_, he has to deal with all the questions connected with
fortifications and the commissariat.
"_Fifthly_, he is responsible for framing the Military Estimates, which
override all the other departments, and regulate the expenditure of
from £16,000,000 to £18,000,000 of public money.
"It is morally and physically impossible that any one man should
discharge all these functions in a satisfactory manner. No one man
could possess either the time or the strength or the knowledge which
would be indispensable for that purpose; but even if such a physical
and intellectual prodigy were to be found, he would have to do his duty
under disadvantages which would reduce him practically to impotence."
If, then, the Commander-in-Chief is overburdened, it is at least
certain that the right way to relieve him cannot possibly consist in
adding to the functions of the Secretary of State.
The real point of Mr. Balfour's statement of the case is in what
follows. If you have a single Commander-in-Chief through whom, and
through whom alone, army opinion, army matters, and army advice would
come to the Secretary of State, then, according to Mr. Balfour, you
practically destroy the responsibility of the Secretary of State.
It is a mark of the hastiness of debate that the word responsibility
has crept in here. No word in the political vocabulary is so
dangerous, because none is so ambiguous. Properly speaking, a person
is said to be responsible when he is liable to be called to account for
his acts, a liability which implies that he is free to act in one way
or another. These two aspects of the term, the liability and the
freedom of choice implied, lead to its use in two opposite senses.
Sometimes responsibility means that a man must answer for what he does,
and sometimes that he may do as he pleases without being controlled by
any one. The word is as often as not a synonym for authority. When
Moltke speaks of the "immeasurable responsibility" of the King of
Prussia, he really means that the King took upon himself as his own
acts decisions of the gravest moment which were prompted by his
advisers, and that by so doing he covered them as against the rest of
the world; he did not mean that the King had to account for his conduct
except to his own conscience and at the bar of history. A Secretary of
State for War, in his relations with the army, wields the whole
authority of the Government. The only thing which he cannot do is to
act in opposition to the wishes of his colleagues, for if he did he
would immediately cease to be Secretary of State. As long as they are
agreed with him he is the master of the army. But his liability to be
called to account is infinitely small. The worst that can happen to
him is that if the party to which he belongs should lose its majority
in the House of Commons the Cabinet of which he is a member may have to
resign. That is an event always possible quite apart from his conduct,
and his actions will as a rule not bring it about unless for other
reasons it is already impending. Whenever, therefore, the phrase "the
responsibility of the Secretary of State" occurs, we ought to
substitute for it the more precise words: "the power of the Cabinet to
decide any matter as it pleases, subject to the chance of its losing
its majority."
What Mr. Balfour deprecates is a single Commander-in-Chief, and it is
important to grasp the real nature of his objection. If the whole
business of the army be conceived to be a single department of which
the Commander-in-Chief is the head, so that the authority of the
Secretary of State extends to no other matters than those which lie
within the jurisdiction of the Commander-in-Chief, then undoubtedly the
Secretary of State and the Commander-in-Chief are each of them in a
false position, for one of them is unnecessary. The Secretary of State
must either simply confirm the Commander-in-Chief's decisions, in which
case his position as superior authority is a mere form, or he must
enter into the reasons for and against and decide afresh, in which case
the Commander-in-Chief becomes superfluous. It is bad organization to
have two men, one over the other, both to do the same business.
Mr. Balfour's objection to this arrangement is, however, not that it
sins against the principles of good organization, but that it
practically abolishes the Secretary of State. It leaves the decision
of questions which arise within the War Office and the army in the
hands of a person who is outside the Cabinet. In this way it
diminishes the power of the Cabinet, which rests partly upon the
solidarity of that body, and partly upon the practice by which every
branch of Government business is under the control of one or other of
its members.
Both these objections appear to me to rest upon false premises. I
shall show presently that the duties of the Secretary of State must
necessarily include matters which do not properly come within the scope
of a Commander-in-Chief, and I cannot see how the authority of the
Cabinet to manage the army rationally would be impaired by a War Office
with a military head, the subordinate of the Secretary of State.
But both objections, supposing them to be valid, would be overcome by
making the Commander-in-Chief Secretary of State--that is, by
abolishing the office of Secretary of State for War, and entrusting his
duties to the Commander-in-Chief as a member of the Cabinet. Why,
then, does not the Government adopt this plan, which at first sight
appears so simple? There is a good reason. The Cabinet is a committee
of peers and members of Parliament selected by the leader of a party
from among his followers. The bond between its members is a party
bond, and their necessary main purpose is to retain their majority in
the House of Commons. A military Commander-in-Chief means an officer
selected as the representative, not of a party, but of a subject. He
is the embodiment of strategical wisdom, and to secure that strategical
knowledge and judgment receive due attention in the councils of
government is the purpose of his official existence. To make him a
member of the Cabinet would be to disturb the harmony of that body by
introducing into it a principle other than that of party allegiance,
and the harmony could not be restored except either by subordinating
strategy to party, which would be a perversion of the
Commander-in-Chief, or by subordinating party to strategy, a sacrifice
which the leaders of a party will not make except under the supreme
pressure of actual or visibly impending war.
The preliminary decision, then, which may be taken as settled--for the
other party if it had been in power would certainly have come to the
same conclusion--is that no military officer, either within or without
the Cabinet, is to have in his hands the whole management of the army;
the absolute power of the Cabinet must be preserved, and therefore no
military officer is to have more than departmental authority; the
threads are not to be united in any hands other than those of the
Secretary of State. This determination appears to me most unfortunate,
for to my eye the time seems big with great events requiring a British
Government to attach more importance to preparation for conflict than
to the rigorous assertion of Cabinet supremacy. Be that as it may, the
practical question is whether the proposed sub-division of the business
of the War Office into departments is a good or a bad one. I think it
incurably bad, because it follows no principle of classification
inherent in the nature of the work to be done.
To find the natural and necessary classification of duties in the
management of an army we must look not at the War Office but at war.
Suppose the country to be engaged in a serious war, in which the army,
or a large portion of it is employed against an enemy, who it may be
hoped will not have succeeded in invading this island. In that case we
can distinguish clearly between two functions. There must be an
authority directing against the enemy the troops in the field; a
general with full powers, implicitly obeyed by all the officers and
officials accompanying his army. There must also be an administrative
officer at home, whose function will be to procure and convey to the
army in the field all that it requires--food, ammunition, clothing and
pay, fresh men and fresh horses to replace casualties. This officer at
home cannot be the same person as the general in the field; for the two
duties must be carried on in two different places at the same time.
The two functions, moreover, correspond to two different arts or
branches of the military art. The commander in the field requires to
excel in generalship, or the art of command; the head of the supply
department at home requires to be a skilled military administrator in
the sense not of a wielder of discipline or trainer of troops, but of a
clever buyer, a producer and distributor on a large scale. Neither of
these officers can be identical with the Secretary of State, whose
principal duty in war is to mediate between the political intentions of
the Government and the military action conducted by the commander in
the field. This duty makes him the superior of the commander; while
the officer charged with military supply, though he need not be the
formal subordinate of the commander, must yet conform his efforts to
the needs of the army in the field.
