THE
BRAIN OF AN ARMY
A POPULAR ACCOUNT
OF THE
GERMAN GENERAL STAFF
BY
SPENSER WILKINSON
NEW EDITION
WITH LETTERS FROM
COUNT MOLTKE AND LORD ROBERTS
WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE
& CO 1895
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE COMMAND OF THE SEA
THE BRAIN OF A NAVY
THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE
and in conjunction with
SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, BART.
IMPERIAL DEFENCE
[Transcriber's note: the errata items below have been applied to this text.]
ERRATA.
page 9, line 6 for have read has
page 10, line 21, for occasion read occasions
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
Six years ago a Royal Commission, under the presidency of Lord Hartington, was known to be inquiring into the administration of the national defence. There was much talk in the newspapers about the Prussian staff, and many were the advocates of its imitation in this country. Very few of those who took part in the discussions seemed to know what the Prussian staff was, and I thought it might be useful to the Royal Commission and to the public to have a true account of that institution, written in plain English, so that any one could understand it. The essay was published on the 11th of February, 1890, the day on which the Report of Lord Hartington's Commission was signed.
The essential feature of the Prussian staff system consists in the classification of duties out of which it has arisen. Every general in the field requires a number of assistants, collectively forming his staff, to relieve him of matters of detail, to act as his confidential secretaries, and to represent him at places where he cannot be himself. The duties of command are so multifarious that some consistent distribution of functions among the officers of a large staff is indispensable. In Prussia this distribution is based on a thoroughly rational and practical principle. The general's work is subdivided into classes, according as it is concerned with administration and discipline or with the direction of the operations against the enemy. All that belongs to administration and discipline is put upon one side of a dividing line, and upon the other side all that directly affects the preparation for or the management of the fighting—in technical language, all that falls within the domain of strategy and tactics. The officers entrusted with the personal assistance of the general in this latter group of duties are in Prussia called his "general staff." They are specially trained in the art of conducting operations against an enemy, that is in the specific function of generalship, which has thus in the Prussian army received more systematic attention than in any other. In the British army the assistants of a general are also grouped into classes for the performance of specific functions in his relief. But the grouping of duties is accidental, and follows no principle. It has arisen by chance, and been stereotyped by usage. The officers of a staff belong to the adjutant-general's branch or to the quartermaster-general's branch, but no rational criterion exists by which to discover whether a particular function falls to one branch or to the other. That this is an evil is evident, because it is manifest that there can be no scientific training for a group of duties which have no inherent affinity with one another. The evil has long been felt, for the attempt has been made to remedy it by amalgamating the two branches in order to sever them again upon a rational plane of cleavage.
But while the essence of the Prussian general staff lies deeply embedded in the organization of the Prussian army, the interest of the general public has been attracted by the fact that the great strategist to whom the victories of 1866 and 1870 are ascribed was not the commander of the Prussian army, but merely the chief of the general staff of a royal commander-in-chief. It may well be doubted whether this feature of the Prussian system is suitable for imitation elsewhere. The Germans themselves evidently regard it as accidental rather than essential, for in organizing their navy they have, after much experiment and deliberation, adopted a different plan. They have appointed their chosen admiral to be, not chief of the staff to an Emperor who in war, as he takes the field with the army, cannot undertake the command of the navy, but to be "the commanding admiral."
I refrained in the first edition of this essay from drawing from the German institution which it describes a moral to be applied to the British army, and was content with a warning against overhasty imitation. At that time the nature of the relation between Moltke and the King was still to some extent veiled in official language, and nothing so far as I am aware had been published which allowed the facts to rest upon well authenticated, direct evidence as distinguished from inference. Since then the posthumous publication of Moltke's private correspondence,[[1]] and of the first instalment of his military correspondence,[[2]] has thrown a flood of light upon the whole subject. I had the good fortune to be furnished with an earlier clue. As soon as my essay was ready for the press I ventured to send a proof to Count Moltke, with a request that he would allow me in a dedication to couple his name with studies of which his work had been the subject. He was good enough to reply in a letter of which the following is a translation:—
BERLIN, January 20, 1890.
