TRAINING AND EDUCATION
Our first object, then, must be to organize and transform the German
army into the most effective tool of German policy, and into a school of
health and strength for our nation. We must also try to get ahead of our
rivals by superiority of training, and at the same time to do full
justice to the social requirements of the army by exerting all our
efforts towards raising the spiritual and moral level of the units and
strengthening their loyal German feelings.
Diligence and devotion to military education are no longer at the
present day sufficient to make our troops superior to the enemy's, for
there are men working no less devotedly in the hostile armies. If we
wish to gain a start there is only one way to do it: the training must
break with all that is antiquated and proceed in the spirit of the war
of the future, which will impose fresh requirements on the troops as
well as on the officers.
It is unnecessary to go into the details about the training in the use
of modern arms and technical contrivances: this follows necessarily from
the introduction of these means of war. But if we survey the sphere of
training as a whole, two phenomena of modern warfare will strike us as
peculiarly important with regard to it: the heightened demands which
will be made on individual character and the employment of "masses" to
an extent hitherto unknown.
The necessity for increased individualization in the case of infantry
and artillery results directly from the character of the modern battle;
in the case of cavalry it is due to the nature of their strategical
duties and the need of sometimes fighting on foot like infantry; in the
case of leaders of every grade, from the immensity of the armies, the vast
extent of the spheres of operation and fields of battle, and the
difficulty, inseparable from all these conditions, of giving direct
orders. Wherever we turn our eyes to the wide sphere of modern warfare,
we encounter the necessity of independent action--by the private soldier
in the thick of the battle, or the lonely patrol in the midst of the
enemy's country, as much as by the leader of an army, who handles huge
hosts. In battle, as well as in operations, the requisite uniformity of
action can only be attained at the present time by independent
co-operation of all in accordance with a fixed general scheme.
The employment of "masses" requires an entirely altered method of moving
and feeding the troops. It is one thing to lead 100,000 or perhaps
200,000 men in a rich country seamed with roads, and concentrate them
for a battle--it is another to manoeuvre 800,000 men on a scene of war
stripped bare by the enemy, where all railroads and bridges have been
destroyed by modern explosives. In the first case the military empiric
may be equal to the occasion; the second case demands imperatively a
scientifically educated General and a staff who have also studied and
mastered for themselves the nature of modern warfare. The problems of
the future must be solved in advance if a commander wishes to be able to
operate in a modern theatre of war with certainty and rapid decision.
The necessity of far-reaching individualization then is universally
recognized. To be sure, the old traditions die slowly. Here and there an
undeserved importance is still attached to the march past as a method of
education, and drilling in close formation is sometimes practised more
than is justified by its value. The cavalry is not yet completely
awakened from its slumbers, and performs the time-honoured exercises on
the parade-grounds with great strain on the horses' strength, oblivious
of the existence of long-range quick-firing guns, and as if they were
still the old arm which Napoleon or Frederick the Great commanded. Even
the artillery is still haunted by some more or less antiquated notions;
technical and stereotyped ideas still sometimes restrict the freedom of
operations; in the practice of manoeuvres, artillery duels are still in
vogue, while sufficient attention is not given to concentration of fire
with a definite purpose, and to co-operation with the infantry. Even in
theory the necessity of the artillery duel is still asserted. Many
conservative notions linger on in the heavy artillery. Obsolete ideas
have not yet wholly disappeared even from the new regulations and
ordinances where they block the path of true progress; but, on the
whole, it has been realized that greater individual responsibility and
self-reliance must be encouraged. In this respect the army is on the
right road, and if it continues on it and continually resists the
temptation of restricting the independence of the subordinate for the
sake of outward appearance, there is room for hope that gradually the
highest results will be attained, provided that competent military
criticism has been equally encouraged.
In this direction a healthy development has started, but insufficient
attention has been given to the fact that the main features of war have
completely changed. Although in the next war men will have to be handled
by millions, the training of our officers is still being conducted on
lines which belong to a past era, and virtually ignore modern
conditions. Our manoeuvres more especially follow these lines. Most of
the practical training is carried out in manoeuvres of brigades and
divisions--i.e., in formations which could never occur in the great
decisive campaigns of the future. From time to time--financial grounds
unfortunately prevent it being an annual affair--a corps manoeuvre is
held, which also cannot be regarded as training for the command of
"masses." Sometimes, but rarely, several army corps are assembled for
combined training under veteran Generals, who soon afterwards leave the
service, and so cannot give the army the benefit of any experience which
they may have gained.
