Produced by Al Haines THE BRAIN OF AN ARMY A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF THE GERMAN GENERAL STAFF BY SPENSER WILKINSON NEW EDITION WITH LETTERS FROM COUNT MOLTKE AND LORD ROBERTS WESTMINSTER ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO 1895 BY THE SAME AUTHOR _THE COMMAND OF THE SEA_ _THE BRAIN OF A NAVY_ _THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE_ _and in conjunction with_ SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, BART. _IMPERIAL DEFENCE_ [Transcriber's note: the errata items below have been applied to this text.] ERRATA. page 9, line 6 for _have_ read _has_ page 10, line 21, for _occasion_ read _occasions_ PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION Six years ago a Royal Commission, under the presidency of Lord Hartington, was known to be inquiring into the administration of the national defence. There was much talk in the newspapers about the Prussian staff, and many were the advocates of its imitation in this country. Very few of those who took part in the discussions seemed to know what the Prussian staff was, and I thought it might be useful to the Royal Commission and to the public to have a true account of that institution, written in plain English, so that any one could understand it. The essay was published on the 11th of February, 1890, the day on which the Report of Lord Hartington's Commission was signed. The essential feature of the Prussian staff system consists in the classification of duties out of which it has arisen. Every general in the field requires a number of assistants, collectively forming his staff, to relieve him of matters of detail, to act as his confidential secretaries, and to represent him at places where he cannot be himself. The duties of command are so multifarious that some consistent distribution of functions among the officers of a large staff is indispensable. In Prussia this distribution is based on a thoroughly rational and practical principle. The general's work is subdivided into classes, according as it is concerned with administration and discipline or with the direction of the operations against the enemy. All that belongs to administration and discipline is put upon one side of a dividing line, and upon the other side all that directly affects the preparation for or the management of the fighting--in technical language, all that falls within the domain of strategy and tactics. The officers entrusted with the personal assistance of the general in this latter group of duties are in Prussia called his "general staff." They are specially trained in the art of conducting operations against an enemy, that is in the specific function of generalship, which has thus in the Prussian army received more systematic attention than in any other. In the British army the assistants of a general are also grouped into classes for the performance of specific functions in his relief. But the grouping of duties is accidental, and follows no principle. It has arisen by chance, and been stereotyped by usage. The officers of a staff belong to the adjutant-general's branch or to the quartermaster-general's branch, but no rational criterion exists by which to discover whether a particular function falls to one branch or to the other. That this is an evil is evident, because it is manifest that there can be no scientific training for a group of duties which have no inherent affinity with one another. The evil has long been felt, for the attempt has been made to remedy it by amalgamating the two branches in order to sever them again upon a rational plane of cleavage. But while the essence of the Prussian general staff lies deeply embedded in the organization of the Prussian army, the interest of the general public has been attracted by the fact that the great strategist to whom the victories of 1866 and 1870 are ascribed was not the commander of the Prussian army, but merely the chief of the general staff of a royal commander-in-chief. It may well be doubted whether this feature of the Prussian system is suitable for imitation elsewhere. The Germans themselves evidently regard it as accidental rather than essential, for in organizing their navy they have, after much experiment and deliberation, adopted a different plan. They have appointed their chosen admiral to be, not chief of the staff to an Emperor who in war, as he takes the field with the army, cannot undertake the command of the navy, but to be "the commanding admiral." I refrained in the first edition of this essay from drawing from the German institution which it describes a moral to be applied to the British army, and was content with a warning against overhasty imitation. At that time the nature of the relation between Moltke and the King was still to some extent veiled in official language, and nothing so far as I am aware had been published which allowed the facts to rest upon well authenticated, direct evidence as distinguished from inference. Since then the posthumous publication of Moltke's private correspondence,[1] and of the first instalment of his military correspondence,[2] has thrown a flood of light upon the whole subject. I had the good fortune to be furnished with an earlier clue. As soon as my essay was ready for the press I ventured to send a proof to Count Moltke, with a request that he would allow me in a dedication to couple his name with studies of which his work had been the subject. He was good enough to reply in a letter of which the following is a translation:-- BERLIN, January 20, 1890. DEAR SIR,-- I have read your essay on the German general staff with great interest. I am glad that on p. 63 you dispose of the ever-recurring legend according to which before every important decision a council of war is assembled. I can assure you that in 1866 and in 1870-71 a council of war was never called. If the commander after consultation with his authorized adviser feels the need of asking others what he ought to do, the command is in weak hands. If King William I. ever really used the expression attributed to him on p. 58, he did himself a great