3. The courses of instruction in the three Academies for Infantry and Cavalry, Artillery, and for Engineers, last for the same time, and run (as it were) parallel to each other. Each is, or is to be, completed by a senior department. The United Course for the Artillery and Engineers is not indeed yet combined in the magnificent buildings begun at Wiener Neustadt; but it is already organized in a provisional state at Znaim for the Engineers, and the plan of instruction drawn up is a solid one. The arrangements for the general Staff School require more remark.
In our report upon Austrian schools we have specially noticed this School as remarkable for its thorough and open competitive character from first to last, and its very sensible plan of study. Admission to it is by competition, open to Officers of all arms: the pupils are not unduly overburdened with work; perhaps, there is even room for one or two more subjects of importance; but what is done seems to be done thoroughly; the Officers are carefully ranked, on leaving the School, according as the abilities they have displayed, may be considered a criterion of their fitness for employment on the General Staff; and in this order they enter the Staff Corps. The consequence is that every Officer knows distinctly, from the time that he first competes for admission until his final examination on leaving, that the order in which he will enter the Staff depends entirely on his own exertions and success at the school. It seemed to us that this open competition produced a spirit of confidence and energy in the students, as great, if not greater, than any we met with elsewhere.
The whole of the above system of education is directed by the Fourth Section of the War Department. In all the schools we found traces of its activity; and the energy and system which prevail in the Military Teaching of Austria appear in great measure to result from its being directed by this single head.
[IV. THE STAFF OR WAR SCHOOL AT VIENNA.]
[From Report of English Commissioners in 1856.]
The Staff School (Kriegs-Schule,) in Vienna, was established in 1851, and grew out of the experience of the Hungarian war, although a Staff-Corps had existed for more than a century in the Austrian army, and for many years past all the appointments in it have been made upon an examination, which was, in fact, one of competition. The process was formerly as follows:—
An officer desirous of becoming a candidate for a staff appointment, sent in his name to the colonel of his regiment, whose recommendation he was obliged to obtain as a preliminary step. If supplied with this, he began his course of staff study, and was sent for this purpose to some large garrison town as an attaché to the staff. Whilst here he went through, for two years, the course of drawing, writing military memoirs, mapping the country, &c., and for two years more served on active staff duty with different bodies of troops. At the end of these four years a number of the officers thus employed in a particular country were brought together, and examined by the chief of the staff in the country, assisted by a board of officers appointed for the purpose. No actual list was drawn out of the order in which the candidates acquitted themselves, but it was understood that the best were chosen and put upon the general staff. The work upon this was exceedingly laborious; few except officers of real ability were candidates for it, and patronage in it was looked upon with great dislike. On the other hand, studies and reading were not made the first requisite; a ready intelligence and quick eye to make an officer a Colonnen-führer,—leader of a column on a march,—were always most valued.
Before describing this school, it may be as well to mention shortly the staff-corps and the corps connected with it.
[1.] The General Staff of the Austrian Army consists of:—