DEAR SIR,—
I have read your essay on the German general staff with great interest.
I am glad that on p. 63 you dispose of the ever-recurring legend according to which before every important decision a council of war is assembled. I can assure you that in 1866 and in 1870-71 a council of war was never called.
If the commander after consultation with his authorized adviser feels the need of asking others what he ought to do, the command is in weak hands.
If King William I. ever really used the expression attributed to him on p. 58, he did himself a great injustice. The king judged the perpetually changing military situation with an uncommonly clear eye. He was much more than "a great strategist." It was he who took upon himself an immeasurable responsibility, and for the conduct of an army character weighs more than knowledge and science. I think your excellent work would lose nothing if that passage were omitted.
You touch on p. 112[[3]] upon the relation between the commander and the statesman. Neither of the two can set up for himself in advance a goal to be certainly reached. The plan of campaign modifies itself after the first great collision with the enemy. Success or failure in a battle occasions operations originally not intended. On the other hand the final claims of the statesman will be very different according as he has to reckon with defeats or with a series of uninterrupted victories. In the course of the campaign the balance between the military will and the considerations of diplomacy can be held only by the supreme authority.
It has not escaped your penetration that a general staff cannot be improvised on the outbreak of war, that it must be prepared long beforehand in peace, and be in practical activity and in close intercourse with the troops. But even that is not enough. It must know who is to be its future commander, must be in communication with him and gain his confidence, without which its position is untenable.
Great is the advantage if the head of the State is also the leader in war. He knows his general staff and his troops, and is known by them. In such armies there are no pronunciamentoes.
The constitution, however, does not in every country admit of placing the head of the State at the head of the army. If the Government will and can select in advance the most qualified general for the post, that officer must also be given during peace the authority to influence the troops and their leaders and to create an understanding between himself and his general staff. This chosen general will seldom be the minister of war, who during the whole war is indispensable at home, where all the threads of administration come together.
You have expressed the kind intention of dedicating your interesting essay to me, but I suggest that you should consider whether without such a dedication it would not still better preserve the character of perfectly independent judgment.
With best thanks for your kind communication,
I am, dear sir, yours very truly,
COUNT MOLTKE,
Field Marshal.
It was hardly possible for Moltke, bound as he was by his own high position, to have expressed more plainly his opinion of the kind of reform needed in the British army, nor to have better illustrated than by that opinion the precise nature of his own work.[[4]]
With Moltke's view that the peculiar position which he held was not necessarily the model best suited for the circumstances of the British army it is interesting to compare the judgment expressed quite independently by Lord Roberts, who kindly allows me to publish the following letter:—
SIMLA,
11th September, 1891.
DEAR MR. WILKINSON,—
I am much obliged to you for so kindly sending me The Brain of an Army and the other military works which reached me two or three mails ago. Some of the books I had seen before, and The Brain of an Army I had often heard of, and meant to study whenever sufficient leisure was vouchsafed to me, which, alas! is but seldom. I have now read it with great interest.
One point that strikes me is the strong inclination evinced at present to assume that the German system of apportioning the duties of command and staff is deserving of universal adoption because under exceptional circumstances, and with quite an exceptional man to act as head of the Staff, it proved eminently successful in the wars between Prussia and Austria and Prussia and France.
