A modern army fights by army corps, and by army corps the Prussian army is managed, in peace as well as in war. Each province is an army corps district.[[1]] All the troops in it belong to the corps[[2]] and are under the command of the general, who has in military matters absolute authority, being independent of the Ministry of War and responsible directly to the king and to no one else. Every question that comes up in the corps can be finally settled by its commanding general, except a very few matters which require the king's assent, or an arrangement with the Ministry of War. But comparatively few questions of detail come as high as the commanding general.
His corps is at all times organized very much as it would be in war. In the infantry four companies make a battalion, three battalions a regiment, two regiments a brigade, two infantry brigades with their due proportion of cavalry and artillery form an infantry division. In the cavalry four or five squadrons form the regiment, two or three regiments the brigade, and two or three brigades the division. In the artillery two or three batteries form a group (Abtheilung, now officially translated brigade division), two or three groups a regiment, and two regiments a brigade. The corps is made up of infantry divisions, a cavalry brigade or division,[[3]] and an artillery brigade.
Responsibility and authority begin with the smallest units, the company, squadron, or battery. The captain, the commander of such a unit, is the lowest officer who has the power of punishment. In his hands lies in peace the training, and in war the leading of the company, squadron, or battery. The lieutenants and in a lower sphere the noncommissioned officers are his assistants acting under his responsibility. In the company, to take the infantry as the type, the captain is supreme. The methods of instruction, the distribution of time, and the order to be followed in the process are matters which he settles according to his own judgment. His superiors abstain from any interference. They are concerned only with the result, of which they satisfy themselves by inspection at the end of the period assigned to company training. If any of the soldiers have not been properly instructed, or if the company is not fit to take its place in the battalion, that is the captain's fault, and he is likely to lose his chance of promotion.
The battalion commander receives his trained companies and practises them in battalion manoeuvres. His business is with the battalion as a body composed of four units, not with the internal affairs of the companies. In battle as on the parade ground this rule is observed. For example: "If a battalion receives the order to attack a farm its commander must assign to the several companies the part which each is to play, must prescribe the points of attack, and at least in general terms the directions of their advance. He must also arrange the time of their coming into action so that they may co-operate. But how each company is to accomplish the task assigned to it, in what formation it is to fight—these and similar details he will do well, if he knows that his captains have the necessary insight, to leave to them."[[4]]
In this way authority and responsibility are graduated throughout the army corps. Every commander above the rank of captain deals with a body composed of units with the interior affairs of none of which he meddles, except in the case of failure on the part of the officer directly responsible. The higher the commander and the greater his authority, the more general becomes the supervision and the less the burden of detail. The superior prescribes the object to be attained. The subordinate is left free to choose the means, and is interfered with only in exceptional circumstances. Thus every officer in his own sphere is accustomed to the exercise of authority and to the free application of his own judgment.
By this system the labour and responsibility of commanding an army corps are reduced to practicable dimensions. Regimental affairs are settled by the colonels; brigade affairs by the major-generals. The divisions commanded by lieutenant-generals are completely organized bodies capable, in case of need, of independent action and requiring little supervision from the corps commander. The general commanding the army corps has to deal directly with only a few subordinates, the commanders of his infantry divisions, of his cavalry brigade or division, and of his artillery brigade, and with the heads of the corps organizations for such purposes as supply and medical service. He inspects and tests the condition of all the various units, but he does not attempt to do the work of his subordinates. He is thus at liberty to keep his mind concentrated upon those essential matters which properly require his decision, for example, in war, whether he will advance or retire, whether he will move to the right or to the left, whether to fight or to postpone an engagement; how to distribute his force;—what portion he will at once engage and where he will place his reserve. When he receives an order from the army headquarters he is able to deliberate upon the best way of realizing the intention conveyed, for he is as far as possible unhampered by the worry of detail. He can make up his mind coolly, a very necessary process, seeing that he will stake life and reputation to carry out what he has once decided.
[[1]] The civil and military boundaries are not quite identical.
[[2]] The garrisons of fortresses are exceptions.
[[3]] In recent years the cavalry division has been made independent of the army corps.
[[4]] Blume, Strategic, p. 136.