It cannot, of course, be denied that present-day manoeuvres are
extraordinarily instructive and useful, especially for the troops
themselves', but they are not a direct training for the command of
armies in modern warfare. Even the so-called "Imperial Manoeuvres" only
correspond, to a very slight extent, to the requirements of modern war,
since they never take account of the commissariat arrangements, and
seldom of the arrangements for sheltering, etc., the troops which would
be essential in real warfare. A glance at the Imperial Manoeuvres of
1909 is sufficient to show that many of the operations could never have
been carried out had it been a question of the troops being fed under
the conditions of war. It is an absolute necessity that our officers
should learn to pay adequate attention to these points, which are the
rule in warfare and appreciably cramp the power of operations. In
theory, of course, the commissariat waggons are always taken into
account; they are conscientiously mentioned in all orders, and in theory
are posted as a commissariat reserve between the corps and the
divisions. That they would in reality all have to circulate with a
pendulum-like frequency between the troops and the magazines, that the
magazines would have to be almost daily brought forward or sent farther
back, that the position of the field bakeries is of extreme
importance--these are all points which are inconvenient and troublesome,
and so are very seldom considered.
In great strategic war-games, too, even in a theatre of war selected in
Russia which excludes all living upon the country, the commissariat
arrangements are rarely worked out in detail; I should almost doubt
whether on such occasions the possibility of exclusive "magazine
feeding" has ever been entertained. Even smaller opportunities of being
acquainted with these conditions are given to the officer in ordinary
manoeuvres, and yet it is extremely difficult on purely theoretical
lines to become familiar with the machinery for moving and feeding a
large army and to master the subject efficiently.
The friction and the obstacles which occur in reality cannot be brought
home to the student in theory, and the routine in managing such things
cannot be learnt from books.
These conditions, then, are a great check on the freedom of operations,
but, quite apart from the commissariat question, the movements of an
army present considerable difficulties in themselves, which it is
obviously very hard for the inexperienced to surmount. When, in 1870,
some rather complicated army movements were contemplated, as on the
advance to Sedan, it was at once seen that the chief commanders were not
masters of the situation, that only the fertility of the theatre of war
and the deficient attacking powers of the French allowed the operations
to succeed, although a man like Moltke was at the head of the army. All
these matters have since been thoroughly worked out by our General
Staff, but the theoretical labours of the General Staff are by no means
the common property of the army.
On all these grounds I believe that first and foremost our manoeuvres
must be placed on a new footing corresponding to the completely altered
conditions, and that we must leave the beaten paths of tradition. The
troops must be trained--as formerly--to the highest tactical efficiency,
and the army must be developed into the most effective machine for
carrying out operations; success in modern war turns on these two
pivots. But the leaders must be definitely educated for that war on the
great scale which some day will have to be fought to a finish. The paths
we have hitherto followed do not lead to this goal.
All methods of training and education must be in accordance with these
views.
I do not propose to go further into the battle training of infantry and
cavalry in this place, since I have already discussed the question at
length in special treatises.[A] In the case of the artillery alone, some
remarks on the principles guiding the technical training of this arm
seem necessary.
[Footnote A: v. Bernhardi: "Taktik und Ausbildung der Infanterie," 1910
"Unsere Kavallerie im nächsten Krieg," 1899; "Reiterdienst," 1910.]
The demands on the fighting-efficiency of this arm--as is partly
expressed in the regulations--may be summed up as follows: all
preconceived ideas and theories as to its employment must be put on one
side, and its one guiding principle must be to support the cavalry or
infantry at the decisive point. This principle is universally
acknowledged in theory, but it ought to be more enforced in practice.
The artillery, therefore, must try more than ever to bring their
tactical duties into the foreground and to make their special technical
requirements subservient to this idea. The ever-recurring tendency to
fight chiefly the enemy's artillery must be emphatically checked. On the
defensive it will, of course, often be necessary to engage the attacking
artillery, if there is any prospect of success, since this is the most
dreaded enemy of the infantry on the defensive; but, on the attack, its
chief duty always is to fire upon the enemy's infantry, where possible,
from masked positions. The principle of keeping the artillery divisions
close together on the battlefield and combining the fire in one
direction, must not be carried to an extreme. The artillery certainly
must be employed on a large plan, and the chief in command must see that
there is a concentration of effort at the decisive points; but in
particular cases, and among the varying incidents of a battle, this idea
will be carried out less effectively by uniformity of orders than by
explaining the general scheme to the subordinate officers, and leaving
to them the duty of carrying it out. Accordingly, it is important that
the personal initiative of the subordinate officer should be recognized
more fully than before; for in a crisis such independent action is
indispensable. The great extent of the battlefields and the natural
endeavour to select wooded and irregular ground for the attack will
often force the artillery to advance in groups or in lines one behind
the other, and to attempt, notwithstanding, united action against the
tactically most important objective. This result is hard to attain by a
centralization of command, and is best realized by the independent
action of tactically trained subordinates.