injustice. The king judged the perpetually changing military situation with an uncommonly clear eye. He was much more than "a great strategist." It was he who took upon himself an immeasurable responsibility, and for the conduct of an army character weighs more than knowledge and science. I think your excellent work would lose nothing if that passage were omitted. You touch on p. 112[3] upon the relation between the commander and the statesman. Neither of the two can set up for himself in advance a goal to be certainly reached. The plan of campaign modifies itself after the first great collision with the enemy. Success or failure in a battle occasions operations originally not intended. On the other hand the final claims of the statesman will be very different according as he has to reckon with defeats or with a series of uninterrupted victories. In the course of the campaign the balance between the military will and the considerations of diplomacy can be held only by the supreme authority. It has not escaped your penetration that a general staff cannot be improvised on the outbreak of war, that it must be prepared long beforehand in peace, and be in practical activity and in close intercourse with the troops. But even that is not enough. It must know who is to be its future commander, must be in communication with him and gain his confidence, without which its position is untenable. Great is the advantage if the head of the State is also the leader in war. He knows his general staff and his troops, and is known by them. In such armies there are no pronunciamentoes. The constitution, however, does not in every country admit of placing the head of the State at the head of the army. If the Government will and can select in advance the most qualified general for the post, that officer must also be given during peace the authority to influence the troops and their leaders and to create an understanding between himself and his general staff. This chosen general will seldom be the minister of war, who during the whole war is indispensable at home, where all the threads of administration come together. You have expressed the kind intention of dedicating your interesting essay to me, but I suggest that you should consider whether without such a dedication it would not still better preserve the character of perfectly independent judgment. With best thanks for your kind communication, I am, dear sir, yours very truly, COUNT MOLTKE, Field Marshal. It was hardly possible for Moltke, bound as he was by his own high position, to have expressed more plainly his opinion of the kind of reform needed in the British army, nor to have better illustrated than by that opinion the precise nature of his own work.[4] With Moltke's view that the peculiar position which he held was not necessarily the model best suited for the circumstances of the British army it is interesting to compare the judgment expressed quite independently by Lord Roberts, who kindly allows me to publish the following letter:-- SIMLA, 11_th September_, 1891. DEAR MR. WILKINSON,-- I am much obliged to you for so kindly sending me _The Brain of an Army_ and the other military works which reached me two or three mails ago. Some of the books I had seen before, and _The Brain of an Army_ I had often heard of, and meant to study whenever sufficient leisure was vouchsafed to me, which, alas! is but seldom. I have now read it with great interest. One point that strikes me is the strong inclination evinced at present to assume that the German system of apportioning the duties of command and staff is deserving of universal adoption because under exceptional circumstances, and with quite an exceptional man to act as head of the Staff, it proved eminently successful in the wars between Prussia and Austria and Prussia and France. The idea of a Chief of the Staff who is to regulate the preparations for and the operations during a campaign, and who is to possess a predominant influence in determining the military policy of a nation, is quite opposed to the views of some of the ablest commanders and strategists, as summarized at pages 17 and 18 of Home's _Précis of Modern Tactics_, Edition 1882; and I doubt whether any really competent general or Commander-in-Chief would contentedly acquiesce in the dissociation of command and responsibility which the German procedure necessarily entails. That Von Moltke was the virtual Commander-in-Chief of the German forces during the wars in question, and that the nominal commanders had really very little to say to the movements they were called upon to execute, seems to be clearly proved by the third volume of the Field Marshal's writings, reviewed in _The Times_ of the 21st August last. Von Moltke was a soldier of extraordinary ability, he acted in the Emperor's name, the orders he initiated were implicitly obeyed, and the military machine worked smoothly. But had the orders not been uniformly judicious, had a check or reverse been experienced, and had one or more of the subordinate commanders possessed greater capacity and resolution than the Chief of the Staff, the result might have been very different. In military nations a Chief of the Staff of the German type may perhaps be essential, more especially when, as in Germany, the Emperor is the head of the Army and its titular Commander-in-Chief. The reasons for this are that, in the first place, he may not possess the qualities required in a Commander-in-Chief who has to lead the Army in war; and in the second place, even if he does possess those qualities, there are so many other matters connected with the civil administration of his own country, and with its political relations towards other countries, that the time of a King or Emperor may be too fully occupied to admit of his devoting that exclusive attention to military matters which is so necessary in a Commander-in-Chief, if he desires to have an efficient Army. A Chief of the Staff then becomes essential; he is indeed the Commander-in-Chief. In a small army like ours, however, where the Commander-in-Chief is a soldier by profession, I am