There are many important matters which cannot be confined either to the
department of command or to that of supply. Under this head fall the
terms of service for soldiers, the conditions of recruiting, the
regulations for the appointment and promotion of officers. These are
properly the subjects of deliberation in which not only military, but
civil opinions and interests must be represented; for their definition
the Secretary of State will do well to refer to a general council of
his assistants, and the ultimate settlement will require the judgment
of the Cabinet, and sometimes also the sanction of Parliament. In time
of war it is generally necessary quickly to levy extra men, and to
drain into the army a large part of the resources of the country. Such
measures must be thought out and arranged in advance during peace, for
the greatest care is required in all decisions which involve the
appropriation by the State of more than the usual share of the
energies, the time and the money of its citizens. Regulations of this
kind can seldom be framed except as the result of the deliberations of
a council of military and civil officers of experience. These, then,
are the rational sub-divisions of army business. There is the
department of command, embracing the discipline and training of the
troops, their organization as combatant bodies, the arrangement of
their movements and distribution in peace and war, and all that belongs
to the functions of generalship. These matters form the proper domain
of a Commander-in-Chief. Side by side with them is the department of
supply, which procures for the commander the materials out of which his
fighting machine is put together and kept in condition. Harmony
between them is secured by the authority of the Government, wielded by
the Secretary of State, who regulates according to the state of the
national policy and of the exchequer the amount to be spent by each
department, and who presides over the great council which lays down the
conditions under which the services of the citizens in money, in
property, or in person are to be claimed by the State for its defence.
The examination, then, of the conditions of war, and the application,
during peace, of the distribution of duties which war must render
necessary, lead to the true solution of the difficulty raised by Mr.
Balfour. The internal affairs of the army are indeed one department,
but the position of head of that department, while it could properly be
filled by a Commander-in Chief, is not and cannot be identical with
that of the minister who personifies the Cabinet in relation to the
army. The minister ought to be concerned chiefly with the connexion
between the national policy and the military means of giving it effect.
The intention to make the Secretary of State head of the military
department seems to me to prove that the Government really takes no
account of what should be his higher duties. The lack of the
conception of a national policy is thus about to embarrass the military
management of the army.
It is not my object here to consider in detail how the principles of
organization for war should be applied to the British army. That
subject has been fully treated by Sir Charles Dilke and myself in the
last chapter of our "Imperial Defence," a chapter which has not been
criticised except with approval. But I am concerned to show that the
German practice cannot at any point be quoted in support either of the
recommendations of the Hartington Commission or of the proposals now
announced by the Government, which to any one who regards them from the
point of view of the nation, that is of the defence of the Empire, must
appear to be at once unnecessary, rash and inopportune.
3, MADEIRA ROAD,
STREATHAM, S.W.
_September_ 3_rd_, 1895.
[1] See in particular the passage in Moltke, _Gesammelte Schriften_, V.
298-9, which I have translated in an essay entitled "The Brain of the
Navy," p. 28.
[2] It seems incredible that so important and so interesting a work as
Moltke's military correspondence in relation to the Danish war of 1864
should hitherto have been ignored by English military writers.
[3] The reference is to a passage in the last chapter of the first
edition, which has been rewritten.
[4] The passage which Moltke disliked was erased in the first edition,
its place being supplied by words borrowed from his letter. In this
edition it is printed as it was first written, in order to make the
letter intelligible. The last chapter has in this edition been
condensed, and I hope made simpler and clearer. One or two other
slight changes in expression arise from the reconsideration of phrases
which Count Moltke marked in reading the proof.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
In May, 1887, a Select Committee was appointed to examine into the Army
and Navy Estimates. On the 8th of July Major-General (now
Lieut-General) Brackenbury, in the course of examination by the
Committee, made a series of comparisons between the English and the
German systems of army management. He referred particularly to the
great general staff of the German army, which he described as "the
keystone of the whole system of German military organization ... the
cause of the great efficiency of the German army ... acting as the
powerful brain of the military body, to the designs of which brain the
whole body is made to work." "I cannot but feel," he said, "that to
the want of any such great central thinking department is due that want
of economy and efficiency which to a certain extent exists in our army."
If at any time a statesman should be found to undertake the work of an
English Minister of War, his first wish would be to grasp the nature of
this keystone of the German system, to distinguish in it between
essentials and accessories, to perceive which of its peculiarities are
local, temporary, and personal; and what are the unchangeable
principles in virtue of which it has prospered. Equipped with this
knowledge, he would be able to reform without destroying, to rise above
that servile imitation which copies defects as well as excellences,
and, without sacrificing its national features, to infuse into the
English system the merits of the German.
For such a statesman, and for the public upon whose support he must
depend, this book has been written. It is an endeavour to describe the
German general staff and its relation to the military institutions from
which it is inseparable.
To illustrate the general staff at work in war, the campaign of 1866,
rather than that of 1870, has been chosen, because it better
exemplifies some of the relations between strategy and policy.
_December_, 1889.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I
_THE GENERAL STAFF IN THE MANAGEMENT OF A CAMPAIGN_
CHAPTER I
THE EVE OF KÖNIGGRÄTZ
Political and military situation on the 2nd of July--Position of the
Prussian armies---Topography of the district--Supposed position of the
Austrian army, and consequent arrangements for July 3rd--True position
of the Austrian army discovered--Consequent fresh orders for July
3rd--Which result in a decisive victory
CHAPTER II
BEHIND THE SCENES
The secret of King William's military success--His selection of a
single adviser, and resolute adherence to his proposals--History of the
office of chief of the general staff--Proceedings at Gitschin the night
before the battle
CHAPTER III
FIVE SHORT ORDERS
Prussian system of division of labour and organization of
responsibility--Simplicity of its working illustrated from the fewness
and brevity of the orders issued
CHAPTER IV
PRELIMINARIES OF A CAMPAIGN
Nature of the preparations for a
campaign--Mobilization--Concentration--Influence of considerations of
policy--King William in 1866 anxious to avoid war--Problems solved by
the Prussian staff in preparation for the campaign: calculation of the
force required--Its distribution in the theatre of war--Choice of
points of concentration; formation of two armies in 1866
inevitable--Movement of troops to the points selected; transport by
rail and subsequent marches--Position on June 6th--Opening of campaign
postponed for political reasons--Delay leads to better knowledge of
Austrian movements, and corresponding modification of Prussian
arrangements--King William finally decides for war--Invasion of
Saxony--Position of Prussian armies on June 22nd--Summary
CHAPTER V
THE CRITICS
Difficulties which beset the judgment of the conduct of a
