COMPOSITION OF THE GENERAL STAFF AND ITS DISTRIBUTION THROUGH THE ARMY
The Prussian general staff forms a corps by itself. The officers
belonging to it wear a special uniform, and their names do not appear
in any regimental lists. The proposals for their promotion are made by
the chief of the staff of the army,[1] and advancement in its ranks is
quicker than in the army generally.
The corps thus constituted is, however, not a close corporation. By
the rule that regimental service must alternate with employment on the
general staff, the connection between the army and the staff is
maintained, and the practical competence of the staff officers is
secured. The first appointment to the staff and the subsequent return
to it are alike dependent upon selection, or, in other words, upon
special merit.
A captain on the staff after four or five years' work is transferred to
a regiment. A year or two later he may be again selected for the staff
as major. After a further term he will receive the command of a
battalion, then return to work on the staff, and afterwards be promoted
to the command of a regiment. From this post he may again be chosen to
the staff, returning eventually as a major-general to the command of a
brigade.
Those officers who are selected for the purely scientific work of the
general staff, such, for instance, as the geographical and
topographical surveys, are considered to have embraced a special career
and to have given up the prospect of command in the field. They are
placed on an auxiliary establishment or side list of the general staff.
As a rule they are students rather than fighting men, or officers of
distinguished scientific attainments who have not the bodily activity
required for service in the field. They remain on the auxiliary
establishment, and do not revert to the wider field of active service
among the combatants.
The Prussian general staff numbers altogether about 200 officers, 90 of
whom are distributed among the divisions and army corps,[2] whilst
about 100, half of whom belong to the auxiliary establishment, form the
great general staff at Berlin. Service in the staff office of a
division or army corps alternates with employment on the great general
staff, so that the officer whose diligence and ability have opened for
him the staff career, and whose performance secures his periodical
return to it, passes through the various stages of regimental service,
of service on the general staff of the great constituent units of the
army, and of employment in the great central agency of direction.
Thus the general staff is not merely the intellectual spring which
gives the impulse to the whole army, but it forms also a medium of
circulation by which all the parts are kept in uninterrupted
communication with the centre. At the great general staff the art of
command is studied with special reference to the employment of the
German army as a weapon against France, Russia, or any other probable
adversary, and in conjunction with the Austrian, Italian, or any other
allied army. The wide views thus acquired are applied to the handling
of the several units of which the army is composed, while the central
office in all its general studies has the benefit of the practical
experience obtained in the management of the company, the squadron, and
the battery, as well as of every unit up to the division and the army
corps.
The influence of the general staff is not limited to the work of the
200 officers who comprise it at any given time. Many of the commanders
of regiments and battalions have been members of the general staff, and
are taking their turn of practice with the troops. Nearly all the
higher commanders have passed through the various stages of duty in the
general staff. The great general staff is perpetually training fresh
generations. Some sixty junior officers are temporarily attached to it
without being incorporated, that is, without ceasing to belong to their
regiments. They are the pick of the 100 lieutenants who every year
leave the Kriegsakademie, or Staff College, at Berlin. They work for a
year at the central general staff office, under the personal
supervision of the chief of the general staff of the army, who thus
acquires an intimate knowledge of their ability and character. At the
end of their year they rejoin their regiments. After a term of
regimental work the best of them will be chosen as captains to the
general staff to fill up vacancies caused by promotions. In this way
the general staff keeps up its numbers by the continual selection of
the fittest.
[1] In the case of regimental officers these proposals are made by the
commander of the regiment; cf. Cabinet order of March 22, 1864.
[2] Four of the German army corps--those of Saxony, Würtemberg, and
Bavaria (two corps)--do not belong to the Prussian army.
PART III
_THE GREAT GENERAL STAFF_
CHAPTER I
AN INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT
The chief of the general staff of the army, assisted by the great
general staff, which is his special organ, and which has its permanent
abode in Berlin, is occupied during peace with preparations for the
conduct of the army in war. The work undertaken with this object
divides itself naturally into three branches, according as it consists
in actual arrangements for particular wars regarded as probable, in the
training of officers to the art of command, or in the scientific study
of war as a means of forming and exercising the faculty of generalship.
The direct preparation for probable wars consists in arranging, in
anticipation of each of the various possible complications, the most
suitable distribution of the forces available, their concentration on
the frontier, and their transport from the peace quarters to the
districts selected for this purpose.[1] These matters require for
their decision a thorough knowledge of the countries forming the
theatre of war and of the armies of all the probable combatants.
The great general staff in time of peace is constantly engaged in the
collection and digestion of such information. For this purpose it is
organized into three divisions,[2] to each of which a portion of Europe
is assigned. The first division deals with Sweden, Norway, Russia,
Turkey, and Austria; the second with Germany, Denmark, Italy, and
Switzerland; the third with the western states of Europe and with
America. Of the thoroughness with which the work is done some idea may
be formed by an examination of the reference index,[3] which was for
many years (1869-1883) annually printed and published. The reader who
opens one of these volumes at the chapter headed "British Empire" will
find there a mass of ordered information such as is hardly anywhere
else accessible. It begins with a detailed account of the progress of
the Ordnance survey during the year, dealing separately with England,
Scotland, and Ireland, and with the Admiralty surveys. Then under the
heading land and people, comes a list of new statistical publications,
an abstract of the census and of the Registrar-General's reports, and a
note of any works that illustrate the subjects. Succeeding headings,
worked out with great minuteness, are: constitution, administration,
and finance, intellectual culture, emigration, mining, agriculture,
forestry, and marine economy, industry and trade. Communications are
subdivided into railways, post, telegraphs, and inland navigation.
Several pages are devoted to an exhaustive catalogue of every
publication issued during the year, English or foreign, bearing upon
the British army, including official publications, controversial
pamphlets, and magazine and newspaper articles. The navy is treated in
a similar manner, though less space is devoted to it; and lastly, there
is a review of all new guide-books, books of travel, and maps relating
to Great Britain, especially of county guides, histories, maps and
plans. The progress of the British colonies is followed in the same
fashion.
The minute systematic study which is thus devoted to the resources of
every European country gives a basis for judging of its fighting power
far more certain than the collection of mere military statistics. For
the reference index is only a groundwork upon which the military study
of the countries can be founded. It is not the product of the three
divisions, but of the geographical and statistical section, which
belongs to the auxiliary establishment, and in this way it prepares the
materials upon which the three divisions are to work.
