I have been referring hitherto more to war than peace, but even in peace time I doubt if a Chief of the Staff of the German type is suitable to our organization, and to the comparative smallness of our army. In war time it might easily lead to disaster. The less capacity possessed by the nominal Commander-in-Chief the greater might be his obstinacy, and the more capacity he possessed the more he would resent anything which might savour of interference. Altogether I think that the office of Chief of the Staff, as understood in Germany, might easily be made impossible under the conditions of our service. My opinion is that the Army Head-Quarters Staff are capable of doing exactly the same work as the Grand General Staff of the German Army perform, and that there is no need to upset our present system. We have only to bring the Intelligence and Mobilization Departments more closely into communication with, and into subordination to, the Adjutant-General and Quarter-Master-General, as is now being done in India with the best results.
You will understand that the foregoing remarks are based on the assumption that in the British Service the office of Commander-in-Chief is held by the soldier who, from his abilities and experience, has commended himself to the Government as being best qualified to organize the Army for war, and if requisite to take command in the field. If, however, for reasons of State it is thought desirable to approximate our system to the German system in the selection of the head of the Army, it might become necessary to appoint a Chief of the Staff of the German type to act as the responsible military adviser of the Commander-in-Chief and the Cabinet. But in this case the responsibility of the Officer in question should be fully recognised and clearly defined.
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
FRED ROBERTS.
To SPENSER WILKINSON, Esq.
The Report of Lord Hartington's Commission, which appeared in the spring of 1890, seemed to justify the apprehension which had caused me to write, for it recommended the creation, under the name of a general staff, of a department bearing little resemblance to the model which it professed to copy. The Commission, however, was in a most awkward dilemma. It was confronted in regard to the command of the army with two problems, one of which was administrative, the other constitutional. The public was anxious to have an army efficient for its purpose of fighting the enemies of Great Britain. The statesmen on the Commission were intent upon having an army obedient to the Government. The tradition that the command of the army being a royal prerogative could be exercised otherwise than through the constituted advisers of the Crown was not in practice altogether extinct. It can hardly be doubted that the Commission was right in wishing to establish the principle that the army is a branch of the public service, administered and governed under the authority of the Cabinet in precisely the same way as the post office. No other theory is possible in the England of our day. But the attempt to make the theory into the practice touched certain susceptibilities which it was felt ought to be respected, and the Commission perhaps attached more importance to this kind of consideration than to the necessity of preparing the war office for war.
It was no doubt of the first importance to guard against the recurrence of a state of things in which all attempts to bring the army into harmony with the needs of the time and of the nation were frustrated by an authority not entirely amenable to the control of the Secretary of State. Not less important, however, was the requirement that any change by which this result, in itself so desirable, might be attained should at the same time contribute to the supreme end of readiness for conflict with any of the Great Powers whose rivalry with Great Britain has in recent times become so acute.
In the war of which a part is examined in the following pages a chief of the staff is seen drafting the orders by which the whole army is guided. He has no authority; the orders are issued in the name of the commander,—that is in Prussia, of the king. When, as was the case in 1866 and in 1870-1, the king shows his entire confidence in the chief of the staff by invariably accepting his drafts, the direction of the army, the generalship of the campaign, is really the work of the chief of the staff, though that officer has never had a command, and has been sheltered throughout under the authority of another. The generalship or strategy of the campaigns of 1866 and 1870-1 was Moltke's, and Moltke's alone, and no one has borne more explicit testimony to this fact than the king. At the same time no one has more emphasized the other fact, that he was covered by the king's responsibility, than Moltke himself.
The work of generalship can rarely be given to any one but the commander of an army. When the commander owes his position to other than military considerations, as is the case in Prussia, where the king is born to be commander-in-chief as he is born to be king, he is wise to select a good professional general to do the work. But where a government is free to choose its commander, that officer will wish to do his own work himself, and will resent the suggestion that an assistant should prompt and guide him. The Hartington Commission proposed at the same time to abolish the office of commander-in-chief, and to create that of a "chief of the staff." This new officer was to advise the Secretary of State—that is, the Government—upon all the most important military questions. He was to discuss the strength and distribution of the army, and the defence of the Empire; to plan the general arrangements for defence, and to shape the estimates according to his plan. In a word, he was to perform many of the most important duties of a commander-in-chief. But he was to be the adviser or assistant, not of a military commander, but of a civilian governor-general of the army.
An army cannot be directed in war nor commanded in peace under the immediate authority of a civilian. There must be a military commander, the obedient servant of the Government, supported by the Government in the exercise of his powers to discipline and direct the army, and sheltered by the Government against all such criticism as would weaken his authority or diminish its own responsibility. The scheme propounded by the Hartington Commission evaded the cardinal question which has to be settled: that of the military command of the army in war. War cannot be carried on unless full and undivided authority is given to the general entrusted by the Government with the conduct of the military operations. That officer will necessarily be liable to account to the Government for all that is done, for the design and for its execution.
The Report of the Commission made no provision whatever for the command of the army in war. The proposed "chief of the staff" was to be entrusted during peace with the duty of the design of operations. Had the Commission's scheme been adopted, the Government would, upon the near approach of war, still have had to select its commander. The selection must fall either upon the "chief of the staff" or upon some other person. But no general worth his salt will be found to stake his own reputation and the fate of the nation upon the execution of designs supplied to him at second-hand. No man with a particle of self-respect would undertake the defence of his country upon the condition that he should conduct it upon a plan as to which he had never been consulted, and which, at the time of his appointment, it was too late to modify. Accordingly, if the scheme of the Commission had been adopted, it would have been necessary to entrust the command in war to the officer who during peace had been chief of the staff. But this officer being in peace out of all personal relation with the army could not have the moral authority which is indispensable for its command. The scheme of the Hartington Commission could therefore not be adopted, except at the risk of disaster in the event of war.