inclined to think that a Chief of the Staff is not required in the same way as he is in Germany. With us, the man of the stamp sketched in chapter iv. of _The Brain of an Army_ should be the head of the Army--the Commander-in-Chief to whom every one in the Army looks up, and whom every one on service trusts implicitly. The note at page 12 [61] of your little book expresses my meaning exactly. Blucher required a Scharnhorst or a Gneisenau "to keep him straight," but would it not have been better, as suggested in your note, "to have given Scharnhorst and Gneisenau the actual command"? I think, too, that an Emperor or King would be more likely than a man of inferior social standing to take the advice of a Chief of the Staff. The former would be so immeasurably above all those about him that he could afford to listen to advice--as the Emperor of Germany undoubtedly did to that of Von Moltke on the occasion mentioned in the note at page 14 [64]. But the Commander of about much the same standing socially as his Chief of the Staff, and possibly not much the latter's senior in the Army, would be apt to resent what he might consider uncalled-for interference; and this would be specially the case if he were of a narrow-minded, obstinate disposition. Indeed, I think that such a feeling would be almost sure to arise, unless the Commander-in-Chief were one of those easy-going, soft natures which ought never to be placed in such a high position. My personal experience is, of course, very slight, but I have been a Commander with a Chief of the Staff, and I have been (in a very small way) the Chief of the Staff to a Commander, with whom I was sent "to keep him straight." It was not a pleasant position, and one which I should not like to fill a second time. In my own Chief of the Staff (the late Sir Charles Macgregor) I was particularly fortunate; he was of the greatest possible assistance to me; but without thinking myself narrow-minded and obstinate, I should have objected if he had acted as if he were "at the head of the Army." I have been referring hitherto more to war than peace, but even in peace time I doubt if a Chief of the Staff of the German type is suitable to our organization, and to the comparative smallness of our army. In war time it might easily lead to disaster. The less capacity possessed by the nominal Commander-in-Chief the greater might be his obstinacy, and the more capacity he possessed the more he would resent anything which might savour of interference. Altogether I think that the office of Chief of the Staff, as understood in Germany, might easily be made impossible under the conditions of our service. My opinion is that the Army Head-Quarters Staff are capable of doing exactly the same work as the Grand General Staff of the German Army perform, and that there is no need to upset our present system. We have only to bring the Intelligence and Mobilization Departments more closely into communication with, and into subordination to, the Adjutant-General and Quarter-Master-General, as is now being done in India with the best results. You will understand that the foregoing remarks are based on the assumption that in the British Service the office of Commander-in-Chief is held by the soldier who, from his abilities and experience, has commended himself to the Government as being best qualified to organize the Army for war, and if requisite to take command in the field. If, however, for reasons of State it is thought desirable to approximate our system to the German system in the selection of the head of the Army, it might become necessary to appoint a Chief of the Staff of the German type to act as the responsible military adviser of the Commander-in-Chief and the Cabinet. But in this case the responsibility of the Officer in question should be fully recognised and clearly defined. Believe me, Yours very truly, FRED ROBERTS. To SPENSER WILKINSON, Esq. The Report of Lord Hartington's Commission, which appeared in the spring of 1890, seemed to justify the apprehension which had caused me to write, for it recommended the creation, under the name of a general staff, of a department bearing little resemblance to the model which it professed to copy. The Commission, however, was in a most awkward dilemma. It was confronted in regard to the command of the army with two problems, one of which was administrative, the other constitutional. The public was anxious to have an army efficient for its purpose of fighting the enemies of Great Britain. The statesmen on the Commission were intent upon having an army obedient to the Government. The tradition that the command of the army being a royal prerogative could be exercised otherwise than through the constituted advisers of the Crown was not in practice altogether extinct. It can hardly be doubted that the Commission was right in wishing to establish the principle that the army is a branch of the public service, administered and governed under the authority of the Cabinet in precisely the same way as the post office. No other theory is possible in the England of our day. But the attempt to make the theory into the practice touched certain susceptibilities which it was felt ought to be respected, and the Commission perhaps attached more importance to this kind of consideration than to the necessity of preparing the war office for war. It was no doubt of the first importance to guard against the recurrence of a state of things in which all attempts to bring the army into harmony with the needs of the time and of the nation were frustrated by an authority not entirely amenable to the control of the Secretary of State. Not less important, however, was the requirement that any change by which this result, in itself so desirable, might be attained should at the same time contribute to the supreme end of readiness for conflict with any of the Great Powers whose rivalry with Great Britain has in recent times become so acute. In the war of which a part is examined in the following pages a chief of the staff is seen drafting the orders by which the whole army is guided. He has no