The idea of a Chief of the Staff who is to regulate the preparations for and the operations during a campaign, and who is to possess a predominant influence in determining the military policy of a nation, is quite opposed to the views of some of the ablest commanders and strategists, as summarized at pages 17 and 18 of Home's Précis of Modern Tactics, Edition 1882; and I doubt whether any really competent general or Commander-in-Chief would contentedly acquiesce in the dissociation of command and responsibility which the German procedure necessarily entails. That Von Moltke was the virtual Commander-in-Chief of the German forces during the wars in question, and that the nominal commanders had really very little to say to the movements they were called upon to execute, seems to be clearly proved by the third volume of the Field Marshal's writings, reviewed in The Times of the 21st August last. Von Moltke was a soldier of extraordinary ability, he acted in the Emperor's name, the orders he initiated were implicitly obeyed, and the military machine worked smoothly. But had the orders not been uniformly judicious, had a check or reverse been experienced, and had one or more of the subordinate commanders possessed greater capacity and resolution than the Chief of the Staff, the result might have been very different.
In military nations a Chief of the Staff of the German type may perhaps be essential, more especially when, as in Germany, the Emperor is the head of the Army and its titular Commander-in-Chief. The reasons for this are that, in the first place, he may not possess the qualities required in a Commander-in-Chief who has to lead the Army in war; and in the second place, even if he does possess those qualities, there are so many other matters connected with the civil administration of his own country, and with its political relations towards other countries, that the time of a King or Emperor may be too fully occupied to admit of his devoting that exclusive attention to military matters which is so necessary in a Commander-in-Chief, if he desires to have an efficient Army. A Chief of the Staff then becomes essential; he is indeed the Commander-in-Chief.
In a small army like ours, however, where the Commander-in-Chief is a soldier by profession, I am inclined to think that a Chief of the Staff is not required in the same way as he is in Germany. With us, the man of the stamp sketched in chapter iv. of The Brain of an Army should be the head of the Army—the Commander-in-Chief to whom every one in the Army looks up, and whom every one on service trusts implicitly. The note at page 12 [61] of your little book expresses my meaning exactly. Blucher required a Scharnhorst or a Gneisenau "to keep him straight," but would it not have been better, as suggested in your note, "to have given Scharnhorst and Gneisenau the actual command"?
I think, too, that an Emperor or King would be more likely than a man of inferior social standing to take the advice of a Chief of the Staff. The former would be so immeasurably above all those about him that he could afford to listen to advice—as the Emperor of Germany undoubtedly did to that of Von Moltke on the occasion mentioned in the note at page 14 [64]. But the Commander of about much the same standing socially as his Chief of the Staff, and possibly not much the latter's senior in the Army, would be apt to resent what he might consider uncalled-for interference; and this would be specially the case if he were of a narrow-minded, obstinate disposition. Indeed, I think that such a feeling would be almost sure to arise, unless the Commander-in-Chief were one of those easy-going, soft natures which ought never to be placed in such a high position.
My personal experience is, of course, very slight, but I have been a Commander with a Chief of the Staff, and I have been (in a very small way) the Chief of the Staff to a Commander, with whom I was sent "to keep him straight." It was not a pleasant position, and one which I should not like to fill a second time. In my own Chief of the Staff (the late Sir Charles Macgregor) I was particularly fortunate; he was of the greatest possible assistance to me; but without thinking myself narrow-minded and obstinate, I should have objected if he had acted as if he were "at the head of the Army."
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.
While I am revising the proof of this preface come the announcements, first, that Lord Wolseley is to succeed the Duke of Cambridge, and, secondly, that though the title of Commander-in-Chief is to be retained, the duties attaching to the office are to be modified and its authority diminished.
The proposed changes in the status of the Commander-in-Chief show that the present Government is suffering from the pressure of an anxiety exactly like that which paralysed Lord Hartington's Commission, while from the speeches in which the new scheme has been explained the idea of war is altogether absent. The Government contemplates depriving the Commander-in-Chief of his authority over the Adjutant-General and the Quartermaster-General, as well as over the heads of some other military departments.
