The corps intendant is responsible for the supplies of provisions, stores, and money, and for their transport. The hospitals and ambulance work are controlled by the surgeon-general. The legal business is conducted and prepared for the general's decision by an officer called the corps auditeur.
The strictly military functions of command fall naturally into two classes, according as they are concerned with the direction of the troops as pieces in the game played against the enemy, or with their internal management. The everyday life of a soldier is to a great extent a matter of routine. In every regiment there are at all times guards and sentries and an officer of the day; there are patrols and fatigue parties. These duties are undertaken by all in turn, and they therefore need to be equitably distributed from day to day. A roll of the regiment is therefore made every day accounting for all the officers and men. The working of all this internal mechanism is in every regiment arranged by the adjutant, under the authority and supervision of the commanding officer. The brigade, the division, and the army corps are each of them in like manner provided with an adjutancy, which in the case of an army corps is formed by a bureau of four officers.
[[1]] The thoroughness of this selection has increased in recent years, inasmuch as most of the generals appointed have enjoyed the special training of the staff. An incapable, of any rank is ruthlessly retired.
[[2]] The details of organization on which it is based are those of the German army in the period between 1875 and 1885. The materials for a similar account of the Prussian army corps of 1866 are not accessible. The reader may imagine the confusion which would follow a battle, especially a defeat which might compel the corps to retreat as best it could through the forest, with its trains perhaps entangled in the cross-road leading north.
CHAPTER V
THE GENERAL STAFF IN THE ARMY CORPS
There remain as the general's special province the communication with the army headquarters and the direction of the troops as fighting bodies; the regulation of marches, halts, and combats; the reconnaissance of the country with a view to these operations; the collection and sifting of news about the enemy; and the compilation of reports for the information of the higher commanders and for the records of the army corps.
The bureau or department which assists the general in these matters is the general staff of the army corps. It consists of a colonel or lieutenant-colonel as chief, one field officer, and two captains.[[1]] The functions of the general staff of a division or army corps during war may be summarised under the following heads:[[2]]—
(1) Elaboration in accordance with the situation from time to time of all arrangements concerning the fighting, marching, repose, and safety of the troops.
(2) Communication of these arrangements in the form of orders.