authority; the orders are issued in the name of the commander,--that is in Prussia, of the king. When, as was the case in 1866 and in 1870-1, the king shows his entire confidence in the chief of the staff by invariably accepting his drafts, the direction of the army, the generalship of the campaign, is really the work of the chief of the staff, though that officer has never had a command, and has been sheltered throughout under the authority of another. The generalship or strategy of the campaigns of 1866 and 1870-1 was Moltke's, and Moltke's alone, and no one has borne more explicit testimony to this fact than the king. At the same time no one has more emphasized the other fact, that he was covered by the king's responsibility, than Moltke himself. The work of generalship can rarely be given to any one but the commander of an army. When the commander owes his position to other than military considerations, as is the case in Prussia, where the king is born to be commander-in-chief as he is born to be king, he is wise to select a good professional general to do the work. But where a government is free to choose its commander, that officer will wish to do his own work himself, and will resent the suggestion that an assistant should prompt and guide him. The Hartington Commission proposed at the same time to abolish the office of commander-in-chief, and to create that of a "chief of the staff." This new officer was to advise the Secretary of State--that is, the Government--upon all the most important military questions. He was to discuss the strength and distribution of the army, and the defence of the Empire; to plan the general arrangements for defence, and to shape the estimates according to his plan. In a word, he was to perform many of the most important duties of a commander-in-chief. But he was to be the adviser or assistant, not of a military commander, but of a civilian governor-general of the army. An army cannot be directed in war nor commanded in peace under the immediate authority of a civilian. There must be a military commander, the obedient servant of the Government, supported by the Government in the exercise of his powers to discipline and direct the army, and sheltered by the Government against all such criticism as would weaken his authority or diminish its own responsibility. The scheme propounded by the Hartington Commission evaded the cardinal question which has to be settled: that of the military command of the army in war. War cannot be carried on unless full and undivided authority is given to the general entrusted by the Government with the conduct of the military operations. That officer will necessarily be liable to account to the Government for all that is done, for the design and for its execution. The Report of the Commission made no provision whatever for the command of the army in war. The proposed "chief of the staff" was to be entrusted during peace with the duty of the design of operations. Had the Commission's scheme been adopted, the Government would, upon the near approach of war, still have had to select its commander. The selection must fall either upon the "chief of the staff" or upon some other person. But no general worth his salt will be found to stake his own reputation and the fate of the nation upon the execution of designs supplied to him at second-hand. No man with a particle of self-respect would undertake the defence of his country upon the condition that he should conduct it upon a plan as to which he had never been consulted, and which, at the time of his appointment, it was too late to modify. Accordingly, if the scheme of the Commission had been adopted, it would have been necessary to entrust the command in war to the officer who during peace had been chief of the staff. But this officer being in peace out of all personal relation with the army could not have the moral authority which is indispensable for its command. The scheme of the Hartington Commission could therefore not be adopted, except at the risk of disaster in the event of war. While I am revising the proof of this preface come the announcements, first, that Lord Wolseley is to succeed the Duke of Cambridge, and, secondly, that though the title of Commander-in-Chief is to be retained, the duties attaching to the office are to be modified and its authority diminished. The proposed changes in the status of the Commander-in-Chief show that the present Government is suffering from the pressure of an anxiety exactly like that which paralysed Lord Hartington's Commission, while from the speeches in which the new scheme has been explained the idea of war is altogether absent. The Government contemplates depriving the Commander-in-Chief of his authority over the Adjutant-General and the Quartermaster-General, as well as over the heads of some other military departments. The Adjutant-General's department embraces among other matters all that directly concerns the discipline, training, and education of the army; while such business as the quartering and movements of troops passes through the office of the Quartermaster-General. These officers are to become the direct subordinates of the Secretary of State. In other words, the staff at the headquarters of the army is to be the staff, not of the nominal Commander-in-Chief, but of the Secretary of State, who is thus to be made the real Commander-in-Chief of the army. This is evidently a momentous change, not to be lightly or rashly approved or condemned. The first duty is to discover, if possible, the motives by which the Government is actuated in proposing it. Mr. Balfour, speaking in the House of Commons on the 31st of August, explained the view of the Government. "What," he said, "is the substance and essence of the criticisms passed by the Harrington Commission upon the War Office system, which has now been in force in this country for many years? The essence of the criticisms of the Commissioners was that by having a single Commander-in-Chief, through whom, and through whom alone, army opinion, army matters, and army advice would come to the Secretary of State for