This is not the place to enter into technical details, and I will only
mention some points which appear especially important.
The Bz shell _(Granatschuss)_ should be withdrawn as unsuitable, and its
use should not form part of the training. It requires, in order to
attain its specific effect against rifle-pits, such accurate aiming as
is very seldom possible in actual warfare.
No very great value should be attached to firing with shrapnel. It seems
to be retained in France and to have shown satisfactory results with us;
but care must be taken not to apply the experiences of the
shooting-range directly to serious warfare. No doubt its use, if
successful, promises rapid results, but it may easily lead, especially
in the "mass" battle, to great errors in calculation. In any case,
practice with Az shot is more trustworthy, and is of the first importance.
The Az fire must be reserved principally for the last stages of an
offensive engagement, as was lately laid down in the regulations.
Care must be taken generally not to go too far in refinements and
complications of strategy and devices. Only the simplest methods can be
successfully applied in battle; this fact must never be forgotten.
The important point in the general training of the artillery is that
text-book pedantries--for example, in the reports on shooting--should be
relegated more than hitherto to the background, and that tactics should
be given a more prominent position. In this way only can the artillery
do really good service in action; but the technique of shooting must not
be neglected in the reports. That would mean rejecting the good and the
evil together, and the tendency to abolish such reports as inconvenient
must be distinctly opposed.
Under this head, attention must be called to the independent manoeuvres
of artillery regiments and brigades in the country, which entail large
expenditure, and, in fact, do more harm than good. They must, in my
opinion, be abandoned or at least considerably modified, since their
possible use is not in proportion to their cost and their drawbacks.
They lead to pronounced tactics of position _(Stellungstaktik)_ which
are impracticable in war; and the most important lesson in actual
war--the timely employment of artillery within a defined space and for a
definite object without any previous reconnoitring of the country in
search of suitable positions for the batteries--can never be learnt on
these manoeuvres. They could be made more instructive if the tactical
limits were marked by troops; but the chief defect in these
manoeuvres--viz., that the artillery is regarded as the decisive
arm--cannot be thus remedied. The usual result is that favourable
artillery positions are searched for, and that they are then adhered to
under some tactical pretence.
After all, only a slight shifting of the existing centre of gravity may
be necessary, so far as the development of the fighting _tactics_ of the
various branches of the service is concerned, in order to bring them
into line with modern conditions. If, however, the troops are to be
educated to a higher efficiency in _operations_, completely new ground
must be broken, on which, I am convinced, great results and an undoubted
superiority over our opponents can be attained. Considerable
difficulties will have to be surmounted, for the crucial point is to
amass immense armies on a genuine war footing; but these difficulties
are not, in my opinion, insurmountable.
There are two chief points: first, the practice of marching and
operations in formations at war strength, fully equipped with
well-stocked magazines as on active service; and, secondly, a
reorganization of the manoeuvres, which must be combined with a more
thorough education of the chief commanders.
As regards the first point, practice on this scale, so far as I know,
has never yet been attempted. But if we consider, firstly, how valuable
more rapid and accurate movements of great masses will be for the war of
the future, and, secondly, what serious difficulties they involve, we
shall be rewarded for the attempt to prepare the army systematically for
the discharge of such duties, and thus to win an unquestioned advantage
over our supposed antagonist.
The preparation for the larger manoeuvres of this sort can naturally
also be carried out in smaller formation. It is, moreover, very
important to train large masses of troops--brigades and divisions--in
long marches across country by night and day with pioneer sections in
the vanguard, in order to gain experience for the technique of such
movements, and to acquire by practice a certain security in them.
Training marches with full military stores, etc., in columns of 20 to 25
kilometres depth would be still more valuable, since they correspond to
the daily needs of real warfare. Should it not be possible to assemble
two army corps in such manoeuvres, then the necessary depth of march can
be obtained by letting the separate detachments march with suitable
intervals, in which case the intervals must be very strictly observed.
