The Brain of an Army: A Popular Account of the German General Staff

by Spenser Wilkinson

The hussar lieutenant had started before dawn, and after riding many miles to the front, evading the enemy's scouting parties, had watched a hostile cavalry division break up from its bivouac. He had been able to identify the division and to ascertain that it was unusually strong both in cavalry and horse artillery. On his return he had been seen by an enemy's patrol, and had escaped capture only by running the gauntlet.

The information thus obtained is of great importance, not only to the cavalry division, whose commander has promptly acted upon it, but to the army corps and to the army of which it is a part. The general commanding the army corps therefore sends an officer with the report and a further note from himself to the army headquarters in rear, on the east of the forest. This officer having to follow the high-road, meets and rides past the main body of the army corps on the march.

The leading brigade of infantry, with a number of guns and ammunition waggons, covers the road for a mile and three-quarters; then for another mile and a half is the corps' artillery, then the whole second division of infantry (with its cavalry regiment and its artillery) trailing its length for four and a half miles. Then after having the road to himself for a quarter of an hour, as he emerges from the forest on its eastern side, the rider passes the heavy baggage, a line of military carts and waggons conveying those requisites which the troops need every night for comfort, and which cannot be carried in the knapsacks. These waggons stretch for a mile and a half along the road. Soon after passing them the rider takes a cross-road leading to the north, just as he is meeting the foremost portion of the army corps trains, which in their turn would cover the road for eleven or twelve miles with their long succession of vehicles: ammunition waggons for guns and small arms; provision stores for four days for 30,000 men; hay and oats for the horses of cavalry, artillery, and waggons; the corps pontoon train; the hospital carts, and a multitude of country carts pressed into the service to enable extra stores of provisions to be taken on, and to relieve the military waggons.

Thus from the general to the rear of the baggage proper would be nearly twelve miles, from the rear of the baggage to the rear of the trains, if all were on the march at the same time, another twelve miles, while the general himself was found nearly five miles behind the front of the advanced guard of the corps.

When the officer, late in the afternoon, rides back from the army headquarters with a letter for the corps commander, he finds a different scene. At a village in the middle of the forest the leading waggons of the train are beginning to form up north and south of the road. There is here an extensive open space, which before night will be packed with waggons. Farther on the road is clear. The heavy baggage has dispersed among the cross-roads, each set of waggons seeking the quarters of its regiment. At the western edge of the forest the troops of the army corps have taken possession of all the villages on the road and in the neighbourhood, so that within a radius of six miles from where the road enters the open country every farm or cluster of buildings is tenanted by its company or battery. The villages farthest to the west contain the advanced guard, and beyond them still the outposts have placed picquets and sentries in all the roads and lanes leading to the west.

The general's quarters are in a straggling village on the main road, at the White Cross Inn. In front of the house an officer is explaining to an old farmer that the provisions produced by the villagers are satisfactory, that no further requisition will be made, but that for a further supply of oats, cheese, and bacon, if delivered next morning, payment will be made in cash. In a small parlour of the inn two officers are busy examining the contents of half a dozen mail bags collected from post-offices in the district.

Upstairs the general, who has just come in from the outposts, is hearing reports. The corps intendant proposes to form a temporary depot at the village where the trains are parked, and to send back the requisitioned carts next morning to the railway terminus assigned to the corps. Another officer announces that the telegraph from army headquarters will by evening be opened as far as the same village, a third that 150 horses are unserviceable, and that it will be two days before fresh horses from home will reach the depot. A fourth brings a list of the number of men who are disabled by sore feet, diarrhoea, and sunstroke. At this moment comes the letter from army headquarters, which instructs the general to be ready at short notice to march his whole corps towards the north, along the front of the forest. This involves the movement of the trains along a cross-road through the forest, and arrangements must be made to ensure this road, which is a bad one, being cleared of hindrances and made fit to bear the heavy traffic.

The examination of the mail bags has yielded fresh information about the enemy. All the officers but one are dismissed, and the general, with his confidential secretary, is proceeding to study the new situation thus revealed when a fresh messenger gallops up to the house with a note to the effect that the advanced guard of the neighbouring corps ten miles to the south is attacked by a superior force of the enemy, and that its commander begs the general to move his corps to its assistance, so as to be able to join in the action before noon next day.

This picture is a mere shadow of the reality.[[2]] It may help however to illustrate the dual nature of the cares by which a general is distracted. He has at the same time to perform the military functions of command and to superintend the business of management. His duty as a commander involves continuous attention to the enemy's movements and to the instructions of his own chief. He must study the intentions of the army commander to whom he is subordinate and conform to them in his own movements against the enemy. But the mere management of his corps requires an effort which tends to absorb his energies and make him forget both his commander and the enemy.

A good system must as far as possible relieve the general from these cares of management, so that he can keep his mind free to study his instructions and watch his foe. Accordingly side by side with that distribution of authority among the combatant units which facilitates the exercise of the general command is an organization upon similar principles of the administrative services. The supervision of each branch is in the hands of an executive officer in the entourage of the general.