War, you were, in the first place, throwing upon the Commander-in-Chief a burden which no single individual could possibly support; and, secondly, you were practically destroying the responsibility of the Secretary of State for War, who nominally is the head of the department. If you put the Secretary of State for War in direct communication with the Commander-in-Chief alone, I do not see how the Secretary of State for War can be anything else than the administrative puppet of the great soldier who is at the head of the army. He may come down to the House and express the views of that great officer, but if he is to take official advice from the Commander-in-Chief alone it is absolutely impossible that the Secretary of State should be really responsible, and in this House the Secretary of State will be no more than the mouthpiece of the Commander-in-Chief." Mr. Balfour's first point is that the burden thrown upon a single Commander-in-Chief is too great for one man to bear. Marlborough, Wellington or Napoleon would, perhaps, hardly have accepted this view. But supposing it were true, the remedy proposed is infinitely worse than the disease. In 1887 the Royal Commission, over which the late Sir James Stephen presided, examined with judicial impartiality the duties of the Secretary of State for War. That Commission in its report wrote as follows:-- "The first part of the system to be considered is the Secretary of State. On him we have to observe, _first_, that the scope of his duties is immense; _secondly_, that he performs them under extreme disadvantages. He is charged with five separate great functions, any one of which would be sufficient to occupy the whole time of a man of first-rate industry, ability, and knowledge. "_First_, he is a member of the Cabinet, and a Member of Parliament, in which capacity he has to give his attention, not only to the matters of his own department, but to all the leading political questions of the day. He has to take part in debates on the great topics of discussion, and on many occasions to speak upon them in his place in Parliament. "_Secondly_, he is the head, as has been already observed, of the political department of the army. He may have to consider, and that at the shortest notice, the whole conduct of a war; all the important points connected with an expedition to any part of the globe; political questions like the abolition of purchase; legislative questions like the Discipline Act, and many others of the same kind. "_Thirdly_, he is the head of the Ordnance Department, which includes all the questions relating to cannon, small arms, and ammunition, and all the questions that arise upon the management of four great factories, and the care of an enormous mass of stores of every description. "_Fourthly_, he has to deal with all the questions connected with fortifications and the commissariat. "_Fifthly_, he is responsible for framing the Military Estimates, which override all the other departments, and regulate the expenditure of from £16,000,000 to £18,000,000 of public money. "It is morally and physically impossible that any one man should discharge all these functions in a satisfactory manner. No one man could possess either the time or the strength or the knowledge which would be indispensable for that purpose; but even if such a physical and intellectual prodigy were to be found, he would have to do his duty under disadvantages which would reduce him practically to impotence." If, then, the Commander-in-Chief is overburdened, it is at least certain that the right way to relieve him cannot possibly consist in adding to the functions of the Secretary of State. The real point of Mr. Balfour's statement of the case is in what follows. If you have a single Commander-in-Chief through whom, and through whom alone, army opinion, army matters, and army advice would come to the Secretary of State, then, according to Mr. Balfour, you practically destroy the responsibility of the Secretary of State. It is a mark of the hastiness of debate that the word responsibility has crept in here. No word in the political vocabulary is so dangerous, because none is so ambiguous. Properly speaking, a person is said to be responsible when he is liable to be called to account for his acts, a liability which implies that he is free to act in one way or another. These two aspects of the term, the liability and the freedom of choice implied, lead to its use in two opposite senses. Sometimes responsibility means that a man must answer for what he does, and sometimes that he may do as he pleases without being controlled by any one. The word is as often as not a synonym for authority. When Moltke speaks of the "immeasurable responsibility" of the King of Prussia, he really means that the King took upon himself as his own acts decisions of the gravest moment which were prompted by his advisers, and that by so doing he covered them as against the rest of the world; he did not mean that the King had to account for his conduct except to his own conscience and at the bar of history. A Secretary of State for War, in his relations with the army, wields the whole authority of the Government. The only thing which he cannot do is to act in opposition to the wishes of his colleagues, for if he did he would immediately cease to be Secretary of State. As long as they are agreed with him he is the master of the army. But his liability to be called to account is infinitely small. The worst that can happen to him is that if the party to which he belongs should lose its majority in the House of Commons the Cabinet of which he is a member may have to resign. That is an event always possible quite apart from his conduct, and his actions will as a rule not bring it about unless for other reasons it is already impending. Whenever, therefore, the phrase "the responsibility of the Secretary of State" occurs, we ought to substitute for it the more precise words: "the power of the Cabinet to decide any matter as it pleases, subject to the chance of its losing its majority." What Mr. Balfour deprecates is a single Commander-in-Chief, and