This does not ever really reproduce the conditions of actual warfare,
but it is useful as a makeshift. The waggons for the troops would have
to be hired, as On manoeuvres, though only partly, in order to save
expense. The supplies could be brought on army transport trains, which
would represent the pioneer convoys _(Verpflegungsstaffel)_, and would
regulate their pace accordingly.
Marching merely for training purposes in large formations, with food
supplied from the field-kitchens during the march, would also be of
considerable value provided that care is taken to execute the march in
the shortest possible time, and to replace the provisions consumed by
bringing fresh supplies forward from the rear; this process is only
properly seen when the march, with supplies as if in war, is continued
for several days. It is naturally not enough to undertake these
manoeuvres once in a way; they must be a permanent institution if they
are intended to develop a sound knowledge of marching in the army.
Finally, flank marches must be practised, sometimes in separate columns,
sometimes in army formation. The flank marches of separate columns will,
of course, be useful only when they are combined with practice in
feeding an army as if in war, so that the commissariat columns march on
the side away from the enemy, in a parallel line, and are thence brought
up to the troops at the close of the march. Flank marches in army
formation will have some value, even apart from any training in the
commissariat system, since the simultaneous crossing of several marching
columns on parallel by-roads is not an easy manoeuvre in itself. But
this exercise will have its full value only when the regulation
commissariat waggons are attached, which would have to move with them
and furnish the supplies.
I also consider that operative movements in army formation extending
over several days are desirable. Practice must be given in moving
backwards and forwards in the most various combinations, in flank
movements, and in doubling back, the lines of communication in the rear
being blocked when necessary. Then only can all the difficulties which
occur on such movements be shown one by one, and it can be seen where
the lever must be applied in order to remove them. In this way alone can
the higher commanders gain the necessary certainty in conducting such
operations, so as to be able to employ them under the pressure of a
hostile attack. An army so disciplined would, I imagine, acquire a
pronounced superiority over any opponent who made his first experiments
in such operations in actual war. The major strategic movements on both
sides in the Franco-German War of 1870-71 sufficiently showed that.
I recognize naturally that all exercises on this scale would cost a
great deal of money and could never all be carried out systematically
one after the other. I wished, however, to ventilate the subject,
firstly, in order to recommend all officers in high command to study the
points of view under consideration--a thing they much neglect to do;
secondly, because it might be sometimes profitable and possible to carry
out in practice one or other of them--at the Imperial Manoeuvres, for
example, or on some other occasion. How much could be saved in money
alone and applied usefully to this purpose were the above-mentioned
country manoeuvres of the artillery suspended? From reasons of economy
all the commissariat waggons and columns need not actually be employed
on such manoeuvres. It would be useful, however, if, in addition to one
detachment equipped on a war footing, the head waggons of the other
groups were present and were moved along at the proper distance from
each other and from the detachment, which could mainly be fed from the
kitchen waggon. It would thus be possible to get a sort of presentation
of the whole course of the commissariat business and to acquire valuable
experience. It is, indeed, extraordinarily difficult to arrange such
manoeuvres properly, and it must be admitted that much friction and many
obstacles are got rid of if only the heads of the groups are marked out,
and that false ideas thus arise which may lead to erroneous conclusions;
but under careful direction such manoeuvres would certainly not be
wholly useless, especially if attention is mainly paid to the matters
which are really essential. They would, at any rate, be far more
valuable than many small manoeuvres, which can frequently be replaced by
exercises on the large drill-grounds, than many expensive trainings in
the country, which are of no real utility, or than many other military
institutions which are only remotely connected with the object of
training under active service conditions. All that does not directly
promote this object must be erased from our system of education at a
time when the highest values are at stake.
Even then exercise in operations on a large scale cannot often be
carried out, primarily because of the probable cost, and next because it
is not advisable to interrupt too often the tactical training of the
troops.
It must be repeated in a definite cycle in each large formation, so that
eventually all superior officers may have the opportunity of becoming
practically acquainted with these operations, and also that the troops
may become familiarized with the modern commissariat system; but since
such practical exercises must always be somewhat incomplete, they must
also be worked out beforehand theoretically. It is not at all sufficient
that the officers on the General Staff and the Intendants have a mastery
of these subjects. The rank and file must be well up in them; but
especially the officers who will be employed on the supply service--that
is to say, the transport officers of the standing army and those
officers on the furlough establishment, who would be employed as column
commanders.