campaign--Insufficiency of the attainable knowledge of the motives
which guided the commanders--Reserve therefore incumbent on the
military critic--Illustration of hasty judgment--Impartiality consists
only in the attempt to understand
PART II
_THE GENERAL STAFF AND THE ARMY_
CHAPTER I
THE SPIRIT OF PRUSSIAN MILITARY INSTITUTIONS
Spirit of the Prussian officers--The officer the teacher and leader of
his men--System of promotion--Selection for the higher
commands--Superiors responsible for the efficiency of their subordinates
CHAPTER II
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY
The army corps and its subdivisions--The company, squadron, and battery
commanders--The superior prescribes the object, and leaves to his
subordinate the choice of means--Graduation of authority and
responsibility--Resulting in freedom of superiors from the burden of
detail
CHAPTER III
THE SYSTEM OF TRAINING
Peace training determined solely by the requirements of war--It
culminates in the manoeuvres--Which complete the training of the
troops--And develop and test the capacity of the generals
CHAPTER IV
THE ARMY CORPS
Review of the means adopted to secure its proper handling--Vastness of
the administrative tasks involved in its management--Sketch of a
mobilized Prussian army corps on the march and in quarters--Dual nature
of its commander's anxieties--System devised to relieve
him--Administrative services organized under two or three responsible
heads--Military functions partly those of direction, partly those of
routine--The latter dealt with by the adjutancy
CHAPTER V
THE GENERAL STAFF IN THE ARMY CORPS
The bureau which assists the general in the military
direction--Enumeration of its functions in war--And in peace--The chief
of the general staff of the army corps--Summary
CHAPTER VI
COMPOSITION OF THE GENERAL STAFF AND ITS DISTRIBUTION THROUGH THE ARMY
Forms a corps by itself, but not a close corporation--Alternation
between service on the general staff and service with the troops--No
career merely on the staff except for scientific work, involving
abandonment of prospect of command--Numbers and distribution of general
staff--Alternative service on great general staff, and on general staff
of a constituent part of the army--Influence on the work of the
experience thus acquired--Members of the general staff dispersed
throughout the army--The general staff recruited from the pick of the
young combatant officers
PART III
_THE GREAT GENERAL STAFF_
CHAPTER I
AN INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT
Direct preparation for war consists in determining beforehand the
distribution of the forces, their concentration and transport to the
frontier--Information on which these arrangements are based collected
by general staff--Its subdivision for the purpose--Thoroughness of the
work--The _Registrande_--Merely a preliminary groundwork--Explains
Prussian knowledge of enemy's resources in 1866 and 1870--Similar
organization in other armies--Railway arrangements--Production of maps
CHAPTER II
A MILITARY UNIVERSITY
Regeneration of Prussia assisted by education--War school founded by
Scharnhorst in 1810--Scharnhorst's earlier educational work--History of
the war academy since 1810--The present regulations--The order of
service--Object of the war academy--Constitution and
management--Entrance examination--Practical lessons compulsory--The
order of teaching--Standard by which to judge it---Course of study at
the academy--Method of instruction--Tactics--Military
history--History--Staff duties and tour--Comparison with the university
ideal
CHAPTER III
THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
Relation between teaching and research--Exemplified in practice of
general staff--Military history--School of Clausewitz--The critical
method--Historical works of the Prussian general staff--Campaign of
1859--The "applicatory method"--Campaigns of 1866 and of
1870-71--Historical monographs--Connection between military history and
theory--Theory in Prussia the work of individuals--Moltke's paper on
the influence of new firearms upon tactics--His views justified by the
events of 1866--Contributions to military doctrine by individual
members of the Prussian staff--Moral influence of the intellectual lead
taken by the general staff
CHAPTER IV
THE CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF
Character needed for a strategist--Relation between a
commander-in-chief and the chief of his staff--Element of permanent
value in the Prussian system--Classification of duties--General summary
SKETCH MAPS
I. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF KÖNIGGRÄTZ
II. PRUSSIA IN 1866
III. THE OPENING MOVEMENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1866
PART I
_THE GENERAL STAFF
IN THE
MANAGEMENT OF A CAMPAIGN_
THE BRAIN OF AN ARMY
CHAPTER I
THE EVE OF KÖNIGGRÄTZ
On the afternoon of Monday, the 2nd of July, 1866, King William of
Prussia with his retinue drove into the little town of Gitschin, in the
hilly region of Northern Bohemia, on the southern side of the Giant
Mountains. His upright bearing scarcely showed the burden of his
sixty-nine years, nor did his frank expression reveal the weight of
care that pressed upon him. After months of weary diplomacy, the
political crisis had been brought to a head by a resolution of the Diet
of the Germanic Confederation to the effect that Prussia had violated
"the peace of the Confederation," and that the armies of the
confederated States were to be called out. This resolution, not three
weeks old, meant that Prussia was at war with Saxony, Hanover, Hesse,
Bavaria and Würtemberg, and with the Austrian Empire. Besides this
long array of enemies there were friends of various degrees of good and
ill will to be considered. Russia was a benevolent onlooker; Italy an
active ally, not indeed very formidable in the field, but able to
occupy a portion of the Austrian forces. France was the ambiguous
busybody, waiting to take a side according to the prospect of
advantage, and the French ambassador was on his way to pay his
unwelcome respects to the Prussian king. Even at home there were grave
difficulties. The Prussian Parliament, representing at that time a
liberal electorate, was directly opposed to the whole policy of which
the war was a part. The king had left Berlin to join the army only on
Saturday morning, after a fortnight of constant anxiety over the
complicated operations which had resulted in the capture of the
Hanoverian army and the occupation without fighting of the kingdom of
Saxony.
The invasion of Bohemia by two separate armies had been ordered on June
22nd. Each of these armies had passed the mountain wall that shelters
Bohemia on the north, and they were now only a day's march apart
quartered in scattered villages a few hours' drive to the east of
Gitschin. The troops were fatigued with a week's hard work. The Crown
Prince coming from Silesia with 115,000 men had with various portions
of his army fought three severe battles and as many serious skirmishes.
His force lay on the left bank of the Elbe around his headquarters at
Königinhof, twenty-one miles due east of Gitschin.[1] Prince Frederick
Charles, the king's nephew, commanded the other army of 140,000 men,
which had met with little serious resistance, though the troops were
tired with the needless marching caused by ill-considered arrangements.
This prince had come to report in person to Gitschin from his
headquarters at Kamenitz, six or seven miles to the east.
The exact whereabouts of the Austrian army was unknown. It was
supposed to have placed itself in position behind the Elbe, which here
being about the size of the Isis above Oxford, runs from north to south
with a gentle curve to the east. From Königinhof to Königgrätz the
straight line, five-and-twenty miles long, runs due north and south.
If this line be taken as a bowstring, the Elbe corresponds to the bow,
of which the handle is the fortress of Josephstadt. Königgrätz, the
southern point of the bow, is in a straight line twenty-seven miles
from Gitschin, and the high road roughly coincides with this line. On
the Monday afternoon at Gitschin it was believed that the Austrian army
was on the left (eastern) bank of the Elbe, with its flanks covered by
the fortresses of Königgrätz and Josephstadt. This was an awkward
position to attack, and it had been decided to let both Prussian armies
rest next day, while officers should be sent to study the approaches
and make arrangements for a turning manoeuvre.