it is important to grasp the real nature of his objection. If the whole business of the army be conceived to be a single department of which the Commander-in-Chief is the head, so that the authority of the Secretary of State extends to no other matters than those which lie within the jurisdiction of the Commander-in-Chief, then undoubtedly the Secretary of State and the Commander-in-Chief are each of them in a false position, for one of them is unnecessary. The Secretary of State must either simply confirm the Commander-in-Chief's decisions, in which case his position as superior authority is a mere form, or he must enter into the reasons for and against and decide afresh, in which case the Commander-in-Chief becomes superfluous. It is bad organization to have two men, one over the other, both to do the same business. Mr. Balfour's objection to this arrangement is, however, not that it sins against the principles of good organization, but that it practically abolishes the Secretary of State. It leaves the decision of questions which arise within the War Office and the army in the hands of a person who is outside the Cabinet. In this way it diminishes the power of the Cabinet, which rests partly upon the solidarity of that body, and partly upon the practice by which every branch of Government business is under the control of one or other of its members. Both these objections appear to me to rest upon false premises. I shall show presently that the duties of the Secretary of State must necessarily include matters which do not properly come within the scope of a Commander-in-Chief, and I cannot see how the authority of the Cabinet to manage the army rationally would be impaired by a War Office with a military head, the subordinate of the Secretary of State. But both objections, supposing them to be valid, would be overcome by making the Commander-in-Chief Secretary of State--that is, by abolishing the office of Secretary of State for War, and entrusting his duties to the Commander-in-Chief as a member of the Cabinet. Why, then, does not the Government adopt this plan, which at first sight appears so simple? There is a good reason. The Cabinet is a committee of peers and members of Parliament selected by the leader of a party from among his followers. The bond between its members is a party bond, and their necessary main purpose is to retain their majority in the House of Commons. A military Commander-in-Chief means an officer selected as the representative, not of a party, but of a subject. He is the embodiment of strategical wisdom, and to secure that strategical knowledge and judgment receive due attention in the councils of government is the purpose of his official existence. To make him a member of the Cabinet would be to disturb the harmony of that body by introducing into it a principle other than that of party allegiance, and the harmony could not be restored except either by subordinating strategy to party, which would be a perversion of the Commander-in-Chief, or by subordinating party to strategy, a sacrifice which the leaders of a party will not make except under the supreme pressure of actual or visibly impending war. The preliminary decision, then, which may be taken as settled--for the other party if it had been in power would certainly have come to the same conclusion--is that no military officer, either within or without the Cabinet, is to have in his hands the whole management of the army; the absolute power of the Cabinet must be preserved, and therefore no military officer is to have more than departmental authority; the threads are not to be united in any hands other than those of the Secretary of State. This determination appears to me most unfortunate, for to my eye the time seems big with great events requiring a British Government to attach more importance to preparation for conflict than to the rigorous assertion of Cabinet supremacy. Be that as it may, the practical question is whether the proposed sub-division of the business of the War Office into departments is a good or a bad one. I think it incurably bad, because it follows no principle of classification inherent in the nature of the work to be done. To find the natural and necessary classification of duties in the management of an army we must look not at the War Office but at war. Suppose the country to be engaged in a serious war, in which the army, or a large portion of it is employed against an enemy, who it may be hoped will not have succeeded in invading this island. In that case we can distinguish clearly between two functions. There must be an authority directing against the enemy the troops in the field; a general with full powers, implicitly obeyed by all the officers and officials accompanying his army. There must also be an administrative officer at home, whose function will be to procure and convey to the army in the field all that it requires--food, ammunition, clothing and pay, fresh men and fresh horses to replace casualties. This officer at home cannot be the same person as the general in the field; for the two duties must be carried on in two different places at the same time. The two functions, moreover, correspond to two different arts or branches of the military art. The commander in the field requires to excel in generalship, or the art of command; the head of the supply department at home requires to be a skilled military administrator in the sense not of a wielder of discipline or trainer of troops, but of a clever buyer, a producer and distributor on a large scale. Neither of these officers can be identical with the Secretary of State, whose principal duty in war is to mediate between the political intentions of the Government and the military action conducted by the commander in the field. This duty makes him the superior of the commander; while the officer charged with military supply, though he need not be the formal subordinate of the commander, must yet conform his efforts to the needs of the army in the field. There are many important matters which cannot be confined either to the department of command