The practical service in the transport battalions and the duties
performed by the officers of the last-mentioned category who are
assigned to these battalions are insufficient to attain this object.
They learn from these mainly practical duties next to nothing of the
system as a whole. It would therefore be advisable that all these
officers should go through a special preliminary course for this
service, in which the whole machinery of the army movements would be
explained to them by the officers of the General Staff and the higher
transport service officers, and they would then learn by practical
examples to calculate the whole movement of the columns in the most
varied positions with precise regard to distances and time. This would
be far more valuable for war than the many and often excessive trainings
in driving, etc., on which so much time is wasted. The technical
driver's duty is very simple in all columns and trains, but it is not
easy to know in each position what is the crucial point, in order to be
able, when occasion arises, to act independently.
While, therefore, on the one hand, driving instruction must be
thoroughly carried out, on the other hand, the institution of a
scientific transport service course, in which, by practical examples out
of military history, the importance of these matters can be explained,
is under present circumstances an absolute necessity. I have shown
elsewhere how necessary it is to proceed absolutely systematically in
the arrangements for relays of supplies, since the operative
capabilities of the army depend on this system. Its nature, however,
cannot be realized by the officers concerned like a sudden inspiration
when mobilization takes place; knowledge of its principles must be
gained by study, and a proof of the complete misapprehension of the
importance which this service has attained under modern conditions is
that officers are supposed to be able to manage it successfully without
having made in peace-time a profound scientific study of the matter.
The transport service has advanced to a place of extraordinary
importance in the general system of modern warfare. It should be
appreciated accordingly. Every active transport service officer ought,
after some years' service, to attend a scientific course; all the senior
officers on the furlough establishment intended for transport service
ought, as their first duty, to be summoned to attend such a course. If
these educational courses were held in the autumn in the training camps
of the troops, they would entail little extra cost, and an inestimable
advantage would be gained with a very trifling outlay.
The results of such a measure can only be fully realized in war, when
the superior officers also thoroughly grasp these matters and do not
make demands contrary to the nature of the case, and therefore
impossible to be met. They should therefore be obliged to undergo a
thorough education in the practical duties of the General Staff, and not
merely in leading troops in action.
This reflection leads to the discussion of the momentous question how,
generally, the training of the superior officers for the great war
should be managed, and how the manoeuvres ought to be reorganized with a
view to the training. The essential contradiction between our obsolete
method of training and the completely altered demands of a new era
appears here with peculiar distinctness.
A large part of our superior commanders pass through the General Staff,
while part have attended at least the military academy; but when these
men reach the higher positions what they learnt in their youth has long
become out of date. The continuation school is missing. It can be
replaced only by personal study; but there is generally insufficient
time for this, and often a lack of interest. The daily duties of
training troops claim all the officer's energy, and he needs great
determination and love of hard work to continue vigorously his own
scientific education. The result is, that comparatively few of our
superior officers have a fairly thorough knowledge, much less an
independently thought out view, of the conditions of war on the great
scale. This would cost dearly in real war. Experience shows that it is
not enough that the officers of the General Staff attached to the leader
are competent to fill up this gap. The leader, if he cannot himself
grasp the conditions, becomes the tool of his subordinates; he believes
he is directing and is himself being directed. This is a far from
healthy condition. Our present manoeuvres are, as already mentioned,
only occasionally a school for officers in a strategical sense, and from
the tactical point of view they do not meet modern requirements. The
minor manoeuvres especially do not represent what is the most important
feature in present-day warfare--i.e., the sudden concentration of
larger forces on the one side and the impossibility, from space
considerations, of timely counter-movements on the other. The minor
manoeuvres are certainly useful in many respects. The commanders learn
to form decisions and to give orders, and these are two important
matters; but the same result would follow from manoeuvres on the grand
scale, which would also to some extent reproduce the modern conditions
of warfare.
Brigade manoeuvres especially belong to a past generation, and merely
encourage wrong ideas. All that the soldiers learn from them--that is,
fighting in the country--can be taught on the army drill-grounds.
Divisional manoeuvres are still of some value even to the commanders.