The index is no longer given to the world; but the volumes already
published are a monument of systematic research, and reveal the depth
and breadth of the foundation upon which the great general staff
builds, in other words, the accuracy and fulness of the knowledge at
the disposal of its chief when he frames a plan of operations. It is
therefore not a matter of surprise that in 1866 the chief of the
Prussian general staff was well informed concerning the position and
condition of every part of the Austrian army up to the time when the
special preparations for the war began; was able to gauge very fairly
the time that would be required for its mobilization and transport, and
knew perhaps as well as any one in Austria the difficulties in which
that empire would be placed by an effort to continue the struggle. A
still more complete knowledge of the adversary's military and other
resources was revealed by the German general staff at the opening of
the campaign of 1870.
The German staff has now no longer a monopoly of these studies, as may
be seen by a glance at the _Revue Militaire de l'Étranger_, published
fortnightly (since 1872) by the second bureau of the French general
staff. The intelligence division[4] of our own War Office performs
somewhat similar duties of geographical and statistical research.
The transport of the portions of the army from their peace quarters to
the places of assembly selected for the commencement of operations has
been referred to in the account of the campaign of 1866. It was then
effected partly by marching, partly by railway. Immediately after that
campaign the veteran critic Jomini, in an essay upon its lessons, urged
the importance of "the serious study of the modifications which
railways will cause from this time onwards in the general direction of
the operations of war, _i.e._ in strategy," and spoke of the want of
this study as "the gap at present existing in the theory of the art of
war."[5] The gap, one would think, had been pretty well filled up
already by a staff which in twenty-one days had moved 197,000 men,
55,000 horses, and 5,300 military vehicles over distances varying from
120 to 360 miles without a single accident, and without any serious
departure from the pre-arranged time-tables.
The great general staff has a special division devoted to the
manipulation of railways in war, and the attempt is made to give every
officer of the general staff the benefit of a period of service in this
particular branch.
The production of maps for the army is so closely connected with the
study of the various probable theatres of war that the two duties
cannot safely be entrusted to different institutions. In Germany the
principal government geographical establishment is a branch of the
great general staff, the officers employed in it being on the auxiliary
list. This service is arranged in three departments, the
trigonometric, the topographic, and the cartographic, all of which are
under the supervision of the chief of the National Survey, who is
himself a subordinate of the chief of the general staff of the army.
[1] See Part I. Chap. IV.
[2] The details of this organization have been modified in recent years.
[3] _Registrande der Geographisch-Statistischen Abtheilung des Grossen
Generalstabes_. Berlin, 1869-83.
[4] See a lecture delivered at the Royal United Service Institution in
1875 by the late Major-General, then Major C. B. Brackenbury, R.A.,
entitled "The Intelligence Duties of the Staff at Home and Abroad," in
reading which, however, the date of its production should be remembered.
[5] Jomini, _Troisième Appendice au Précis de l'Art de la Guerre_.
Paris, 1866.
CHAPTER II
A MILITARY UNIVERSITY
The distinctive feature of the regeneration by which modern Prussia was
raised up, after the Prussia of Frederick the Great had been shattered
in the first conflict with Napoleon, was the effort to lay a solid
foundation in healthy institutions and especially in a sound education.
The work which was done for Prussian institutions by Stein and for
liberal education by Humboldt, was done for the army by Scharnhorst, to
whom military education was the corner-stone of army reform. The
University of Berlin began its work on October 15th, 1810, and on the
same day[1] was opened the War School for officers, the great military
high school of Germany, now known as the War Academy. It was the
creation of Scharnhorst, whose greatness is nowhere more conspicuous
than in his educational work.
As early as 1792, before he had ever seen a battle, he had published a
_Soldier's Pocket-book_, in which the principles and details of field
service were explained and illustrated by examples from then recent
wars. The experiences of his first campaigns in 1793 and 1794 led him
during his last years in the Hanoverian service to draw up a series of
memoirs in which military education occupies a prominent place, and
when in 1801 he joined the Prussian service, one of his first
appointments was that of lecturer to the classes of young officers
which had been instituted by Frederick the Great and still continued to
be held. Scharnhorst rearranged and extended the courses of
instruction, and himself as "Director of the Academy" taught to the
higher class the important subjects of tactics and strategy. The
lectures which he gave between 1801 and 1805 have been preserved in a
fragmentary state, and show that he was the first to concentrate the
attention of his pupils on the conduct of the operations of war,
instead of merely busying them with the details of the several
technical arts and sciences which subserve that end. The regulations
for the Academy which he drafted in 1805 contain the outlines of the
system which in a more developed form is still characteristic of the
highest Prussian military education. Scharnhorst's best pupil at this
time was Carl von Clausewitz, who in after years attributed to these
early lessons the intellectual impulse which produced his masterly
essays, and the historical method in which all his theory has its
roots. Lectures and classes were abruptly ended by the mobilization of
1805, which was followed in 1806 by the great catastrophe.
The War School of 1810 aimed at the higher training of selected
officers whose ability gave promise of a career in the superior ranks.
It was distinct from the lower schools intended to give a professional
training to young men preparing to become officers, and was closely
connected with the general staff, in which Scharnhorst, at this time
its chief, paid great attention to the instruction of the younger
members. One of the first professors appointed was Clausewitz.
The wars of liberation practically dissolved the War School, which,
however, after the peace of 1815 was re-established without substantial
modification, though it was placed in the department, not of the chief
of the staff, but of the inspector-general of military education.
During the subsequent long period of peace, the Academy had the
services of many distinguished men. From 1818 to 1830 Clausewitz was
its director. The great geographer Karl Ritter was from 1820 to 1859
one of its professors. In 1859 the title of War Academy was definitely
adopted, and in 1872 the institution was again placed under the
superintendence of the chief of the general staff.
The regulations at present in force, though of recent date, are little
more than a codification of the system which has been gradually
developed on the foundations laid by Scharnhorst, and their value and
the authority which attaches to them are in great measure due to the
long and unbroken tradition which they represent.
They are embodied in two short codes entitled respectively "Order of
Service," and "Order of Teaching of the War Academy." A concise
account of these documents will best explain the workings of this
institution.
The Order of Service is one of the few results of the brief reign of
the lamented Emperor Frederick, whose signature it bears. It begins in
true German fashion with a definition: "The object of the War Academy
is to initiate into the higher branches of the military sciences a
number of officers of the necessary capacity belonging to the various
arms, and thus to enlarge and extend their military knowledge and to
clear and quicken their military judgment.
"Side by side with this direct training for their profession, they are
to endeavour, in proportion to the requirements of the army, to
penetrate deeper into certain departments of formal science, and to
acquire mastery in speaking and writing one or two modern foreign
languages."
The Academy in its scientific working--as an institution for teaching
and study--is under the chief of the general staff of the army, who is
responsible for the appointment of the teachers, for the selection of
officers as students ("the call to the Academy"), for their dismissal
in case of need, and for the permission to attend a particular course
occasionally granted to officers not "called." For the discipline and
management of the Academy, the director, a general, is responsible. He
is assisted by one or two deputies and by a Board of Studies, over
whose nomination the chief of the staff has a controlling influence.