Prince Frederick Charles on returning to his headquarters at Kamenitz
learned that the whole supposition was wrong. Some of his officers
reconnoitring towards Königgrätz had found large bodies of Austrian
troops in bivouac on both sides of the high road along the valley of
the Bistritz brook, which runs nearly parallel with the Elbe about
seven miles to the west of that river. A comparison of reports showed
that there must be at least four Austrian army corps behind the
Bistritz, so Frederick Charles, interpreting this as indicating the
intention to attack him next morning, determined to be beforehand with
the enemy and himself to attack at daybreak. At 9 p.m. he issued his
orders for this movement, and at 9.45 sent off to Königinhof a letter
asking the Crown Prince to send one or more corps towards Josephstadt
to occupy the enemy in that quarter. The chief of his staff was sent
to Gitschin to report to the king, and arrived there at 11 p.m.
"The king[2] at once decided to attack the enemy in front of the Elbe
with all his forces, whether the whole Austrian army or only a large
portion of it should be found there.... Accordingly by his Majesty's
command the following communication to the second army [that of the
Crown Prince] was at once prepared":--
"According to the information received by the first army the enemy in
the strength of about three corps, which, however, may be further
reinforced, has advanced beyond the line formed by the Bistritz at
Sadowa, where an encounter with the first army is to be expected very
early in the morning.
"According to the orders issued, the first army will stand to-morrow
morning, July 3rd, at 2 a.m., with two divisions at Horsitz with one at
Milowitz, one at Cerekwitz, with two at Pschanek and Briskan, the
cavalry corps at Gutwasser.
"Your Royal Highness will at once make the arrangements necessary to be
able to move with all your forces in support of the first army against
the right flank of the enemy's expected advance, and to come into
action as soon as possible. The orders sent from here this afternoon
under other conditions are no longer valid.
"V. MOLTKE."
[Illustration: Sketch Map 1--THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF KÖNIGGRÄTZ.]
This note, with a shorter note to the commander of one of the corps
lying between Gitschin and Königinhof (the only part of the second army
at this time west of the Elbe), telling him to be ready for the Crown
Prince's orders, was despatched at midnight.
The whole Austro-Saxon army (eight corps) was in fact concentrated
between the Elbe and the Bistritz, not indeed for attack but for the
defence of a strong position on the left bank of the brook, facing
westwards. Had the arrangements of Prince Frederick Charles not been
supplemented, the 3rd of July might have been an unfortunate day for
Prussia. The first army would have been engaged against an enemy
strongly posted and counting nearly double its numbers. The detachment
by the second army of one corps towards Josephstadt could hardly have
produced a decisive effect, and the rest of the second army would have
been too far away to co-operate in time. But the order sent from
Gitschin entirely met the situation. Without interfering with Prince
Frederick Charles's attack it brought the entire second army to his
help in the direction where its action would produce the greatest
effect--on the enemy's flank.
When the morning came, the attack of the first army as it developed,
disclosed the great strength of the Austrian position and the numbers
by which it was defended. Prince Frederick Charles was unable to do
much more than keep the Austrians engaged until the second army came
up. The attack of the Crown Prince's leading divisions decided the
day. With their capture and maintenance of Chlum, the key of the
position, the situation of the Austrian army became critical, and the
issue not only of the fight but of the whole campaign was practically
settled. The resolution formed between eleven and twelve at night on
July 2nd, in the Lion Inn at Gitschin, had secured the victory of
Königgrätz, perhaps the greatest battle of modern times,[3] and without
exception the most decisive in its results.
[1] See sketch map 1.
[2] _Der Feldzitg von_ 1866 _in Deutschland_. Redigirt von der
Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abtheilung des groszen Generalstabes, p. 249.
[3] There is a doubt whether the number of combatants was greater at
Leipsic or at Königgrätz. According to the Belgian Précis
(_Bibliothèque Internationale d'Histoire militaire_) the figures are:--
At Leipsic: Allies . . . . . . . . . 300,000
" French . . . . . . . . . 180,000
-------
Total . . . . . . . 480,000
=======
At Königgrätz: Austrians . . . . . . 215,000
" Prussians . . . . . . 220,000
-------
Total . . . . . . . 435,000
=======
According to Rüstow (_Feldhernkunst des 19ten
Jahrhunderts_) the numbers engaged were:--
At Leipsic (Oct. 18th): French . . . 130,000
" " Allies . . . 290,000
-------
Total . . . . . . 430,000
=======
At Königgrätz, total of both sides 450,000
=======
CHAPTER II
BEHIND THE SCENES
The King of Prussia is reputed to have been a modest man and to have
known the limits of his faculties. He was not a great strategist. He
once said to his brother (the father of Prince Frederick Charles), "If
I had not been born a Hohenzollern I should have been a
sergeant-major." How then did he make the swift decision resulting in
a success that would have done credit to the genius of Frederick the
Great or Napoleon? The answer is supplied by the Prussian historian of
the Italian campaign of 1859. "There are generals," says this writer,
"who need no counsel, who deliberate and resolve in their own minds,
those about them having only to carry out their intentions. But such
generals are stars of the first magnitude who scarcely appear once in a
century. In the great majority of cases the leader of an army will not
be willing to dispense with advice. The suggestions made may very well
be the result of the deliberations of a smaller or greater number of
men specially qualified by training and experience to form a correct
judgment. But even among them only one opinion ought to assert itself.
The organization of the military hierarchy should promote subordination
even in thought. This one opinion only should be submitted for the
consideration of the commander-in-chief by the one person to whom this
particular service is assigned. Him let the general choose, not
according to rank or seniority, but in accordance with his own personal
confidence. Though the advice given may not always be unconditionally
the best, yet, if the action taken be consistent and the leading idea
once adopted be steadfastly followed, the affair may always be brought
to a satisfactory issue. The commander-in-chief retains as against his
adviser the infinitely weightier merit of taking upon himself the
responsibility for all that is done.
"But surround a commander with a number of independent men---the more
numerous, the more distinguished, the abler they are and the worse it
will be--let him hear the advice now of one now of another; let him
carry out up to a certain point a measure judicious in itself, then
adopt a still more judicious but different plan, and then be convinced
by the thoroughly sound objections of a third adviser and the remedial
suggestions of a fourth,--it is a hundred to one that though for each
of his measures excellent reasons can be given, he will lose the
campaign."
The one authorised adviser here described was by the Prussian system
provided for the king in the person of the chief of the general staff
of the army. This office had risen to importance during the wars of
liberation, though at that epoch the general staff was in the peace
organization a subordinate branch of the Ministry of War. The
Prussians fighting Napoleon, had had no Napoleon to pit against him.
The best they could do was to put Blücher in command with Scharnhorst,
and after Scharnhorst's death with Gneisenau to keep him straight.[1]
In the period that followed the peace of 1815 the position of the
general staff received strict definition. In 1821 Müffling was
appointed its chief, and it was settled that he should not be
subordinate to the Minister of War but directly responsible to the
king. This constitution of the office on a new basis outside of and
independent of the Ministry of War was an advance in the division of
labour implying the want of a fresh organ to perform functions not
before satisfactorily exercised. The business of the Ministry of War
was to raise, maintain and administer the army. The business of the
staff was to direct the army in war, and during peace to make such
special preparations as might be necessary to this end. In order to be
able to devote all its energies to the conduct of armies fighting in
the field, unhampered by the details of daily administration, the
general staff was placed on an independent footing. In 1829 Müffling
was succeeded by Lieut-Gen. von Krauseneck, whose successor (in 1848)
was Lieut-Gen. von Reyher. Reyher died in 1857, when the duties of the
office were intrusted to Major-General von Moltke.