The Adjutant-General's department embraces among other matters all that directly concerns the discipline, training, and education of the army; while such business as the quartering and movements of troops passes through the office of the Quartermaster-General. These officers are to become the direct subordinates of the Secretary of State. In other words, the staff at the headquarters of the army is to be the staff, not of the nominal Commander-in-Chief, but of the Secretary of State, who is thus to be made the real Commander-in-Chief of the army.
This is evidently a momentous change, not to be lightly or rashly approved or condemned. The first duty is to discover, if possible, the motives by which the Government is actuated in proposing it. Mr. Balfour, speaking in the House of Commons on the 31st of August, explained the view of the Government.
"What," he said, "is the substance and essence of the criticisms passed by the Harrington Commission upon the War Office system, which has now been in force in this country for many years? The essence of the criticisms of the Commissioners was that by having a single Commander-in-Chief, through whom, and through whom alone, army opinion, army matters, and army advice would come to the Secretary of State for War, you were, in the first place, throwing upon the Commander-in-Chief a burden which no single individual could possibly support; and, secondly, you were practically destroying the responsibility of the Secretary of State for War, who nominally is the head of the department. If you put the Secretary of State for War in direct communication with the Commander-in-Chief alone, I do not see how the Secretary of State for War can be anything else than the administrative puppet of the great soldier who is at the head of the army. He may come down to the House and express the views of that great officer, but if he is to take official advice from the Commander-in-Chief alone it is absolutely impossible that the Secretary of State should be really responsible, and in this House the Secretary of State will be no more than the mouthpiece of the Commander-in-Chief."
Mr. Balfour's first point is that the burden thrown upon a single Commander-in-Chief is too great for one man to bear. Marlborough, Wellington or Napoleon would, perhaps, hardly have accepted this view. But supposing it were true, the remedy proposed is infinitely worse than the disease. In 1887 the Royal Commission, over which the late Sir James Stephen presided, examined with judicial impartiality the duties of the Secretary of State for War. That Commission in its report wrote as follows:—
"The first part of the system to be considered is the Secretary of State. On him we have to observe, first, that the scope of his duties is immense; secondly, that he performs them under extreme disadvantages. He is charged with five separate great functions, any one of which would be sufficient to occupy the whole time of a man of first-rate industry, ability, and knowledge.
"First, he is a member of the Cabinet, and a Member of Parliament, in which capacity he has to give his attention, not only to the matters of his own department, but to all the leading political questions of the day. He has to take part in debates on the great topics of discussion, and on many occasions to speak upon them in his place in Parliament.
"Secondly, he is the head, as has been already observed, of the political department of the army. He may have to consider, and that at the shortest notice, the whole conduct of a war; all the important points connected with an expedition to any part of the globe; political questions like the abolition of purchase; legislative questions like the Discipline Act, and many others of the same kind.
"Thirdly, he is the head of the Ordnance Department, which includes all the questions relating to cannon, small arms, and ammunition, and all the questions that arise upon the management of four great factories, and the care of an enormous mass of stores of every description.
"Fourthly, he has to deal with all the questions connected with fortifications and the commissariat.
"Fifthly, he is responsible for framing the Military Estimates, which override all the other departments, and regulate the expenditure of from £16,000,000 to £18,000,000 of public money.
"It is morally and physically impossible that any one man should discharge all these functions in a satisfactory manner. No one man could possess either the time or the strength or the knowledge which would be indispensable for that purpose; but even if such a physical and intellectual prodigy were to be found, he would have to do his duty under disadvantages which would reduce him practically to impotence."
If, then, the Commander-in-Chief is overburdened, it is at least certain that the right way to relieve him cannot possibly consist in adding to the functions of the Secretary of State.
The real point of Mr. Balfour's statement of the case is in what follows. If you have a single Commander-in-Chief through whom, and through whom alone, army opinion, army matters, and army advice would come to the Secretary of State, then, according to Mr. Balfour, you practically destroy the responsibility of the Secretary of State.