The duties of the board are to approve of the programmes of the several
professors' courses, and to conduct the examinations at the beginning
and at the end of the course. The complete course lasts three years,
with a long vacation of three months each summer. The appointment or
"call" of students is in each case only for a year, its renewal
depending upon diligence and good conduct. Any officer of five years'
service not yet within four years from his turn of promotion to captain
may apply for admission to the Academy, which is regulated by
examination.
"The object of the entrance examination is to ascertain whether the
candidate possesses the degree of general education and the knowledge
requisite for a profitable attendance at the lectures of the Academy.
The examination is also to determine whether the candidates have the
power of judgment, without which there could be no hope of their
further progress." The questions set are to be such as cannot be
answered merely from knowledge stored up in the memory, and should test
the capacity for clear, collected, and consistent expression. The
military subjects required are tactics, formal and applied, the nature
and construction of firearms, fortification and surveying. The general
subjects are history, geography, mathematics, and French. The paper in
applied tactics must be as simple as possible. It must consist of a
problem for solution, so as to oblige the candidate to make a decision
and give his reasons for it. Each candidate must send in an essay
written at home on one of a list of subjects announced some months
beforehand. This is particularly intended to test his power of
judgment and the degree of general education he has attained. It may
be either in German or French. "Of those officers whose work is judged
the best (by the Board of Studies) the director may submit to the chief
of the general staff of the army, with a view to their being called to
the Academy, the names of any number not exceeding a hundred. The
chief of the staff communicates his decisions to the generals
commanding army corps, who inform the officers concerned."
The _Order of Service_ lays down that in the instruction given at the
Academy certain practical applications shall never be omitted:--
"As a continuous commentary on the lectures, the students, under the
guidance of their professors, are to visit the military workshops,
technical institutions, and exercising grounds at Berlin and Spandau,
and the fortifications of Spandau. They are to attend the exercises of
the railway regiment, and make journeys of instruction on the military
railway.
"The lessons in tactics, fortification, and transport are to be
supplemented by practical exercises. Moreover, during a portion of the
holidays after the first and the second year, each officer is attached
for instruction to a regiment of one of the two arms to which he does
not properly belong. Lastly, the third year's course is always to
conclude with a three weeks' tour, for practical instruction in staff
duties."
The _Order of Service_ concerns itself no further with the scope and
method of teaching, but decrees that these shall be determined by the
order of teaching to be issued by the chief of the general staff of the
army.
The _Order of Teaching_ of the War Academy at present in force was
issued by Count Moltke at the close of his career at the head of the
Prussian staff.[2] Its value can be made clear only by a reproduction
of its principal clauses. But a true judgment of an educational
institution must be based upon the existence of a standard of
comparison, an ideal which may be readily accepted as the measure of
perfection. Such a normal type may be sought in the best University
training of the present day, of which the spirit may perhaps be
expressed in a few sentences.
A system of instruction, intended not for children but for men, which
is not an attempt to make good the defects of early education, but
addresses itself to minds already trained and disciplined, cannot be
regulated mechanically. In all intelligent education the order of
teaching is at once natural and rational. The subjects group
themselves by their relation to the end in view, and the necessity of
each new advance is evident to the student as soon as he is prepared
for it. Such a course of study has a unity, and a completeness, which
is of great significance in view of the formation of a type of
character. The highest education, however, has features peculiarly its
own. It is founded in the conception of science, not as a department
of knowledge, but as "the proper method of knowing and apprehending the
facts in any department whatever."[3] From this idea of method flow
practical consequences. The student, as soon as maturity is
approached, abandons the general realm of knowledge, and concentrates
himself upon a single province,[4] in which, however, he becomes not
merely a follower, but an independent worker, seeing and judging for
himself and co-operating with his teacher in advancing the bounds of
knowledge. Above all, "it is not the substance of what is
communicated, but the act of communication between the older and the
younger mind, which is the important matter."[5]
From this educational standpoint, Count Moltke's _Order of Teaching_
deserves a close examination. Its opening paragraphs must be given in
full:--
"THE COURSE OF STUDY.
"In accordance with the objects for which the Military Academy is
instituted, its course of study must aim at a thorough professional
education; it must not lose itself in the wide field of general
scientific studies.
"A sound formal education is the indispensable pre-requisite of a
thorough military professional education. The deepening of the formal
training, of the general intelligence and judgment, must therefore
never be lost sight of during, and side by side with, the professional
studies. Accordingly the course will be based upon the knowledge
gained in the cadet corps, the military schools, the school for
artillery and engineers, and, as regards general knowledge, in the
gymnasia. But a simple repetition of things already known, by way of
refreshing the memory, cannot be sufficient. As the whole course aims
at a higher culture, it must proceed independently, entirely free from
the constraint of a school.
"The practical abilities of the officers, acquired during five years'
service, offer in many respects a foundation upon which the teachers
can build.
"METHOD OF INSTRUCTION.
"The instruction at the Military Academy begins with the elements of
the various subjects, the object being, in the first instance, to
strengthen and enlarge the grasp of what has already been learned. It
proceeds, as the subjects develop, to more difficult matters, aiming,
as its ultimate goal, at the thorough preparation of the officer for
the modern requirements of war. The instruction in the formal sciences
must for this purpose proceed in a different manner from that adopted
in the military subjects. The scientific teaching may take the form of
lectures, which appeal merely to the comprehension and the memory of
the hearer, while in the military subjects, everything depends upon the
pupil learning to apply and to make the most of the knowledge which he
acquires. It is, moreover, essential to bring about an active process
of mental give and take between teacher and pupils, so as to stimulate
the pupils to become fellow-workers. The awakening effects of
co-operation like this will never be seen where the one only expounds,
and the other only listens. But it will naturally be produced by the
combination of clear exposition, with practice in the application to
specific concrete cases of the knowledge gained. (The so-called
'applicatory method' of teaching. Cp. p. 187, note.)
"Accordingly, in the purely military subjects the lectures are, as far
as possible, to be interspersed with practical examples, in which the
details are explained upon the map. Moreover, in this department,
there will be opportunities of encouraging the pupils from time to time
to deliver original addresses, the preparation of which should lead to
the formation of independent opinions. The subjects of these addresses
are to be military, and never merely scientific.
"If the teacher succeeds by the force of his word and his person in
developing the mental powers of his pupils so that they eagerly look
forward to the next year's course and are thoroughly roused to work for
themselves, he has accomplished his task. For the Academy is not to
give fragments of disconnected knowledge; in its course of teaching the
necessity of every new subject must rest upon truths which the pupils
have already perceived and made their own."