or to that of supply. Under this head fall the terms of service for soldiers, the conditions of recruiting, the regulations for the appointment and promotion of officers. These are properly the subjects of deliberation in which not only military, but civil opinions and interests must be represented; for their definition the Secretary of State will do well to refer to a general council of his assistants, and the ultimate settlement will require the judgment of the Cabinet, and sometimes also the sanction of Parliament. In time of war it is generally necessary quickly to levy extra men, and to drain into the army a large part of the resources of the country. Such measures must be thought out and arranged in advance during peace, for the greatest care is required in all decisions which involve the appropriation by the State of more than the usual share of the energies, the time and the money of its citizens. Regulations of this kind can seldom be framed except as the result of the deliberations of a council of military and civil officers of experience. These, then, are the rational sub-divisions of army business. There is the department of command, embracing the discipline and training of the troops, their organization as combatant bodies, the arrangement of their movements and distribution in peace and war, and all that belongs to the functions of generalship. These matters form the proper domain of a Commander-in-Chief. Side by side with them is the department of supply, which procures for the commander the materials out of which his fighting machine is put together and kept in condition. Harmony between them is secured by the authority of the Government, wielded by the Secretary of State, who regulates according to the state of the national policy and of the exchequer the amount to be spent by each department, and who presides over the great council which lays down the conditions under which the services of the citizens in money, in property, or in person are to be claimed by the State for its defence. The examination, then, of the conditions of war, and the application, during peace, of the distribution of duties which war must render necessary, lead to the true solution of the difficulty raised by Mr. Balfour. The internal affairs of the army are indeed one department, but the position of head of that department, while it could properly be filled by a Commander-in Chief, is not and cannot be identical with that of the minister who personifies the Cabinet in relation to the army. The minister ought to be concerned chiefly with the connexion between the national policy and the military means of giving it effect. The intention to make the Secretary of State head of the military department seems to me to prove that the Government really takes no account of what should be his higher duties. The lack of the conception of a national policy is thus about to embarrass the military management of the army. It is not my object here to consider in detail how the principles of organization for war should be applied to the British army. That subject has been fully treated by Sir Charles Dilke and myself in the last chapter of our "Imperial Defence," a chapter which has not been criticised except with approval. But I am concerned to show that the German practice cannot at any point be quoted in support either of the recommendations of the Hartington Commission or of the proposals now announced by the Government, which to any one who regards them from the point of view of the nation, that is of the defence of the Empire, must appear to be at once unnecessary, rash and inopportune. 3, MADEIRA ROAD, STREATHAM, S.W. _September_ 3_rd_, 1895. [1] See in particular the passage in Moltke, _Gesammelte Schriften_, V. 298-9, which I have translated in an essay entitled "The Brain of the Navy," p. 28. [2] It seems incredible that so important and so interesting a work as Moltke's military correspondence in relation to the Danish war of 1864 should hitherto have been ignored by English military writers. [3] The reference is to a passage in the last chapter of the first edition, which has been rewritten. [4] The passage which Moltke disliked was erased in the first edition, its place being supplied by words borrowed from his letter. In this edition it is printed as it was first written, in order to make the letter intelligible. The last chapter has in this edition been condensed, and I hope made simpler and clearer. One or two other slight changes in expression arise from the reconsideration of phrases which Count Moltke marked in reading the proof. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION In May, 1887, a Select Committee was appointed to examine into the Army and Navy Estimates. On the 8th of July Major-General (now Lieut-General) Brackenbury, in the course of examination by the Committee, made a series of comparisons between the English and the German systems of army management. He referred particularly to the great general staff of the German army, which he described as "the keystone of the whole system of German military organization ... the cause of the great efficiency of the German army ... acting as the powerful brain of the military body, to the designs of which brain the whole body is made to work." "I cannot but feel," he said, "that to the want of any such great central thinking department is due that want of economy and efficiency which to a certain extent exists in our army." If at any time a statesman should be found to undertake the work of an English Minister of War, his first wish would be to grasp the nature of this keystone of the German system, to distinguish in it between essentials and accessories, to perceive which of its peculiarities are local, temporary, and personal; and what are the unchangeable principles in virtue of which it has prospered. Equipped with this knowledge, he would be able to reform without destroying, to rise above that servile imitation which copies defects as well as excellences, and, without sacrificing its national features, to infuse into the English system the merits of the