By recent ordinance the Special Staff Corps has been abolished. All the officers are borne on the army rosters according to their ranks, in particular branches of the service. No one will be allowed to enter the Staff School until he has served three or four years with the troops, and then captains and first lieutenants will be preferred to men of less service or rank. Having passed through the school course they will again join their regiments; and will then be appointed to the staff, as may be required. The period during which they are to remain on the staff will depend on their merits, their promotion, and the exigencies of the service; but as a principle they would generally rejoin their troop on promotion. There can be no doubt in the minds of those who have practically studied the question, that the system is sound. A special Staff Corps is never large enough to supply the demands of an army in the field for long, especially if the war is long and very active. The duties of a staff officer with an army actively engaged in the field, are so numerous and arduous that an enormous number are used up in the course of a campaign; and when you have only the Staff Corps to draw from, the supply of practical officers is not equal to the demand. The French experienced this in the Crimean War. By educating a number of young officers endowed by nature with the qualifications indispensable to form an efficient staff officer on active service, and by throwing them back into their regiments, they leaven the mass, and form a fund of selected and instructed officers from which can be drawn as occasion may require.—Col. Crealock to Military Ed. Com.
[CAVALRY BRIGADE SCHOOLS FOR OFFICERS.]
The following memorandum gives an account of an order lately issued, regulating Officers’ Brigade Schools in the Austrian cavalry.
The object of the Cavalry Brigade schools will be to secure a supply of efficient riding masters throughout the service capable of giving general instruction.
The Central Cavalry School will continue to be a higher military and scientific establishment, with (in addition to the theoretical education of the pupils) a course of instruction which insures a uniform system of equitation and of breaking horses. A certain number of its best pupils may be transferred, after a year’s attendance, to the Kriegs-Schule, with a view to their preparation for the staff.
Cavalry Officers’ Brigade Schools educate officers of that arm, theoretically as well as practically, in all their duties. After the termination of the autumn manœuvres one will be formed in each brigade. The annual course lasts six months, and should begin on the 1st of October.
It is the duty of the Brigadier to superintend the school, but it is also that of commanding officers of regiments to inform themselves of the progress of their officers, and consequently to visit it often.
Before the 15th of August the Brigadier proposes to the Minister of War the station at which the school should be established, also the names of the instructors and pupils. It rests with him to make all arrangements for setting it in operation; and as his supervision must be continual, he should (whenever practicable) place it at the head-quarters of his brigade. Above all, a covered riding school must be fitted up; then a drill ground, a manège with artificial fences, and a school, and fencing-room. Whenever possible the men and horses must be in barracks.
The best qualified officer in the brigade, of the rank of lieutenant-colonel or major, is to be selected for Commandant, and each school is to have two captains as instructors. One of them must have gone through the Central Cavalry School, and must have been reported as specially qualified to give instruction; the second must be considered one of the best horsemen in the brigade.