The general framework being thus erected, the _Order of Teaching_
proceeds to review the several subjects[6] taught in the Academy,
indicating in each case the reason why the particular subject is to be
taken up, and the manner in which it is to be treated.
The following paragraphs, which deal with the four principal subjects
of instruction, give a sufficient insight into the system:--
"TACTICS.
"The object of the tactical instruction, to which, above all,
pre-eminent importance must be attached, is (1) to give the officers a
thorough knowledge of the tactical regulations in force in our army and
those of our great neighbours, and (2) by teaching and by setting
problems to make them familiar with the endless diversity of the
conditions of modern battle.
"The first year's course comprises (_a_) the outlines of the historical
growth of our army organization and of our tactical forms; (_b_) our
drill-books, order of field service and musketry instruction, so far as
they are important for the use of the troops in the field; (_c_)
thorough explanation of the forms of battle of the great European
armies of to-day.
"Hand in hand with this formal instruction, the German regulations
dealing with march, combat, and rest must be illustrated by problems
involving a small detachment of all arms. In these problems the
principal stress is to be laid on the co-operation and mutual support
of the various arms.
"In the second and third years' course only applied tactics will be
taught. During the second year the duties of the infantry and cavalry
division, with special regard to the issue of orders and the conduct of
battle, must be thoroughly studied. The third year's course embraces
the functions of an army corps acting as a portion of an army.
"The teacher must throughout endeavour to make his instruction
suggestive by examples and by exercises on the map and in the open air.
In this he will be successful in proportion as he makes use of the
experiences of modern and of recent wars.
"MILITARY HISTORY.
"The lectures upon military history offer the most effective means of
teaching war during peace, and of awakening a genuine interest in the
study of important campaigns. These lectures should bring into relief
the unchangeable fundamental conditions of good generalship in their
relation to changeable tactical forms, and should place in a true light
the influence of eminent characters upon the course of events and the
weight of moral forces in contrast to that of mere material instruments.
"These lectures must not degenerate into a mere succession of
unconnected descriptions of military occurrences. They must regard
events in their causal connections, must concern themselves with the
leadership, and must at the same time bring out the ideas of war
peculiar to each age. They will acquire a high value if the teacher
succeeds in bringing into exercise the judgment of his pupils.
"This judgment, however, must never degenerate into mere negative
criticism, but must clothe itself in the form of distinct suggestions
as to what ought to have been done and decided.
"The lectures in the first year's course will treat of one or more of
the campaigns of Frederick the Great; in the second year's course,
campaigns of the Revolution or of Napoleon I.; and in the third year's
course, campaigns of the period since Napoleon, especially those of the
time of the Emperor William I.
"HISTORY.
"A thorough historical knowledge is a necessary part of general
scientific education, and is also of manifold value in the professional
life of an officer. Accordingly, the lectures which are to lay the
foundations for it are continued throughout the three years' course.
Their object is to show consecutively the general development of the
human race in the successive stages of religious conceptions, of
political and social forms, and in the results of science, art, and
philosophy. All these phases of human progress are to be illustrated
in the history of representative nations and individuals. Growing
forms are to be explained in connection with previous conditions, and
finally the exposition must reach the present time, the ground upon
which the officer's work is founded, and of which therefore he must
understand the gradual historical growth.
"GENERAL STAFF DUTIES AND PRACTICE TOUR.
"This course is to deal with the functions of the general staff, and
with the service of the general staff officer in peace and war. It
includes, in any order preferred by the teacher--
"The historical development of our general staff.
"The corresponding arrangements of the other Great Powers.
"The subdivision of our army as based upon the Imperial Constitution,
the military laws, and the conventions.[7]
"The office work of the general staff officer in its general outlines;
the preparations for the manoeuvres and for mobilization; the various
constituent parts of the mobile army.
"Railways and transport.
"The duties of the general staff officer in the field, especially his
position and functions in relation to the general command.
"The principles of the supply of armies in peace and war, the resources
and means available for the purpose, and the methods employed.
"The war strength and composition of the armies of our great neighbours.
"The practice tour[8] with which the course terminates offers the
opportunity of testing the capacity, knowledge, and endurance of each
officer--of finding what he can do. Upon the basis of simple general
and special ideas, usually framed by the teacher who conducts the
exercise, the decisions of the general commanding and the general staff
officer's share in the measures adopted will be illustrated. For this
purpose it will be useful to form two sides, neither of which should,
as a rule, exceed the strength of an imaginary infantry division on a
war footing. The exercise should be so arranged as to occasion in turn
practice in formal work such as may promote facility in the issue of
orders and a knowledge of the arrangements of our army, discussions
upon the spot of tactical situations, analyses of the effects upon the
troops of dispositions given, and lastly, comprehensive examinations of
the situation presented by the campaign or battle. Each officer who
joins the tour should have the opportunity of grappling with as many as
possible of these various kinds of difficulties."
The advocates of original research as the true instrument of higher
education may not at first sight recognise their ideal in Moltke's
_Order of Teaching_. They may smile at an academy where natural
science and history are taught in lectures appealing only to the
intelligence and the memory. But the school at Berlin has a practical
aim. It is a school of war, and in all that relates to war the German
staff officer learns to apply that science which consists in the true
method of apprehending. Moreover, the _Order of Teaching_, like all
other German military regulations, does not fully reveal the
thoroughness of the work executed in obedience to its precepts. In
military history, for instance, it lays down that the third year's
course is to deal with "campaigns of the time of William I." This
phrase would be met by very superficial work. The letter would be
fulfilled by a perusal of a _précis_ of the campaigns of 1866 or of
1870. A study of one of these campaigns in the official history might
seem completely to fulfil the requirements. But in practice the
students at the Academy work out the selected campaign on a still wider
basis. In the probationary year which follows the Academy course they
are allowed access to the materials from which the staff histories were
written, and are expected to form their own judgment on the campaign
from the study of the original documents themselves. This is the very
ideal of the ideal professor of history.
There is no doubt another point of view from which the War Academy may
be differently judged. A University, strictly speaking, is a school of
free thought, and should give to those who have lived its life and
breathed its spirit a view of the world, of nature and of humanity, of
which the characteristic is freedom, spontaneity, independence. The
man who in this sense has had a liberal education may be reactionary or
progressive in his sympathies, may be democratic or authoritative in
his leanings, but in any case if the University has done its work he
will choose his own way. He will take his bearings for himself, and
his thought will be conditioned by no ordinances and limited by no
authority. At this intellectual freedom the War Academy does not aim.
Its business is not with the progress of humanity, but with the
training of good servants for the King of Prussia. Whether this
immediate object is a means to the higher end is a question for the
historian in some future century.