German. For such a statesman, and for the public upon whose support he must depend, this book has been written. It is an endeavour to describe the German general staff and its relation to the military institutions from which it is inseparable. To illustrate the general staff at work in war, the campaign of 1866, rather than that of 1870, has been chosen, because it better exemplifies some of the relations between strategy and policy. _December_, 1889. TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I _THE GENERAL STAFF IN THE MANAGEMENT OF A CAMPAIGN_ CHAPTER I THE EVE OF KÖNIGGRÄTZ Political and military situation on the 2nd of July--Position of the Prussian armies---Topography of the district--Supposed position of the Austrian army, and consequent arrangements for July 3rd--True position of the Austrian army discovered--Consequent fresh orders for July 3rd--Which result in a decisive victory CHAPTER II BEHIND THE SCENES The secret of King William's military success--His selection of a single adviser, and resolute adherence to his proposals--History of the office of chief of the general staff--Proceedings at Gitschin the night before the battle CHAPTER III FIVE SHORT ORDERS Prussian system of division of labour and organization of responsibility--Simplicity of its working illustrated from the fewness and brevity of the orders issued CHAPTER IV PRELIMINARIES OF A CAMPAIGN Nature of the preparations for a campaign--Mobilization--Concentration--Influence of considerations of policy--King William in 1866 anxious to avoid war--Problems solved by the Prussian staff in preparation for the campaign: calculation of the force required--Its distribution in the theatre of war--Choice of points of concentration; formation of two armies in 1866 inevitable--Movement of troops to the points selected; transport by rail and subsequent marches--Position on June 6th--Opening of campaign postponed for political reasons--Delay leads to better knowledge of Austrian movements, and corresponding modification of Prussian arrangements--King William finally decides for war--Invasion of Saxony--Position of Prussian armies on June 22nd--Summary CHAPTER V THE CRITICS Difficulties which beset the judgment of the conduct of a campaign--Insufficiency of the attainable knowledge of the motives which guided the commanders--Reserve therefore incumbent on the military critic--Illustration of hasty judgment--Impartiality consists only in the attempt to understand PART II _THE GENERAL STAFF AND THE ARMY_ CHAPTER I THE SPIRIT OF PRUSSIAN MILITARY INSTITUTIONS Spirit of the Prussian officers--The officer the teacher and leader of his men--System of promotion--Selection for the higher commands--Superiors responsible for the efficiency of their subordinates CHAPTER II THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY The army corps and its subdivisions--The company, squadron, and battery commanders--The superior prescribes the object, and leaves to his subordinate the choice of means--Graduation of authority and responsibility--Resulting in freedom of superiors from the burden of detail CHAPTER III THE SYSTEM OF TRAINING Peace training determined solely by the requirements of war--It culminates in the manoeuvres--Which complete the training of the troops--And develop and test the capacity of the generals CHAPTER IV THE ARMY CORPS Review of the means adopted to secure its proper handling--Vastness of the administrative tasks involved in its management--Sketch of a mobilized Prussian army corps on the march and in quarters--Dual nature of its commander's anxieties--System devised to relieve him--Administrative services organized under two or three responsible heads--Military functions partly those of direction, partly those of routine--The latter dealt with by the adjutancy CHAPTER V THE GENERAL STAFF IN THE ARMY CORPS The bureau which assists the general in the military direction--Enumeration of its functions in war--And in peace--The chief of the general staff of the army corps--Summary CHAPTER VI COMPOSITION OF THE GENERAL STAFF AND ITS DISTRIBUTION THROUGH THE ARMY Forms a corps by itself, but not a close corporation--Alternation between service on the general staff and service with the troops--No career merely on the staff except for scientific work, involving abandonment of prospect of command--Numbers and distribution of general staff--Alternative service on great general staff, and on general staff of a constituent part of the army--Influence on the work of the experience thus acquired--Members of the general staff dispersed throughout the army--The general staff recruited from the pick of the young combatant officers PART III _THE GREAT GENERAL STAFF_ CHAPTER I AN INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT Direct preparation for war consists in determining beforehand the distribution of the forces, their concentration and transport to the frontier--Information on which these arrangements are based collected by general staff--Its subdivision for the purpose--Thoroughness of the work--The _Registrande_--Merely a preliminary groundwork--Explains Prussian knowledge of enemy's resources in 1866 and 1870--Similar organization in other armies--Railway arrangements--Production of maps CHAPTER II A MILITARY UNIVERSITY Regeneration of Prussia assisted by education--War school founded by Scharnhorst in 1810--Scharnhorst's earlier educational work--History of the war academy since 1810--The present regulations--The order of service--Object of the war academy--Constitution and management--Entrance examination--Practical lessons compulsory--The order of teaching--Standard by which to judge it---Course of study at the academy--Method of instruction--Tactics--Military history--History--Staff duties and tour--Comparison with the university ideal CHAPTER III THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING Relation between teaching and research--Exemplified in practice of general staff--Military
{'title': 'The Brain of an Army: A Popular Account of the German General Staff by Wilkinson', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}