The principles of tactical leadership in detail can be exemplified in
them; but the first instructive manoeuvres in the modern sense are those
of the army corps; still more valuable are the manoeuvres on a larger
scale, in which several army corps are combined, especially when the
operating divisions are considered part of one whole, and are compelled
to act in connection with one grand general scheme of operation. The
great art in organizing manoeuvres is to reproduce such conditions, for
only in this way can the strain of the general situation and the
collective mass of individual responsibility, such as exist in actual
warfare, be distinctly brought home. This is a most weighty
consideration. The superior officers must have clearly brought before
their eyes the limits of the possible and the impossible in modern
warfare, in order to be trained to deal with great situations.
The requirements which these reflections suggest are the restriction of
small-scale manoeuvres in favour of the large and predominantly
strategical manoeuvres, and next the abolition of some less important
military exercises in order to apply the money thus saved in this
direction. We must subject all our resources to a single test--that they
conduce to the perfecting of a modern army. We must subject all our
resources to a single test--that they conduce to the perfecting of a
modern army. If the military drill-grounds are suitably enlarged (a
rather difficult but necessary process, since, in view of the range of
the artillery and the mass tactics, they have generally become too
small) a considerable part of the work which is done in the divisional
manoeuvres could be carried out on them. The money saved by this change
could be devoted to the large army manoeuvres. One thing is certain: a
great impulse must be given to the development of our manoeuvre system
if it is to fulfil its purpose as formerly; in organization and
execution these manoeuvres must be modern in the best sense of the word.
It seems, however, quite impossible to carry out this sort of training
on so comprehensive a scale that it will by itself be sufficient to
educate serviceable commanders for the great war. The manoeuvres can
only show their full value if the officers of every rank who take part
in them have already had a competent training in theory.
To encourage this preliminary training of the superior officers is thus
one of the most serious tasks of an efficient preparation for war. These
must not regard their duty as lying exclusively in the training of the
troops, but must also be ever striving further to educate themselves and
their subordinates for leadership in the great war. Strategic war games
on a large scale, which in the army corps can be conducted by the
commanding Generals, and in the army-inspections by the Inspectors, seem
to me to be the only means by which this end can be attained. All
superior officers must be criticized by the standard of their efficiency
in superior commands. The threads of all this training will meet in the
hands of the Chief of the General Army Staff as the strategically
responsible authority.
It seems undesirable in any case to leave it more or less to chance to
decide whether those who hold high commands will be competent or not for
their posts. The circumstances that a man is an energetic commander of
a division, or as General in command maintains discipline in his army
corps, affords no conclusive proof that he is fitted to be the leader of
an army. Military history supplies many instances of this.
No proof is required to show that under the conditions of modern warfare
the reconnoitring and screening units require special training. The
possibility and the success of all operations are in the highest degree
dependent on their activity. I have for years pointed out the absolute
necessity of preparing our cavalry officers scientifically for their
profession, and I can only repeat the demand that our cavalry
riding-schools should be organized also as places of scientific
education. I will also once more declare that it is wrong that the bulk
of the training of the army cavalry should consist in the divisional
cavalry exercises on the military drill-grounds. These exercises do not
correspond at all to actual conditions, and inculcate quite wrong
notions in the officers, as every cavalry officer in high command finds
out who, having been taught on the drill-ground, has to lead a cavalry
division on manoeuvres.
The centre of gravity of effectiveness in war rests on the directing of
operations and on the skilful transition from strategical independence
to combination in attack; the great difficulty of leading cavalry lies
in these conditions, and this can no more be learnt on the drill-grounds
than systematic screening and reconnaissance duties. The perpetual
subject of practice on the drill-grounds, a cavalry engagement between
two divisions in close formation, will hardly ever occur in war. Any
unprejudiced examination of the present conditions must lead to this
result, and counsels the cavalry arm to adopt a course which may be
regarded as a serious preparation for war.
It is a truly remarkable fact that the artillery, which in fact, always
acts only in combination with the other arms, carries out annually
extensive independent manoeuvres, as if it had by itself a definite
effect on the course of the campaign, while the army cavalry, which
_always_ takes the field independently, hardly ever trains by itself,
but carefully practises that combination with infantry which is only
rarely necessary in war. This clearly demonstrates the unsystematic and
antiquated methods of all our training.
Practice in reconnoitring and screening tactics, as well as raids on a
large scale, are what is wanted for the training of the cavalry.
Co-operation with the air-fleet will be a further development, so soon
as aviation has attained such successes that it may be reckoned as an
integral factor of army organization. The airship division and the
cavalry have kindred duties, and must co-operate under the same command,
especially for screening purposes, which are all-important.