[1] Schwartz, _Leben des Generals Carl von Clausewitz_, etc., vol. i.
p. 151.
[2] It is dated August 12th, 1888; Count Moltke's resignation as chief
of the general staff of the army is dated in the _Gazette_, August
10th, 1888.
[3] Mark Pattison's _Suggestions on Academical Organisation, with
Especial Reference to Oxford_, p. 307.
[4] Cp. Pattison's _Suggestions_, p. 262.
[5] Cp. Paulson's _Suggestions_, p. 165.
[6] List of the subjects taught in the Academy, with number of hours
per week in each year's course devoted to each:--
1st 2nd 3rd
MILITARY SUBJECTS. year's year's year's
course. course. course.
Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4 2
Military history . . . . . . . . 3 4 4
Early history of armies . . . . . 1 -- --
Construction and nature of weapons 3 -- --
Fortification . . . . . . . . . . 3 -- --
Means of communication . . . . . -- 2 --
Military surveying . . . . . . . -- 2 --
Military law . . . . . . . . . . -- 1 --
Military hygiene . . . . . . . . -- 1 --
Military geography . . . . . . . -- 2 --
Duties of the general staff . . . -- -- 4
Siege warfare . . . . . . . . . . -- -- 3
NON-MILITARY SUBJECTS.
History . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3 3
General geography . . . . . . . . 2 -- --
Administration and law, including
international law . . . . . . . -- -- 2
Mathematics (Mathematical ) 4 3 2
Physical Geography (sciences as ) 2 -- --
Physics . . . . . (alternatives ) -- 3 --
Geodesy . . . . . (for language.) -- -- 3
Chemistry . . . . ( ) -- -- 2
French . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 6 6
or . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Russian . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 6 6
Every candidate for admission to the Academy is required to say whether
he proposes to take up the subjects grouped as mathematical sciences,
or a language, and if a language whether French or Russian.
[7] The conventions are the agreements with Prussia by which the armies
of Saxony, Bavaria, and Würtemberg are regulated.
[8] The practice tour (_Uebungsreise_) is a sham fight, or rather a
sham campaign, carried out in the district chosen for the purpose by
officers without men. The troops are imaginary, but the officers
taking part in the exercise are assigned to the several posts of
command, and upon the basis of the imaginary situation, communicated by
the umpire, work out all the necessary orders and dispositions.
CHAPTER III
THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
The condition of success in the higher education is that the teacher
should be himself a student. He should have in his subject that vital
interest which comes of the endeavour to extend his mastery and to
widen in his own particular branch the existing bounds of knowledge and
achievement. The true teacher does not study his subject in order to
be able to teach, but teaches because he is possessed by his subject.
The benefits of teaching in the higher stages are therefore never
one-sided. The pupil returns in a different form the help which he
receives. For while the elucidation of principles acquires a peculiar
freshness and force in the hands of an active pioneer of knowledge, the
necessities of exposition compel the investigator to keep his
researches in contact with the system or body of doctrine which he
expounds. This fundamental relation between teaching and research is
realized in the connection between the War Academy and the great
general staff.
It has already been shown how the great general staff is the organ by
which during peace its chief collects and sifts the information upon
which he bases his plan for the opening of a campaign, and how, when
the operations have begun, the general staff, through its several
ramifications, keeps him supplied with the data concerning his own army
and that of the enemy which he requires from time to time in order to
shape his further decisions.
All this is but preliminary or preparatory work. The decisive act is
that by which the chief of the staff, from the information he has thus
acquired, constructs a problem and designs its solution--puts to
himself the question, What is now to be done? and answers it. Thus in
the last analysis the soul of the organism resides in the chief of the
staff, and is manifested in the exercise of his peculiar faculties. It
therefore becomes necessary to investigate the nature and origin of the
qualities in virtue of which he is fitted for his post.
The _Order of Teaching_ of the War Academy explains the method by
which, in an elementary stage, the intellectual faculties requisite for
command are developed and trained. The mental outfit of the ideal
general is there analyzed into its constituent parts, which are
classified according to their importance. The highest place is
assigned to military history as "the most effective means of teaching
war during peace."[1] Accordingly the study of military history, to
which so large a space is assigned in the course of the War Academy, is
pursued on a higher plane by the great general staff, which has a
special department for its cultivation. In this historical work, and
in the method on which it is conducted, lies the secret of Prussian
generalship.
The leading ideas of the school must be sought in the writings of
Clausewitz,[2] the great exponent of the lessons learned in Prussia
from the wars against Napoleon. Clausewitz distinguishes the mere
narration of events, which gives at most the superficial relations of
cause and effect, from their critical examination. In the critical
method applied to military history he defines[3] three stages or
operations. There is first the historical process proper, which has
for its object the ascertainment of the facts so far as this is
possible with the existing materials. Upon the basis thus furnished
the military student will proceed to seek to understand the events in
their relations as cause and effect, and then when their real
historical connection[4] has thus been determined will undertake to
form a judgment as to the fitness of the means employed for the ends
which it was sought to attain.
It is in this last process that the educational value of military
history is to be sought. The Prussian School aims not only at
developing the power of comprehension, but also at forming the
character.[5] Accordingly it requires that the student should not
merely make himself acquainted with the facts of a campaign, and with
the general bearings of theory upon its events. He is expected in
every case to form a definite conclusion as to what ought to have been
done. He must clearly make up his mind what course he would himself
have adopted in the circumstances which confronted the general whose
operations he is studying.
The influence of the ideas of Clausewitz upon the historical studies of
the general staff is clearly marked. In 1862 was published "The
Italian Campaign of the year 1859, compiled by the Historical
Department of the General Staff of the Royal Prussian Army." It is an
open secret that this work was written by Moltke himself; and therefore
it is worth noting that the preface describes the object of the book
almost in the words of Clausewitz: "to ascertain as accurately as
possible the nature of the events in Northern Italy during those few
eventful weeks, to deduce them from their causes--in short, to exercise
that objective criticism without which the facts themselves do not
afford effective instruction for our own benefit." The history of the
Italian campaign is a model of this positive criticism. At, every
stage the writer places himself in turn in the position of the
commander of each side, and sketches clearly and concisely the measures
which at that moment would, in his opinion, have been the most
appropriate. This is undoubtedly the true method of teaching the
general's art, and the best exercise in peace that can be devised for
those who have acquired its mastery.
In 1867 appeared "The Campaign of 1866 in Germany, compiled by the
Department for Military History of the Great General Staff." This work
is described in its preface as "drawn from the official reports of the
Prussian troops, and intended in the first instance for their use. The
description," the writer goes on to say, "is one-sided, because
hitherto our late antagonists have not made disclosures such as would
suffice to explain the motives of their action." A similar
qualification may be applied to the account of the Franco-German war
published by the great general staff. But both works supply, within
the limits laid down by their authors, precisely the kind of history
which is of the greatest value to the military student. The utmost
pains have been taken to secure a true statement of facts, and a clear
exposition of the guiding motives on the Prussian or German side.
