The Personal Staff needs little remark. It comprises the officers acting as Aides de Camp to the Commander, and in important Head-Quarters there is also a Military Secretary. These officers act as confidential secretaries to their Chief, carry his Orders, manage his household, and arrange for its movements. Their relations with their Chief are more personal than official, and they are not considered to be Staff Officers.
Besides the Staff, there are generally attached to Head-Quarters a number of other Officers, such as those of Administrative Services, and in some armies Officers of Artillery or Engineers. But these cannot be properly called Staff Officers, as they have only a limited sphere of action in the Command, while they perform definite executive and administrative functions in their own sphere. The action of Staff Officers, on the contrary, ranges over the whole Command, but they have no personal responsibility or executive functions. In fact they are useful appendages to each link of the chain of Command, but not actually links in it themselves.
In addition to Officers, there are always connected with Head-Quarters a number of subordinates, such as interpreters, clerks, police, printers, lithographers, telegraphists, signallers, cyclists, motor-car drivers, orderlies, and postal employees, as well as grooms, servants, cooks, and drivers for the wagons which transport the offices and baggage of the Head-Quarters.
Head-Quarters are therefore so large as to form virtually a Unit in themselves. This Unit requires a Commandant, or Officer responsible for its movement, quartering, and discipline, with perhaps a Quarter-Master-Sergeant to assist him. There would generally be with each Head-Quarters a small body of Military Police to maintain discipline, and Medical and Veterinary Officers to take charge of the health of the officers, men, and horses at Head-Quarters. The safety of Head-Quarters is so important that they must be provided also with Infantry to guard them, and Cavalry to form their escort when in rapid movement.
Varieties of Staff
The number and description of Staff Officers allotted to a Command depend on its importance, and on the duties they have to perform.
The duty of the Staff Officer is defined as follows in British Field Service Regulations: “To assist the Commander in the supervision and control of the operations and requirements of the Troops, to transmit his Orders, and to assist the Troops in carrying them out.” In the British Service these duties are divided among three Branches of the Staff—the General Staff, the Adjutant-General’s Branch, and that of the Quarter-Master-General.
The Staff has in foreign armies become differentiated into two Branches—the Routine Staff, which the Germans style Adjutantur; and the General Staff, which assists the Commander in all matters directly affecting the fighting. The Prussian General Staff is nearly a century old, and forms in general features a model of the General Staff more recently instituted in other armies. Its development from the Quarter-Master-General’s Staff is sketched in the historical part of this work.
A short analysis of the main duties devolving on these different branches of the Staff will now be given.