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

by Spenser Wilkinson

The relation between the Commander-in-Chief and his chief of the staff must thus be regarded as a personal one, which will vary in its nature according to the characters and gifts of the two men. If the commander has in himself the necessary intellectual power, the chief of the staff should be of subordinate mould; if the commander requires help in the conception of the operations, his assistant must be able to supply the initiative required. It is evident that the case in which the subordinate is the source of inspiration implies on the part of the commander a magnanimity far from common, and that, therefore, this arrangement must be considered to be rather the exception than the rule.

The element of permanent value in the Prussian system is the classification of duties according to which it regulates the division of labour. The whole authority of the Government is concentrated in the person of the king who is the head of the army. The king does nothing himself; every part of the work is done for him. The whole of the business of the army is divided up into compartments, so as to leave nothing over, and at the head of each compartment is an officer, who within it exercises the king's authority. The king's supervision does not appear to consist in his doing over again the work of these officers. They submit to him any important new decisions which they propose, for they are responsible to him. But in case the king is unable to agree with the course proposed, there is reason to believe that the officer who suggests it retires, his place being filled by a successor who shares the king's view. In this way the authority of the king is maintained without impairing the initiative of his chosen and authorized assistants.

The actual command of the troops is in the hands of the generals commanding army corps and of the governors of fortresses; they account directly to the king, and all their subordinates to or through them. The general concerns of the army pass through one of three departments. Personal matters, such as the appointment and promotion of officers, retirements, rewards, and decorations go to the king's military cabinet, which has its own chief. Administrative affairs, that is questions of organization, equipment, armament, and fortification, belong to the ministry of war. The third department, that of the general staff, is principally occupied with the strategical and tactical rather than with the administrative direction of the army. These various departments communicate directly with one another, a process which is facilitated by regulations leaving no doubt which of them upon any given point has the power to decide.

It thus appears that the institution of a general staff as one of the organs of the management of an army is based upon a true analysis applying equally to all civilized armies, and to all ordered warfare.

Military success requires primarily the intelligent direction against the enemy of the forces employed. The general staff originated as the auxiliary instrument of this direction, and as such is found, at least in a rudimentary form, in every army. In Prussia alone its full importance was understood, and it received an organization peculiarly suited to its purpose. The distinction was steadily kept in view between the all-important conduct of the operations against an enemy and the subordinate though necessary business of administration.[[2]] Every function directly bearing upon the conception or design of the action of the army or of its principal parts against the enemy was assigned to the general staff, which thus became an enlargement of the commander's mind, serving to facilitate his performance of his most characteristic and most difficult duty. To the command thus strengthened the army was rendered pliable partly by means of a suitable subdivision into permanent autonomous bodies, and partly through the organization of the administrative side by side with the military services.

The army corps—managing its own internal affairs—having its adjutancy, its auditoriat, and its intendancy to supply its needs with the assistance of and in connection with the ministry of war—is a body easily amenable to the strategical direction proceeding from a general centre. Thus the growth of the organ of strategical direction was necessarily accompanied by a corresponding development of other military institutions by which the perfect adaptability of the organism to the directing agency was attained and preserved.

The importance of the office of chief of the general staff of the army led to its being filled by selection. The confidence reposed in a chosen chief implied that he should be unhampered in the means of fulfilling his duties. He was therefore entrusted with the selection, and eventually with the training, of the officers for his own department.

The design of military operation involves the most complete knowledge of the military sciences, and the most perfect mastery of the military art. Accordingly the great general staff has become a school of generalship, from which have emanated a series of masterpieces of military history and historical criticism, while its individual members have produced valuable works dealing with the various branches of the theory of the art of war.

The attachment of the War Academy to the general staff for which it is the training school is the means of raising to the highest level the standard of military education.

The common devotion of the general staff in all its branches to that portion of military activity which makes the most exacting demands upon the intellectual faculties as well as upon the will, finds its expression in the unity of the general staff through all the branches of the army. A consequence of the selection by which the corps is composed, and of the requirement of practical familiarity with the duties of leadership and with the life and spirit of the troops, is the constant passage of officers to and fro between regimental and general staff service, and their alternate employment in the various branches of the general staff itself.