It is a mark of the hastiness of debate that the word responsibility has crept in here. No word in the political vocabulary is so dangerous, because none is so ambiguous. Properly speaking, a person is said to be responsible when he is liable to be called to account for his acts, a liability which implies that he is free to act in one way or another. These two aspects of the term, the liability and the freedom of choice implied, lead to its use in two opposite senses. Sometimes responsibility means that a man must answer for what he does, and sometimes that he may do as he pleases without being controlled by any one. The word is as often as not a synonym for authority. When Moltke speaks of the "immeasurable responsibility" of the King of Prussia, he really means that the King took upon himself as his own acts decisions of the gravest moment which were prompted by his advisers, and that by so doing he covered them as against the rest of the world; he did not mean that the King had to account for his conduct except to his own conscience and at the bar of history. A Secretary of State for War, in his relations with the army, wields the whole authority of the Government. The only thing which he cannot do is to act in opposition to the wishes of his colleagues, for if he did he would immediately cease to be Secretary of State. As long as they are agreed with him he is the master of the army. But his liability to be called to account is infinitely small. The worst that can happen to him is that if the party to which he belongs should lose its majority in the House of Commons the Cabinet of which he is a member may have to resign. That is an event always possible quite apart from his conduct, and his actions will as a rule not bring it about unless for other reasons it is already impending. Whenever, therefore, the phrase "the responsibility of the Secretary of State" occurs, we ought to substitute for it the more precise words: "the power of the Cabinet to decide any matter as it pleases, subject to the chance of its losing its majority."
What Mr. Balfour deprecates is a single Commander-in-Chief, and it is important to grasp the real nature of his objection. If the whole business of the army be conceived to be a single department of which the Commander-in-Chief is the head, so that the authority of the Secretary of State extends to no other matters than those which lie within the jurisdiction of the Commander-in-Chief, then undoubtedly the Secretary of State and the Commander-in-Chief are each of them in a false position, for one of them is unnecessary. The Secretary of State must either simply confirm the Commander-in-Chief's decisions, in which case his position as superior authority is a mere form, or he must enter into the reasons for and against and decide afresh, in which case the Commander-in-Chief becomes superfluous. It is bad organization to have two men, one over the other, both to do the same business.
Mr. Balfour's objection to this arrangement is, however, not that it sins against the principles of good organization, but that it practically abolishes the Secretary of State. It leaves the decision of questions which arise within the War Office and the army in the hands of a person who is outside the Cabinet. In this way it diminishes the power of the Cabinet, which rests partly upon the solidarity of that body, and partly upon the practice by which every branch of Government business is under the control of one or other of its members.
Both these objections appear to me to rest upon false premises. I shall show presently that the duties of the Secretary of State must necessarily include matters which do not properly come within the scope of a Commander-in-Chief, and I cannot see how the authority of the Cabinet to manage the army rationally would be impaired by a War Office with a military head, the subordinate of the Secretary of State.
But both objections, supposing them to be valid, would be overcome by making the Commander-in-Chief Secretary of State—that is, by abolishing the office of Secretary of State for War, and entrusting his duties to the Commander-in-Chief as a member of the Cabinet. Why, then, does not the Government adopt this plan, which at first sight appears so simple? There is a good reason. The Cabinet is a committee of peers and members of Parliament selected by the leader of a party from among his followers. The bond between its members is a party bond, and their necessary main purpose is to retain their majority in the House of Commons. A military Commander-in-Chief means an officer selected as the representative, not of a party, but of a subject. He is the embodiment of strategical wisdom, and to secure that strategical knowledge and judgment receive due attention in the councils of government is the purpose of his official existence. To make him a member of the Cabinet would be to disturb the harmony of that body by introducing into it a principle other than that of party allegiance, and the harmony could not be restored except either by subordinating strategy to party, which would be a perversion of the Commander-in-Chief, or by subordinating party to strategy, a sacrifice which the leaders of a party will not make except under the supreme pressure of actual or visibly impending war.
