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

by Spenser Wilkinson

The school through which a Prussian officer must pass before he can become a general has now been described, at least in its most striking features. After five years' service as a lieutenant he has mastered the elementary duties, and assimilated the spirit of his class, with its ideals of work and intelligent but absolute obedience. In three years at the War Academy he has learned the nature of war, and acquired an insight into the conduct of the armies. At the same time he has been taught to deal in a practical way with practical questions, never allowing himself to shrink from the effort of forming a decision. He has now arrived at full maturity in frame, intelligence, and character, and spends the more active years of manhood in the higher studies of the great general staff, the executive and practical activities of command, and the comprehensive and instructive functions of the general staff of the division or the army corps. During these years and in all these varied occupations his energies are put forth to their full extent, for advancement can only be secured by valuable work in each successive sphere. By the time he attains to general rank he has acquired a vast and varied experience; a practised eye, whose rapid and penetrating glance on the march and in the field seems to the layman almost miraculous; and a sureness and swiftness of judgment which decides without fail in an instant nine-tenths of the questions which arise in the exercise of command.

It is not contended that the system here described is perfect. Every system has its failures, and there is no possibility of entirely excluding the influences of favour or prejudice. But it may be asserted with confidence that the high average of practical ability secured in the superior officers of the Prussian army is due in the main to the practice of selection, the careful inspection by the superiors, at every stage, and to the mature wisdom by which the higher education of the general staff is directed. The intellectual advancement of the officers of every army is confronted by a peculiar difficulty. The foundations of all military institutions are authority and obedience—principles which appear to be directly opposed to the free movement of intelligence. Every army is constantly in danger of decay from mental stagnation. Free criticism is liable to undermine discipline, and the habit of unconditional obedience too often destroys the independence of judgment without which moral and intellectual progress is impossible. The Prussian general staff has escaped from this dilemma by itself taking the lead in scientific progress, and organizing itself, in regard to all that concerns the business of national defence, as an institution for the advancement of learning.

[[1]] Cf. Colonel Maurice in the Encyclopedia Britannica article "War," p. 345: "There does not exist, and never has existed ... an 'art of war' which was something other than the methodic study of military history."

[[2]] It is interesting to note that Moltke was a pupil at the War Academy from 1823 to 1826, while Clausewitz was its director. The director, however, is not a teacher, and Clausewitz did not publish any of his principal works during his lifetime, so that the evidence does not prove a personal influence of Clausewitz upon Moltke.

[[3]] See Vom Kriege, Hinterlassenes Werk des Generals Carl von Clausewitz, Zweites Buch, Fünftes Capitel.

[[4]] Clausewitz is fully aware of the difficulty with which this critical study has to contend, that the real causes, the motives which led to the adoption of a particular measure, are in many cases unknown.

[[5]] It may be interesting to compare with what follows Foster's Essay on Decision of Character, Letter VI., in which the value of a "conclusive manner of thinking" is discussed.

[[6]] The drill-books and regulations for field service embody an official theory, and it is, of course, indispensable that they should. But these books are not prepared under the responsibility of the general staff. The usual practice is to appoint a committee composed of a number of combatant officers of all ranks,—a general commanding an army corps, commanders of divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions. They will, as a rule, have had the general staff training, but it is as experienced commanders that their judgment is asked. They prepare a draft code of regulations, which is first issued experimentally, and only adopted after full criticism and revision.

[[7]] The précis given in the text needs only the alteration of two words to bring it perfectly up to date. For "a mile" substitute "two miles," and for a "line two deep" substitute "line in single rank"="line of skirmishers." For a recent and interesting but heterodox discussion of tactical questions the reader may be referred to Ein Sommernachtstraum (Midsummer Night's Dream), which is by a well-known officer, long a member of the general staff.

[[8]] Verdy's practice is to use the history of a campaign real or imaginary as a series of problems set to the student. This is called in Germany "the applicatory method," and its introduction is ascribed to General von Peucker, who was Director of Military Education in Prussia from 1854 to 1872.