The division of labour between the royal commander-in-chief and the
chief of the staff may be illustrated by the proceedings of the evening
before the battle of Königgrätz. When General von Voigts-Rhetz (the
chief of Prince Frederick Charles' staff) reached Gitschin and reported
to the king, who was just going to bed, the king sent him to Moltke
saying, "If General Moltke thinks this information involves a fresh
decision he is to come for orders whatever be the time of night."
Voigts-Rhetz went to Moltke's quarters and made his report. Moltke
made up his mind what ought to be done, and then went to the king, whom
he found in bed, and explained his view that whether the whole Austrian
army or only a part of it was at Sadowa the sound course was to move
forward both Prussian armies, so as to take the Austrians in front and
flank. An attack like this from two sides at once must in any case
give the Prussians the best chance of victory they could hope for, and
the result would be the more decisive the larger the portion of the
Austrian army to be engaged. The king at once gave his assent. Moltke
then wrote the two notes, which were sent off immediately.
It was 11 p.m. when Voigts-Rhetz reached Gitschin. The letters were
despatched at midnight. In that hour fall the reports of Voigts-Rhetz
to the king and to Moltke; Moltke's deliberation and determination; his
visit to the king's quarters and the writing and despatching of the
notes. It appears from these data that there was no discussion, and
that even at this period, the opening of their first great campaign,
the king's confidence in Moltke was as thoroughly established as we
know it to have been four years later.[2]
[1] It might perhaps have been better to have given Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau the actual command. In any case the arrangement adopted in
1813 laid the foundation of the German system of the general staff.
[2] In the Crown Prince's diary of the Franco-German War we read under
the date January 15th, "Werder asks whether he would not do better now
to abandon Belfort as he thinks he can still defend Alsace? Moltke
read this out and added, with unshakeable icy calmness, 'Your Majesty
will no doubt approve of General Werder being informed in reply that he
has simply to stay where he is and beat the enemy where he finds him.'
Moltke appeared to me admirable beyond all praise. In one second he
had settled the whole affair." _Deutsche Rundschau_, October, 1888, p.
25.
CHAPTER III
FIVE SHORT ORDERS
In one sense there is nothing remarkable in the decision of the 2nd of
July. Given two armies fighting on the same side and within a day's
march of each other, and a hostile army within a day's march of both of
them, it is not difficult to see what the two armies should do.
Nothing is easier than to solve problems of this sort in the study.
Even with the imperfect knowledge of the facts which the Prussians
possessed, the arrangements made at Gitschin were no more than the
suggestions of military common sense. But simple as the situation
seems, nothing is so difficult as to secure such a solution in the
practice of war. It is a common-place in that kind of military
criticism which is wise after the event that Benedek might have avoided
disaster if he had only acted on any reasonable plan and stuck to it.
The merit of the Prussians lay in the system which gave military common
sense its due place in the organization, so as to make sure that it
would be applied when wanted. It was a matter of the judicious
division of labour.
At the headquarters of an army there are a hundred different anxieties.
In peace there is the recruiting, training, clothing, feeding, and
arming of the troops; the distribution of commands; the maintenance of
discipline. In war most of these matters continue to require
attention; subordinates must be kept to their appointed tasks; above
all the field of politics must be watched from day to day, sometimes
even from hour to hour. The Prussian system gave to the chief of the
general staff the sole duty of attending to the movements of the
armies, and, regarding each new situation as a problem in strategy, of
explaining the solution which presented itself to his trained judgment
as the best. Free from the pressure of other cares and
responsibilities an officer in this position would be more likely to
see clearly and judge coolly than one overloaded with work and
distracted with the thousand worries of command. This is the division
of labour according to kind, which gives each sort of work to a man
specially trained for its performance. It is supplemented by an
organization of responsibility which relieves a man from detail in
proportion to the extent and grasp of his supervision. The army was
broken up into minor armies each with its own commander and his chief
of the staff, so that the chief of the general staff himself had to
consider only the large problems of the campaign, the general nature of
the movements to be effected by the two or three pieces on his board.
The head of each army is told the general intention and the share of
work assigned to his force. He in turn regards his army corps or
divisions[1] as so many units, and besides a statement of the object to
be aimed at gives only such general directions as the corps or division
commanders cannot arrange for themselves. All the detail of the
movements is left in the hands of the corps or division commanders and
their special staffs.
It is worth while showing by a convincing proof to what simplicity the
system here described reduces the business of supreme command. On June
21 a Prussian _parlementaire_ handed in to the Austrian outposts a
notification of the commencement of hostilities. At that time the
first army was concentrated opposite the Austrian frontier across the
border that separates Saxony from Silesia; the second army was
concentrated near Neisse. From that day until the decisive battle only
five short orders from the king's headquarters are on record:--
(1) _June_ 22.--Telegram from Berlin to both armies (at Görlitz and
Neisse): "His Majesty orders both armies to advance into Bohemia and to
seek to unite in the direction of Gitschin."
A letter of the same date contained a slightly fuller explanation, and
added, to Prince Frederick Charles, that as the second army had the
difficult task of issuing from the mountains the first army must
shorten the crisis by pushing on rapidly.
(2) _June_ 29.--Telegram from Berlin to Prince Frederick Charles: "His
Majesty expects that the first army by a quickened advance will
disengage the second army which, in spite of a series of victorious
actions, is still for the time being in a difficult situation."
(A repetition to Prince Frederick Charles, who had been losing time by
his timid and methodical movements, of his original instructions.)
(3) _June_ 30.--Telegram from Kohlfurt (on the way from Berlin to the
army) to both armies: instructing the second army to maintain itself on
the Elbe and the first army to push forward towards Königgrätz. (A
modification, to suit events, of the plan of No. 1.)
(4) _July_ 2.--Gitschin. Order arranging for both armies to rest on
July 3, while the country to the front and the Austrian supposed
position should be reconnoitred. Cancelled the same evening by
(5) Moltke's note (quoted p. 54) to the Crown Prince.
The brevity and simplicity of these instructions find a counterpart in
the orders issued by the army commanders. Moltke's note sent off from
Gitschin at midnight on Monday was delivered at the Crown Prince's
headquarters at Königinhof at four on Tuesday morning. At five General
von Blumenthal, the chief of the general staff of the second army, sent
out an army order of some twenty lines:--
"According to information received here it is expected that the enemy
will to-day attack the first army which is at Horsitz, Milowitz, and
Cerekwitz. The second army will advance to its support as follows:--
(l) "The first army corps will march in two columns by Zabres and Gr.
Trotin to Gr. Burglitz." ...
And so on for the other corps. In this way an army of 115,000 men
(four army corps and a cavalry division) was directed by five sentences
of two lines each. This was sufficient. The details were arranged for
each army corps by the corps commander with the assistance of his staff
officers.
[1] In 1866 the first army was composed of divisions not combined into
army corps. The second army was worked by army corps.