Accordingly these works, and the account published more recently of the
campaign of 1864 in Denmark, form rich storehouses of material for that
"objective criticism" in the exercise of which lies the principal means
of maturing the military judgment.
The great general staff began in 1883 to publish a series of historical
monographs, of which the object is, in the case of subjects chosen from
recent campaigns, "to throw light upon important questions relating to
the art of command, in particular the mode of employing, and the
performance possible to, the several arms; the service of security;
minor warfare; fortification; the composition and preservation of
armies." Those of the essays which take their subjects from earlier
campaigns are intended "to enrich our insight into the nature of war,
and to make possible a profounder and more correct judgment of events,
and of the persons concerned in them."
The _Order of Teaching_ of the War Academy describes the purpose of all
these studies in military history. They are to lead to a knowledge of
"the unchanging conditions upon which good generalship depends, in
their connection with changing tactical forms." Before there can be
good practice there must be a true theory, and a true theory can be
acquired only from historical study pursued according to a sound
method. Moreover, the theory can never have an independent existence;
it must always derive its sustenance from fresh contact with the
historical reality of which it is the abstract. It is like the giant
Antasus, whose strength fails whenever he is lifted up from the touch
of his mother Earth. On the other hand, historical study which did not
yield a theory would be barren and useless.
This connection between history and theory finds expression in the
tradition of the Prussian service. The general staff has been no less
active in the production of theoretical works than in that of
historical studies. But in the department of theory each work is
published on the responsibility of its author. There is no official
theory;[6] only the theories of individual officers. A short account
of the principal works which in this way emanated from the general
staff during the reign of King William I. will show that the accepted
body of military doctrine is almost entirely due to this one source.
In 1865 appeared as a supplement to a military newspaper an anonymous
memorandum of eight pages, headed "Remarks on the Influence of the
Improved Firearms upon Battle." This short essay, of which the
authorship was afterwards acknowledged by Moltke, gave a searching
analysis, based upon exact historical data, of the modifications in the
handling of troops on the battlefield to be looked for from the
adoption of rifled cannon and breechloading rifles. The writer drew
with a master's hand in a few strokes the characteristics of the
physiology and psychology of the modern battlefield, as results of the
new arms. The rifled gun can change its target without changing its
position. Its long range and its accuracy, where the distance is known
and the target visible, must prevent the enemy from employing large
columns within a mile. The breech-loading rifle requires soldiers
carefully taught to shoot. But sharpshooting must be the exception.
Decisive results on a large scale must be sought by reserving the fire
for those short ranges at which errors in estimating the distance are
immaterial. A strict control of the fire by the officers must prevent
the waste of ammunition. The formation for firing will be the line two
deep; that for manoeuvring in the range of the enemy's rifled guns will
be a line of small columns, which can rapidly deploy, are easily
handled, and admit of the full use of the ground for protection and
concealment when in motion. The new firearms produce their full effect
only on open ground. Accordingly the defender will seek positions such
as are formed by a gentle slope of the ground offering a free and
extensive field of fire. The attacker will seek for his advance the
protection afforded by broken ground or by woods and villages. Though
in the abstract the new weapons are favourable to the defence, so that
a general on the defensive will try to force the enemy to attack him in
a good position, the breechloading rifle, if it can be brought within
effective range of the defender, will quickly bring about a decision.
The defenders will not be able to sustain the hail of bullets, and if
they attempt to charge with the bayonet will be effectually stopped by
the rapid fire of the needle-gun.[7]
The views here expressed were put into practice, and proved to be
sound, on the battlefields of 1866. The battle of Nachod, in which the
Crown Prince's left column, emerging from the mountains, defeated the
Austrian corps which tried to prevent its debouching, illustrated the
leading ideas of Moltke's essay. The position was on the crest of a
long slope, up which the Austrians attacked. The Prussian troops were
handled in small columns, which deployed to resist by steady and rapid
fire at short ranges the advance of the Austrian masses. After the
war, a younger officer of the general staff, Major, afterwards
Lieutenant-General Kühne, published a critical history of these early
battles of the Crown Prince; and it is worth noting that he found the
chief cause of success on the actual battlefields to have lain in the
thoroughness with which the men had been taught to handle the
needle-gun, and in the judgment with which the officers applied the
small column for manoeuvre and the deployed formations for firing. At
Königgrätz itself was illustrated the view that the attack would find
its advantage in broken or covered ground, for the decisive blow was
prepared essentially by Fransecky's hard fighting in the wood of
Maslowed.
After the war of 1870, the Prussian staff was for many years engaged
upon its history, which was not complete until 1881. During this
period the main business of military criticism was the sifting of that
war, with a view to the improvement of theory, in other words to the
better management of future wars. It has always been thought
remarkable that this criticism should have been undertaken by the
Germans themselves. The bulk of this work also was done by the general
staff, in the shape of unofficial publications by members of that body.
Between 1870 and 1875 appeared the studies of Verdy du Vernois in _The
Art of Command_, works which have exercised the profoundest influence
on the military literature of our time, and which recall the efforts of
Scharnhorst to teach, not a series of disconnected sciences, but a
doctrine of the conduct of war.[8] Verdy's studies were based on his
work in the historical department of the staff, where he was engaged on
the records of both the great campaigns. In 1882 appeared the essay on
_Strategy_ of Blume, who had prepared for it by a strategical history,
published in 1872, of the campaign of 1870 from the battle of Sedan
onwards. In 1883 was published the brilliant popular work of Von der
Goltz, _The Nation in Arms_, also the outcome of extensive historical
studies.[9] All these writers were members of the Prussian general
staff.
The tactical discussions which immediately followed the war were
conducted in the main by writers whose experience had been gained, not
on the staff, but in the actual command of fighting units.
Boguslawski, Laymann, Tellenbach, and May had been company leaders on
the French or Bohemian battlefields. But even here the influence of
the staff was considerable. Bronsart von Schellendorf, who wrote the
reply to May's _Tactical Retrospect_, Von Scherff, whose essays on
formal tactics were very widely read at the time of their publication
(1873), and Meckel, whose treatise on tactics in 1881 condensed into a
systematic shape the substantial results of the ten years' controversy,
were all officers of the general staff. Thus it is hardly too much to
say that for more than twenty years the Prussian general staff has done
a great part of the military thinking of Europe.
