THE ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES
As indicated at the beginning of the second chapter, a number of Administrative Services are required, to provide the Fighting Troops with all they need to keep up their strength and efficiency. An army cannot act without a service of communication for transmission of Orders; it cannot exist without a supply of food and clothing, fight without ammunition, or move without transport to carry these stores. To maintain its discipline there must be Police, and a department of Military Justice. For reasons of morale, the sick and wounded must be collected and tended, and it is also desirable that its letters should pass with regularity to and from home, and that spiritual ministration should be provided.
These points, with the exception of the Medical Services, were as a rule little considered until the close of the eighteenth century, when Carnot devoted much attention to them while organizing the revolutionary armies in France. Napoleon and Wellington improved them considerably, but they were still very inadequate in England till after the Crimean War.
In modern armies a good system of administration is universally felt to be of the greatest importance. Services are therefore organized to meet the administrative requirements of an army in the field, which may be classed under the following heads:
Inter-communication throughout the Force.
Supply of food, ammunition, and other stores.
Transport by rail and road.
Replacing loss in men or horses.
The above bear directly on the fighting; but there are also certain semi-civil services, which cannot well be dispensed with in war. These deal with the following matters:
Guidance as to Law—military, martial, and international.
Finance, Accounts, the provision and issue of Cash.
Clerical work, in connection with Statistics, Records, invaliding sick and wounded, etc.
Postal Service.
Spiritual ministration.
ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES IN FOREIGN ARMIES
It is not possible to investigate here the various methods adopted in each foreign army to meet these requirements. The system is generally that the Medical Services are managed by their own Heads, the Communication, or Telegraph, Units are provided by the Engineers, and the other Administrative Services are regulated by officials called “Intendants,” who are attached to Divisional and Army Corps Commands, and have entire responsibility for Supply, Remounts, Stores, and Finance. As to Transport, each Army Corps has a “Train Battalion,” a combatant Unit which provides the Infantry, Cavalry, Engineer, and Medical Units (but not those of Artillery) with the wagons, teams, and drivers they require, and furnishes the Transport Columns for carrying supplies.
The personnel of the Medical Services is similarly furnished by the “Army Corps Medical organization,” and the Principal Medical Officers on the Staff of Divisions and Corps administer the Medical Services.
A Director of Medical Services, an Intendant-General, and a Judge-Advocate-General are attached to “General,” as well as to “Army,” Head-Quarters.
As regards the other Services, the Veterinary and Postal Services, and the Chaplains, do not generally form part of any higher Staffs than those of Divisions.
It will be seen that the system is so designed that in the main the business of Administration in detail falls on the Divisional and Army Corps Commands, while the Army Command is left free to concentrate its attention on the enemy.
The principles on which the Administration of an Army in the Field is organized for war as carried on at the present day, can be best understood by a study of the British Administrative Services. The general lines of their organization will be found described in Chapters [IX]. and [X].