CHAPTER IV
PRELIMINARIES OF A CAMPAIGN
The movements of an army during a campaign after the first serious
engagements can rarely, if ever, be settled in detail before the war.
They must needs depend largely on those of the enemy, which cannot be
accurately foreseen. But before war is declared, before the fighting
begins, while the troops are still in their own territory, a
well-conducted government can make its preparations without hindrance.
The army can be placed on a war footing, and assembled at whatever
point or points are judged most advantageous. These preparations in
Prussia fall in different degrees within the domain of the general
staff.
The changes by which the army is placed on a war footing, known
collectively as mobilization, include the calling out of the reserves
of men and horses; their distribution among the various corps and their
equipment; and the creation and completion of the staffs and of the
different services of supply. All these proceedings in Prussia the
general staff had perfectly arranged and regulated down to the minutest
detail, so that the order needed only to be issued, and the whole
operation would take place as if by clockwork within a given number of
days.[1] The process of mobilization is in essentials the same
whatever be the frontier on which the war is to be fought. It places
the troops ready at their ordinary headquarters, and in Prussia no
regiment leaves its headquarters except in perfect readiness to take
the field.
On the other hand, the collection of the army on the frontier is the
first stage of the actual operations, resembling the opening of a game
of chess, and it is of the greatest importance that the points selected
should be those best suited for the beginning of the particular
campaign in prospect.
The placing of an army on a war footing and its transport to a frontier
are political acts of the gravest moment. They are therefore usually
controlled almost as much by political as by military considerations,
and it is impossible rightly to appreciate them without taking into
account the political circumstances by which they are affected. The
influence of politics upon the two processes is however different. In
regard to mobilization, which may be compared to a mechanical process,
the statesman may urge its postponement or its execution by gradual
instalments. In neither case is the essential nature of the operation
changed, though the amount of friction involved may be increased. But
the assembling of an army is the immediate preliminary to attack or
defence, and the statesman's unwillingness to attack may affect the
choice of time and place for the collection of the force available.
The King of Prussia was sincerely anxious to avoid a war, and until
June 14 was determined not to take the initiative nor to agree to any
measure which might savour of attack. He was with difficulty induced
to consent to the successive stages of preparation. Not until the
beginning of May, when the Austrian mobilization was far advanced and
the transport to the frontiers impending, were the orders for the
Prussian mobilization issued, and that not at once, but piecemeal
between May 3 and May 12. The forces thus called out formed a total of
326,000 combatants, divided into nine army corps,[2] a reserve corps at
Berlin,[3] the corps of occupation in Holstein, and the corps collected
at Wetzlar from the Prussian garrisons withdrawn from fortresses of the
German confederation. The arrangements made for the disposition of
these forces between May 12 and June 22 form the basis of the
subsequent success, and may perhaps best be described in the form of a
series of problems and their solutions.
1. The first step of preparation for a war is the calculation of the
force required.[4] In the case of our own small wars it is
self-evident that such a calculation is necessary, and the campaign of
1882 in Egypt is an instance in which it was worked out to a nicety.
It might seem equally a matter of course that when two Continental
states go to war each of them will assume from the beginning that its
whole available force will be employed. Yet instances are numerous in
which campaigns have been lost mainly through neglect to work out this
calculation. In 1859 the Austrians undertook with little more than
half their army a war against the combined forces of France and
Sardinia; in 1885 King Milan attacked the Bulgarians without calling
out the whole of the Servian army. In both cases defeat was largely
due to this initial error.
The basis of the calculation is furnished by an estimate of the force
which will be at the disposal of the enemy. In 1866 the Prussian staff
had to face the preliminary difficulty that it was uncertain even as
late as May 8 which of the German states would be on the Prussian and
which on the Austrian side. The least favourable assumption was made,
and it was estimated that the hostile forces would be in North Germany
36,000, in South Germany 100,000, and in Saxony and Austria 264,000,
making a total of 400,000 men.[5] There could be no doubt that Prussia
must employ the whole of her available forces.
2. The next question was how to distribute the Prussian forces against
these three sets of enemies. A proportionate division based on the
estimate just given would have resulted in the employment of 215,000
men against Austria and Saxony, of 30,000 against North Germany, and of
80,000 against South Germany. The staff, however, expected that the
South German forces would not be ready until a late stage of the war,
and might in the first instance be neglected. Hanover and Hesse lying
between the two halves of Prussia and separating Westphalia and Rhenish
Prussia from the main body of the kingdom,[6] were more serious foes.
It would be necessary to strike hard at them, if possible, before their
preparations could be completed. But the fate of Prussia and of
Germany really depended upon the issue of the conflict with Austria.
If she were beaten here, Prussia would in any case be undone; if she
were successful in this struggle, the minor states, even though not
themselves beaten, must needs fall under her sway. It was decided to
employ almost the whole army (eight and a half corps and the reserve
corps, 278,000 men) against Austria and Saxony, and to meet the rest of
the German enemies with a scratch army (48,000) made up of half the
seventh corps and of the troops assembled in Holstein and at Wetzlar.
This force was destined first of all to disarm Hesse and Hanover
(capitulation of Langensalza June 29), and then to attack and defeat
the South German contingents.
3. The next problem is the choice of the point or points at which the
army is to be assembled for the purpose of beginning the operations.
This is the first act of generalship in the campaign, and a mistake
here is usually the prelude of misfortune. Every general wishes, if
possible, to meet with his whole force the divided forces of the enemy,
and therefore his first thought is to assemble his army at one place,
or at least to collect it so that all its parts may unite for battle.
[Illustration: Sketch Map 2--PRUSSIA in 1866]
The Prussian army, if assembled in Upper Silesia, would be at the point
of Prussia nearest to the Austrian capital; if assembled at Görlitz,[7]
it would interpose between Berlin or Breslau and an Austrian army
approaching from Bohemia. These were, therefore, the most favourable
points of assembly, the one for attack and the other for defence. But
the position in Silesia would lose much of its value unless it were
intended, as soon as the army should be ready, to march on Vienna; and
this course in the middle of May was, to the king's mind, inadmissible.
There was, however, a second quite unanswerable argument against
assembling the whole army at either place. The movement could not be
carried out in a reasonable time. To march to either district from the
distant provinces would have been an affair of many weeks, and the
concentration would run the risk of being too late. The difficulty
could not be overcome by the use of the railways. To move a whole army
corps by a single railway required, according to the nature of the
line, irrespective of the distance, from nine to twelve days. But for
the transport to Upper Silesia only one, and for that to Görlitz only
two, through railways were available, so that a very long time would be
required to move the whole army by rail to either point. Moreover,
neither of the districts in question is so fertile as to be able to
feed a large army for more than a few days. As the king was determined
not to fight, if fighting could be avoided, it might become necessary
to keep the army waiting for some weeks after its concentration. This
would be to starve it before a shot had been fired. Thus it was
impracticable in the political circumstances to collect all the nine
corps into one army, either for offence or defence. Separate armies
had to be formed, and considerations of defence to prevail. The
principal centres of concentration were fixed in the neighbourhood of
Görlitz and of Schweidnitz, points on the lines of an Austrian advance
towards Berlin and Breslau respectively from Northern Bohemia, where at
this time (the middle of May) the Austrian army was believed to be
assembling.