The methods for the training of pioneers which correspond fully to
modern requirements have been pointed out by General v. Beseler. This
arm need only be developed further in the direction which this
distinguished officer has indicated in order to satisfy the needs of the
next war.
In the field war its chief importance will be found to be in the support
of the infantry in attacks on fortified positions, and in the
construction of similar positions. Tactical requirements must, however,
be insisted upon in this connection. The whole training must be guided
by considerations of tactics. This is the main point. As regards sieges,
especial attention must be devoted to training the miners, since the
object is to capture rapidly the outlying forts and to take the
fortresses which can resist the attack of the artillery.
The duties of the Army Service Corps[B] are clear. They must, on the one
hand, be efficiently trained for the intelligence department, especially
for the various duties of the telegraph branch, and be ready to give
every kind of assistance to the airships; on the other hand, they must
look after and maintain the strategical capacities of the army. The
rapid construction of railroads, especially light railways, the speedy
repair of destroyed lines, the protection of traffic on military
railways, and the utilization of motors for various purposes, are the
duties for which these troops must be trained. A thorough knowledge and
mastery of the essential principles of operations are indispensable
qualifications in their case also. They can only meet their many-sided
and all-important duties by a competent acquaintance with the methods
and system of army movements on every scale. It is highly important,
therefore, that the officers of the Army Service Corps should be
thoroughly trained in military science.
[Footnote B: _Verkehrstruppen_.]
Thus in every direction we see the necessity to improve the intellectual
development of the army, and to educate it to an appreciation of the
close connection of the multifarious duties of war. This appreciation is
requisite, not merely for the leaders and special branches of the
service; it must permeate the whole corps of officers, and to some
degree the non-commissioned officers also. It will bear good fruit in
the training of the men. The higher the stage on which the teacher
stands, and the greater his intellectual grasp of the subject, the more
complete will be his influence on the scholars, the more rapidly and
successfully will he reach the understanding of his subordinates, and
the more thoroughly will he win from them that confidence and respect
which are the firmest foundations of discipline. All the means employed
to improve the education of our establishment of officers in the science
of war and general subjects will be richly repaid in efficient service
on every other field of practical activity. Intellectual exercise gives
tone to brain and character, and a really deep comprehension of war and
its requirements postulates a certain philosophic mental education and
bent, which makes it possible to assess the value of phenomena in their
reciprocal relations, and to estimate correctly the imponderabilia. The
effort to produce this higher intellectual standard in the officers'
corps must be felt in their training from the military school onwards,
and must find its expression in a school of military education of a
higher class than exists at present.
A military academy as such was contemplated by Scharnhorst. To-day it
assumed rather the character of a preparatory school for the General
Staff. Instruction in history and mathematics is all that remains of its
former importance. The instruction in military history was entirely
divested of its scientific character by the method of application
employed, and became wholly subservient to tactics. In this way the
meaning of the study of military history was obscured, and even to-day,
so far as I know, the lectures on military history primarily serve
purposes of directly professional education. I cannot say how far the
language teaching imparts the spirit of foreign tongues. At any rate, it
culminates in the examination for interpreterships, and thus pursues a
directly practical end. This development was in a certain sense
necessary. A quite specifically professional education of the officers
of the General Staff is essential under present conditions. I will not
decide whether it was therefore necessary to limit the broad and truly
academical character of the institution. In any case, we need in the
army of to-day an institution which gives opportunity for the
independent study of military science from the higher standpoint, and
provides at the same time a comprehensive general education. I believe
that the military academy could be developed into such an institution,
without any necessity of abandoning the direct preparation of the
officers for service on the General Staff. By the side of the military
sciences proper, which might be limited in many directions, lectures on
general scientific subjects might be organized, to which admission
should be free. In similar lectures the great military problems might be
discussed from the standpoint of military philosophy, and the hearers
might gain some insight into the legitimacy of war, its relations to
politics, the co-operation of material and imponderable forces, the
importance of free personality under the pressure of necessary
phenomena, sharp contradictions and violent opposition, as well as into
the duties of a commander viewed from the higher standpoint.
Limitation and concentration of the compulsory subjects, such as are now
arranged on an educational plan in three consecutive annual courses, and
the institution of free lectures on subjects of general culture,
intended not only to educate officers of the General Staff, but to train
men who are competent to discharge the highest military and civic
duties--this is what is required for the highest military educational
institution of the German army.