The school through which a Prussian officer must pass before he can
become a general has now been described, at least in its most striking
features. After five years' service as a lieutenant he has mastered
the elementary duties, and assimilated the spirit of his class, with
its ideals of work and intelligent but absolute obedience. In three
years at the War Academy he has learned the nature of war, and acquired
an insight into the conduct of the armies. At the same time he has
been taught to deal in a practical way with practical questions, never
allowing himself to shrink from the effort of forming a decision. He
has now arrived at full maturity in frame, intelligence, and character,
and spends the more active years of manhood in the higher studies of
the great general staff, the executive and practical activities of
command, and the comprehensive and instructive functions of the general
staff of the division or the army corps. During these years and in all
these varied occupations his energies are put forth to their full
extent, for advancement can only be secured by valuable work in each
successive sphere. By the time he attains to general rank he has
acquired a vast and varied experience; a practised eye, whose rapid and
penetrating glance on the march and in the field seems to the layman
almost miraculous; and a sureness and swiftness of judgment which
decides without fail in an instant nine-tenths of the questions which
arise in the exercise of command.
It is not contended that the system here described is perfect. Every
system has its failures, and there is no possibility of entirely
excluding the influences of favour or prejudice. But it may be
asserted with confidence that the high average of practical ability
secured in the superior officers of the Prussian army is due in the
main to the practice of selection, the careful inspection by the
superiors, at every stage, and to the mature wisdom by which the higher
education of the general staff is directed. The intellectual
advancement of the officers of every army is confronted by a peculiar
difficulty. The foundations of all military institutions are authority
and obedience--principles which appear to be directly opposed to the
free movement of intelligence. Every army is constantly in danger of
decay from mental stagnation. Free criticism is liable to undermine
discipline, and the habit of unconditional obedience too often destroys
the independence of judgment without which moral and intellectual
progress is impossible. The Prussian general staff has escaped from
this dilemma by itself taking the lead in scientific progress, and
organizing itself, in regard to all that concerns the business of
national defence, as an institution for the advancement of learning.
[1] Cf. Colonel Maurice in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ article "War,"
p. 345: "There does not exist, and never has existed ... an 'art of
war' which was something other than the methodic study of military
history."
[2] It is interesting to note that Moltke was a pupil at the War
Academy from 1823 to 1826, while Clausewitz was its director. The
director, however, is not a teacher, and Clausewitz did not publish any
of his principal works during his lifetime, so that the evidence does
not prove a personal influence of Clausewitz upon Moltke.
[3] See Vom Kriege, _Hinterlassenes Werk des Generals Carl von
Clausewitz_, Zweites Buch, Fünftes Capitel.
[4] Clausewitz is fully aware of the difficulty with which this
critical study has to contend, that the real causes, the motives which
led to the adoption of a particular measure, are in many cases unknown.
[5] It may be interesting to compare with what follows Foster's _Essay
on Decision of Character_, Letter VI., in which the value of a
"conclusive manner of thinking" is discussed.
[6] The drill-books and regulations for field service embody an
official theory, and it is, of course, indispensable that they should.
But these books are not prepared under the responsibility of the
general staff. The usual practice is to appoint a committee composed
of a number of combatant officers of all ranks,--a general commanding
an army corps, commanders of divisions, brigades, regiments, and
battalions. They will, as a rule, have had the general staff training,
but it is as experienced commanders that their judgment is asked. They
prepare a draft code of regulations, which is first issued
experimentally, and only adopted after full criticism and revision.
[7] The précis given in the text needs only the alteration of two words
to bring it perfectly up to date. For "a mile" substitute "two miles,"
and for a "line two deep" substitute "line in single rank"="line of
skirmishers." For a recent and interesting but heterodox discussion of
tactical questions the reader may be referred to _Ein
Sommernachtstraum_ (_Midsummer Night's Dream_), which is by a
well-known officer, long a member of the general staff.
[8] Verdy's practice is to use the history of a campaign real or
imaginary as a series of problems set to the student. This is called
in Germany "the applicatory method," and its introduction is ascribed
to General von Peucker, who was Director of Military Education in
Prussia from 1854 to 1872.
[9] Von der Goltz's papers on Rossbach and Jena appeared in 1882.
CHAPTER IV
THE CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF
In the best work the man is more than the school. An ordinary man
gives out no more than has been put into him. All his performances can
be explained by his antecedents. But the best workers contribute from
themselves an element which no analysis can adequately explain. A
Newton or a Columbus, a Stanley or a Whitworth, has some unseen spring
of force and insight.
A man of this stamp is required at the head of an army, and above all
at the head of the organization entrusted with the design of operations.
The eve of a war is always accompanied by a great outburst of feeling,
which in ninety-nine men out of a hundred manifests itself as an
excitement, a disturbance, interfering with the action of the judgment
and distorting the view of persons and events. But this is the very
time when the weightiest decisions must be taken. The provisional plan
of concentration, the result of careful preparation in quieter times,
has to be reconsidered in relation to the circumstances of the moment,
and definitely settled and adopted. The judgment of the strategist
must therefore be perfectly clear, uninfluenced by the emotions which
he shares with the rest of his countrymen.
When the concentration has been ordered, and while the armies are in
movement, come the first collisions, following one another in quick
succession. Every day brings its surprises, even to the best informed
and best prepared headquarters. The strategist's equilibrium must be
disturbed as little by unexpected events as by the throbs of national
emotion. He must prepare the way for a decisive battle. No one knows
better than he the terrible nature of the sacrifices which it will
involve, and the stakes which are risked upon its issue. The lives of
thousands will be lost; many thousands will be wounded; a mistake,
miscalculation, or mishap may lead to defeat, with far-reaching,
perhaps disastrous, consequences to his country. But under the weight
of this vast responsibility the strategist's judgment must work
smoothly and easily, like the compass in a storm, with no derangement
of its delicate equipoise.
The man whose insight remains clear, whose judgment retains its even
balance, when the greater part of mankind are stunned with the awe of
great events, who remains true to himself while others are carried away
by what seems an irresistible current, is not cast in the common mould.
Ordinary men shrink into insignificance beside him. He is separated
from the average officer by a gulf which no system of training can
bridge. The inner calm which neither great occurrences, nor danger,
nor responsibility can disturb cannot be imparted, and no method can be
prescribed for its acquisition.
The natural place for a leader of men is in the supreme command. Where
a general of this type is at the head of an army he will himself
superintend the work of strategical preparation such as is carried on
in the office of the great general staff at Berlin. His chief of the
staff will be a confidential assistant, whose main function will be to
lighten for him the burden of detail, and the two men will stand to one
another in the same relation as that which subsists between the general
commanding an army corps and the chief of the general staff of the
corps.