4. Upon the basis of this decision the movement of the troops to the
frontier was arranged. The railway system, as has been seen, did not
admit of moving the corps directly and speedily to Görlitz and
Schweidnitz. Five railways in all were available, leading to points on
the Prussian frontier facing the kingdom of Saxony and the Austrian
Empire. They ended at Zeitz, Halle, Hertzberg, Görlitz, and
Schweidnitz (or Neisse), places scattered along a curve some 250 miles
long. The quickest practicable way of assembling the army was to use
all these railways at once, and when the troops had thus been deposited
on the frontier to continue the concentration by marches. The shortest
lines of march to assemble the whole army would be the radii leading to
the centre of the curve; but this was in the enemy's territory, so that
these lines, if they had been for other reasons desirable, could not be
adopted before war had been declared. The alternative was to
concentrate by marches along the circumference, and this was the plan
adopted. Each corps, as soon as its debarkation from the train was
complete, was marched along the arc towards the point of concentration
selected for it.
The corps from Posen and Silesia, collected at Schweidnitz and Neisse
(grouped together as the second army under the Crown Prince), were
moved to their right to Landshut and Waldenburg.[8] Those of
Westphalia (half a corps) and Rhenish Prussia were detrained at Zeitz
and Halle, and marched round the frontier of Saxony to the point where
the Elbe emerges from that kingdom. These troops, with the reserve
corps from Berlin, formed the Elbe army, destined to continue its
eastward movement by the invasion of Saxony. The corps from Pomerania,
Brandenburg, and Prussian Saxony, were combined into the first army,
under Prince Frederick Charles. They were first assembled between
Torgau and Cottbus, and then marched along the frontier towards
Görlitz, reaching the western corner of Silesia (neighbourhood of
Hoyerswerda) about the end of the first week in June, when the other
movements described were also completed.
5. The staff was now anxious to begin the campaign. The three armies
could not be united on Prussian soil without leaving some important
district unprotected, nor await where they were the Austrian attack
without the risk that one of them in isolation might be exposed to the
blows of a superior force. This same risk only would be incurred in
the attempt to meet by a concentric advance towards some point of
Austrian territory; it would increase with every additional day allowed
for the Austrian preparations. But the king still thought a settlement
possible, and would not permit hostilities to commence.
6. On June 11, the Prussian staff learned that of seven Austrian army
corps destined to operate against Prussia six were in Moravia, not in
Bohemia, as had been supposed. The inference was, that the Austrians
contemplated advancing upon Breslau by way of Neisse, for which
movement the data obtained showed that they would be able to cross the
Silesian border with five or six army corps by about June 19. To meet
this invasion, if it should take place, the second army was moved to
the river Neisse, facing south, and was reinforced by the guard corps
from Berlin, and by the first corps, moved originally from East Prussia
by rail to Görlitz, and now by marching transferred from the first army
to the second. At the same time the first army continued its eastward
march as far as Görlitz, where it would be near enough to reach Breslau
as soon as the Austrians, if they should really invade Silesia, or, if
not required in that direction, could be moved readily into either
Saxony or Bohemia. These movements were effected by June 19.
The Elbe army was also to be moved to the east, to join the first army,
but its most convenient route from Torgau to Görlitz lay through
Dresden. While the changes just described were in the course of
execution, the political situation also had changed. The hostile
resolution of the diet on June 14 enabled the king to make up his mind.
On June 15 war was declared against Saxony. On the 16th the Elbe army
crossed the border; on the 18th occupied Dresden; and on the 19th,
connection having been established with the first army, now about
Görlitz, was placed under the command of Prince Frederick Charles.
This prince concentrated the first army to the south of Görlitz, on the
confines of Saxony and Silesia, close to the Bohemian border, while the
Elbe army from Dresden rapidly closed up to his right flank. The
intention was that both should advance as one army into Bohemia, and
move, with the left wing skirting the foot of the Giant Mountains, to
meet the second army. There had been no sign of an Austrian attack on
Silesia, so the Crown Prince was ordered to prepare for a march
westward into Bohemia to meet his cousin. On the 19th he was to send
one corps in advance to Landshut, still keeping the rest of his force
on the Neisse ready to face either south or west. A day or two later
two more of his corps were withdrawn to the mountains, a single corps
only remaining on the Neisse, and much trouble being taken to deceive
the Austrians into the belief that the whole army was still there and
was about to march towards Moravia. This was the position of both
Prussian armies on June 22, when the telegram already quoted ordered
them to cross the Bohemian frontier and to try to effect their union
about Gitschin.
[Illustration: Sketch map 3--THE OPENING MOVEMENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN OF
1866.]
It will be observed that from the first stage of the preparations one
object, the concentration of as large a force as possible for the
purpose of defeating the Austro-Saxon forces, had been followed by the
chief of the staff. His arrangements were at first controlled by
political considerations, the effect of which in the circumstances was
to render impracticable the formation at the outset of a single army.
Afterwards, before war had been finally decided upon, the armies were
moved to meet the changed situation created by the Austrian
arrangements at length known. The invasion of Saxony was a further
stage in the general concentration. By June 22 it had become clear
that the Austrians were not invading Silesia. The question was,
whether to continue through Prussian territory the march of the first
army towards the second--a safe course now that the Austrian position
was known--or to take for both the shortest line of meeting, that into
Bohemia, with the attendant risk to the second army. The bolder course
was adopted, and was abundantly justified by success.
[1] The details of the operation of mobilization are kept secret, but
the elementary principles have everywhere been copied from the Prussian
system and may be explained in an imaginary example. Suppose a company
to have a peace strength of 120 men and to pass each year forty men
into the reserve, receiving instead the same number of recruits, the
war strength being 240. The public announcement of the decree for
mobilization makes it the duty of each of the 120 reservists to proceed
directly to the headquarters of the company, where they will arrive,
according to the distance from their homes, say on the first, second,
or third day of mobilization. The captain has a nominal list of the
whole company, and keeps in store under his own responsibility the
complete new war kit for each of the 240 men. As they arrive the men
pass the doctor, receive their kits, and are told off to their posts in
the completed company. According to the care with which the rules have
been framed (this is the staff's principal share in the work) so as to
divide the labour, occupying every man from the general to the bugler
and giving to each that work which he can best do, and to none more
than he can do in the time allowed, will be the rapidity, ease, and
certainty with which the whole mobilization will be effected.
[2] The guard with its peace quarters at Berlin, and corps I. to VIII.
quartered in peace in districts corresponding in the main to the eight
provinces: Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Prussian Saxony, Posen,
Silesia, Westphalia, Rhenish Prussia. See sketch map 2.
[3] Called out on May 19th.
[4] "What king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not
down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet
him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the
other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage and desireth
conditions of peace."
[5] The numbers actually called out against Prussia proved to be:--
North Germans . . . . . . 25,000
South Germans . . . . . . 94,000
Austrians and Saxons . . 271,000
-------
Total . . . . . . . . 390,000
[6] See sketch map 2.
[7] See sketch map 3.