In Prussia the king is the head of the army, and there are good reasons
why he should take the field in person--reasons which have not been
weakened by his becoming also German Emperor. A king who keeps in his
own hands the general direction of the Government cannot very well work
out for himself the problems involved in the strategical preparation of
a campaign. His chief of the staff becomes his strategical adviser,
alike during peace and war, and occupies a position of far greater
importance than the assistant to a professional commander-in-chief.
King William I., in the two great wars in which he took the field,
reposed entire confidence in his chosen chief of the staff; and to the
fine character which could do this without loss of dignity, as well as
to the genius of Moltke, must be attributed the success with which in
these wars the armies were directed. Moltke always attributed to the
king the responsibility for the strategical decisions, and that quite
correctly; but the king equally correctly regarded Moltke as their
source, and attributed the success of the army to Moltke's "conduct of
the operations."[1] The victories of Prussia in 1866, and of Germany
under Prussian guidance in 1870, were due to the perfect understanding
between the king and Moltke, a relation equally creditable to them
both. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that the king exercised the
supreme political as well as the supreme military authority, and that
in the political department, too, he had in Bismarck a trusted adviser,
the counterpart of Moltke. Thus was secured the harmony between the
political and the military direction which is essential to great
success in war. From the exceptional characters of the king, of
Bismarck, and of Moltke, and from the equally exceptional relation
between them, it would be rash to deduce a system, which in any case
could be applicable only to the case of a king wielding the entire
executive power.
The relation between the Commander-in-Chief and his chief of the staff
must thus be regarded as a personal one, which will vary in its nature
according to the characters and gifts of the two men. If the commander
has in himself the necessary intellectual power, the chief of the staff
should be of subordinate mould; if the commander requires help in the
conception of the operations, his assistant must be able to supply the
initiative required. It is evident that the case in which the
subordinate is the source of inspiration implies on the part of the
commander a magnanimity far from common, and that, therefore, this
arrangement must be considered to be rather the exception than the rule.
The element of permanent value in the Prussian system is the
classification of duties according to which it regulates the division
of labour. The whole authority of the Government is concentrated in
the person of the king who is the head of the army. The king does
nothing himself; every part of the work is done for him. The whole of
the business of the army is divided up into compartments, so as to
leave nothing over, and at the head of each compartment is an officer,
who within it exercises the king's authority. The king's supervision
does not appear to consist in his doing over again the work of these
officers. They submit to him any important new decisions which they
propose, for they are responsible to him. But in case the king is
unable to agree with the course proposed, there is reason to believe
that the officer who suggests it retires, his place being filled by a
successor who shares the king's view. In this way the authority of the
king is maintained without impairing the initiative of his chosen and
authorized assistants.
The actual command of the troops is in the hands of the generals
commanding army corps and of the governors of fortresses; they account
directly to the king, and all their subordinates to or through them.
The general concerns of the army pass through one of three departments.
Personal matters, such as the appointment and promotion of officers,
retirements, rewards, and decorations go to the king's military
cabinet, which has its own chief. Administrative affairs, that is
questions of organization, equipment, armament, and fortification,
belong to the ministry of war. The third department, that of the
general staff, is principally occupied with the strategical and
tactical rather than with the administrative direction of the army.
These various departments communicate directly with one another, a
process which is facilitated by regulations leaving no doubt which of
them upon any given point has the power to decide.
It thus appears that the institution of a general staff as one of the
organs of the management of an army is based upon a true analysis
applying equally to all civilized armies, and to all ordered warfare.
Military success requires primarily the intelligent direction against
the enemy of the forces employed. The general staff originated as the
auxiliary instrument of this direction, and as such is found, at least
in a rudimentary form, in every army. In Prussia alone its full
importance was understood, and it received an organization peculiarly
suited to its purpose. The distinction was steadily kept in view
between the all-important conduct of the operations against an enemy
and the subordinate though necessary business of administration.[2]
Every function directly bearing upon the conception or design of the
action of the army or of its principal parts against the enemy was
assigned to the general staff, which thus became an enlargement of the
commander's mind, serving to facilitate his performance of his most
characteristic and most difficult duty. To the command thus
strengthened the army was rendered pliable partly by means of a
suitable subdivision into permanent autonomous bodies, and partly
through the organization of the administrative side by side with the
military services.
The army corps--managing its own internal affairs--having its
adjutancy, its auditoriat, and its intendancy to supply its needs with
the assistance of and in connection with the ministry of war--is a body
easily amenable to the strategical direction proceeding from a general
centre. Thus the growth of the organ of strategical direction was
necessarily accompanied by a corresponding development of other
military institutions by which the perfect adaptability of the organism
to the directing agency was attained and preserved.
The importance of the office of chief of the general staff of the army
led to its being filled by selection. The confidence reposed in a
chosen chief implied that he should be unhampered in the means of
fulfilling his duties. He was therefore entrusted with the selection,
and eventually with the training, of the officers for his own
department.
The design of military operation involves the most complete knowledge
of the military sciences, and the most perfect mastery of the military
art. Accordingly the great general staff has become a school of
generalship, from which have emanated a series of masterpieces of
military history and historical criticism, while its individual members
have produced valuable works dealing with the various branches of the
theory of the art of war.
The attachment of the War Academy to the general staff for which it is
the training school is the means of raising to the highest level the
standard of military education.
The common devotion of the general staff in all its branches to that
portion of military activity which makes the most exacting demands upon
the intellectual faculties as well as upon the will, finds its
expression in the unity of the general staff through all the branches
of the army. A consequence of the selection by which the corps is
composed, and of the requirement of practical familiarity with the
duties of leadership and with the life and spirit of the troops, is the
constant passage of officers to and fro between regimental and general
staff service, and their alternate employment in the various branches
of the general staff itself.
The general staff, in short, is the brain, and something more than the
brain, of the army.
"Its chief and his 200 officers prepare beforehand for all probable
campaigns; they follow the progress of the armies of their neighbours
at the same time that they study the several theatres of war; they work
out together the methods of war; they familiarize themselves with the
machinery of the army, bringing their influence to bear upon all
questions of organization and training; they form an organism whose
arteries spread all through the army, gathering practical experience
and carrying wherever they go the same continuous stream of principles
and of doctrines."[3]
[1] See the king's letters to Moltke of Oct. 28, 1870: "Ihrer ...
weisen Führung der Operationen," and of March 22, 1871: "Die
unübertreffliche Leitung der Kriegsoperationen." Moltke, _Gesammelte
Schriften_, i., 268, 9.
[2] The function of the military administrator is to transform into
military force so much of the resources of the State as the Government
thinks proper. The process is continuous, and goes on during war as
well as during peace. In Prussia it is conducted by the ministry of
war, the channel or instrument by which the resources of the country
are rendered available for employment against the enemy. Cp. p. 61.
[3] _Revue militaire de l'Étranger_, vol. xxxii. p. 261.
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