[8] See sketch map 3.
CHAPTER V
THE CRITICS
Except the conduct of military operations there is nothing so difficult
as to appreciate them truly. A multitude of considerations affect the
leading of armies and many of them evade the research of the historian.
The critic therefore can rarely be sure that he has placed himself in
the exact position of the general whose acts he is studying. If, for
example, he supposes a commander to have been without information which
in fact he possessed, his judgment may be founded upon a picture
completely distorted. Such mistakes are made even by the most careful
historians. The Prussian staff history of the campaign of 1866 alleges
that the Austrian commanders were unaware of the Crown Prince's march
westwards from the Neisse. The Austrian staff history shows that very
good information on the subject had reached the Austrian headquarters
as early as June 25, before any of the Crown Prince's corps had crossed
the border. Where it is so difficult to avoid error it is rash to be
dogmatic. But it may be permissible to raise a doubt as to the value
of some of the judgments that seem to have become traditional
concerning this campaign. Mr. O'Connor Morris, for example, in the
_Academy_ of March 23, 1889, wrote:--"The strategy of Moltke is not
perfection, as worshippers of success have boasted, but he never
attempted, in his invasion of France, to unite widely divided armies,
within striking distance of a concentrated foe, as he did at Gitschin,
under the very beard of Benedek."[1] A similar criticism, without the
sneer, may be found in the Belgian _Précis_. But neither writer has
explained where the mistake lay. Even the Austrian historian declares
that, given the Prussian positions on the Neisse and in Lusatia, the
only sound course was the advance to meet at Gitschin. Was the error
in the original dispersion of the forces along the frontier? If so,
the critics should explain what alternative was practicable in view of
the political conditions and of the geography of the theatre of war.
Would it not be safer to say that the preparations for the campaign of
1866 show the influence upon strategy of a very complicated political
situation? The opening of the campaign of 1870 presented in comparison
a simple problem. There was a single enemy to be faced; and there was
no motive for hesitation or delay. Moreover, the German staff could
count upon beginning the campaign on the least favourable hypothesis
with 330,000 men against 250,000.[2] Possibly in 1866 the strategists'
task would have been easier, and posterity would have thought no worse
of Prussian policy if the king had realized early in May that
mobilization meant war, and had given Moltke from that time a free
hand. But this again is a criticism easy to make twenty years after
the event. The conflict was between Germans, and the general opinion
at the time condemned the Prussian policy. Moreover, Prussia had then
no important success on record since the decisive stroke at Waterloo.
In these conditions the king's hesitation was natural enough, and even
the anxiety to cover every part of Prussian territory is quite
intelligible. Much must needs remain obscure, for it may be years
before the personal history of the principal actors at this period is
given to the world. Meanwhile, the function of criticism is to seek
first of all to understand the events with which it deals.
It is of little purpose to read a summary of the movements of the
troops during a campaign, and to be given a list of the mistakes made
by the generals on each side. Such a system leads the reader to
suppose that generals as a rule have been remarkably careless, weak,
and ignorant, and entirely conceals from him the difficulties which
always beset the conduct of operations. But where a measure adopted in
the field is shown by the result to have been attended with risks or
followed by disaster, the attempt to ascertain why it was employed
invariably throws light upon the nature of war; and this method of
study, though it offers little satisfaction to the vanity that likes to
take a side and to distribute praise or blame, rewards, by quickening
the insight and forming the judgment, the labour which it requires.
[1] If Mr. O'Connor Morris will mark on a map the positions of the
Austrian and Prussian armies on June 22nd, the date of the order "to
unite widely divided armies," etc., he will discover that the Austrian
forces were distributed over an area not less extended than that which
included both Prussian armies.
[2] _German Staff History_, 1870-71, vol. i. p. 74.
PART II
_THE GENERAL STAFF AND THE ARMY_
CHAPTER I
THE SPIRIT OF PRUSSIAN MILITARY INSTITUTIONS
The general staff has been described as the "brain of an army." The
metaphor is peculiarly apt, for the staff, like the human brain, is not
independent but a part of an organic whole. It can perform its
functions only in connection with a body adapted to its control, and
united with it by the ramifications of a nervous system. How then is
the Prussian army adapted to receive the impulses conveyed from its
intellectual centre?
An army is what its officers make it, and in the Prussian army the
officers take their profession seriously. It may be doubted whether
there is in the world any body of men so entirely single-minded in
their devotion to duty. Most of them are, according to English
notions, ridiculously poor. Their pay is small, and they have never
made the acquaintance of luxury.
In 1874 the emperor in an official address to the army wrote, "The more
general the spread of luxury and comfort, the more solemnly is the
officer confronted by the duty never to forget that his honourable
position in the state and in society has not been gained and cannot be
maintained by material wealth. Not only does an enervating mode of
life damage the combatant qualities of an officer, but the pursuit of
gain and comfort would dangerously undermine the very ground upon which
the officer's position is built up."[1] These words fairly express the
spirit of those to whom they were addressed, and many an officer takes
a pride in his poverty, and starves with cheerfulness and even with
merriment. Some of the superior officers have set the example by
abandoning the dearly-loved cigar, and a Prussian officer's mess has
decidedly no attractions for the gourmet.
"Teacher and leader in every department is the officer. This implies
that he is superior to his men in knowledge, experience, and strength
of character. Without fearing responsibility, every officer in all
circumstances however extraordinary is to stake his whole personality
for the fulfilment of his mission, even without waiting for orders."[2]
This is the foundation stone of Prussian discipline, the secret by
which is secured "the legitimate ascendency of the officers, the
justified confidence of the soldiers, the daily interchange of mutual
devotion, the conviction that each one is useful to all and that the
chiefs are the most useful of all."[3] The attainment of the ideal
thus officially set up is facilitated by the system of promotion. The
principle of seniority, without which no public service can be a
profession or offer a career, is allowed its legitimate place, being
modified only by the retirement of the incapable, and by special
selection for the general staff. "It is necessary that the higher
commands should be attained only by such officers as unite
distinguished abilities and military education with corresponding
qualities of character and with bodily activity."[4] Moreover, "it is
the special duty of the general commanding to see that all the
commandants of fortresses, all the commanders of divisions, brigades,
regiments, and battalions, and all the field-officers in the district
of his army-corps, retain their posts only so long as they have the
bodily activity necessary for service in the field, and the knowledge
and capacity needed for their several particular callings. The moment
he notices in this respect the slightest change to the detriment of my
service, it is his duty, for which he will be held responsible, to
inform me. He must also send me the names of all officers who
distinguish themselves or are fit for a higher post."[5]
The first feature, then, of the Prussian system is the method by which
it is attempted, with considerable success, always to put the right man
in the right place, and having done so, to see that he keeps up to the
mark.
[1] _Verordnung über die Ehrengerichte der Offiziere im Preussischen
Heere_, May 2nd, 1874.
[2] _Felddienstordnung_, 1887, § 6.
[3] Taine, _L'Ancien Régime_, p. 108.
[4] Cabinet order of May 8th, 1849.
[5] Cabinet order, _i.e._ King's order in Cabinet of March 13th, 1816.