The preliminary decision, then, which may be taken as settled—for the other party if it had been in power would certainly have come to the same conclusion—is that no military officer, either within or without the Cabinet, is to have in his hands the whole management of the army; the absolute power of the Cabinet must be preserved, and therefore no military officer is to have more than departmental authority; the threads are not to be united in any hands other than those of the Secretary of State. This determination appears to me most unfortunate, for to my eye the time seems big with great events requiring a British Government to attach more importance to preparation for conflict than to the rigorous assertion of Cabinet supremacy. Be that as it may, the practical question is whether the proposed sub-division of the business of the War Office into departments is a good or a bad one. I think it incurably bad, because it follows no principle of classification inherent in the nature of the work to be done.
To find the natural and necessary classification of duties in the management of an army we must look not at the War Office but at war. Suppose the country to be engaged in a serious war, in which the army, or a large portion of it is employed against an enemy, who it may be hoped will not have succeeded in invading this island. In that case we can distinguish clearly between two functions. There must be an authority directing against the enemy the troops in the field; a general with full powers, implicitly obeyed by all the officers and officials accompanying his army. There must also be an administrative officer at home, whose function will be to procure and convey to the army in the field all that it requires—food, ammunition, clothing and pay, fresh men and fresh horses to replace casualties. This officer at home cannot be the same person as the general in the field; for the two duties must be carried on in two different places at the same time. The two functions, moreover, correspond to two different arts or branches of the military art. The commander in the field requires to excel in generalship, or the art of command; the head of the supply department at home requires to be a skilled military administrator in the sense not of a wielder of discipline or trainer of troops, but of a clever buyer, a producer and distributor on a large scale. Neither of these officers can be identical with the Secretary of State, whose principal duty in war is to mediate between the political intentions of the Government and the military action conducted by the commander in the field. This duty makes him the superior of the commander; while the officer charged with military supply, though he need not be the formal subordinate of the commander, must yet conform his efforts to the needs of the army in the field.
There are many important matters which cannot be confined either to the department of command or to that of supply. Under this head fall the terms of service for soldiers, the conditions of recruiting, the regulations for the appointment and promotion of officers. These are properly the subjects of deliberation in which not only military, but civil opinions and interests must be represented; for their definition the Secretary of State will do well to refer to a general council of his assistants, and the ultimate settlement will require the judgment of the Cabinet, and sometimes also the sanction of Parliament. In time of war it is generally necessary quickly to levy extra men, and to drain into the army a large part of the resources of the country. Such measures must be thought out and arranged in advance during peace, for the greatest care is required in all decisions which involve the appropriation by the State of more than the usual share of the energies, the time and the money of its citizens. Regulations of this kind can seldom be framed except as the result of the deliberations of a council of military and civil officers of experience. These, then, are the rational sub-divisions of army business. There is the department of command, embracing the discipline and training of the troops, their organization as combatant bodies, the arrangement of their movements and distribution in peace and war, and all that belongs to the functions of generalship. These matters form the proper domain of a Commander-in-Chief. Side by side with them is the department of supply, which procures for the commander the materials out of which his fighting machine is put together and kept in condition. Harmony between them is secured by the authority of the Government, wielded by the Secretary of State, who regulates according to the state of the national policy and of the exchequer the amount to be spent by each department, and who presides over the great council which lays down the conditions under which the services of the citizens in money, in property, or in person are to be claimed by the State for its defence.
The examination, then, of the conditions of war, and the application, during peace, of the distribution of duties which war must render necessary, lead to the true solution of the difficulty raised by Mr. Balfour. The internal affairs of the army are indeed one department, but the position of head of that department, while it could properly be filled by a Commander-in Chief, is not and cannot be identical with that of the minister who personifies the Cabinet in relation to the army. The minister ought to be concerned chiefly with the connexion between the national policy and the military means of giving it effect. The intention to make the Secretary of State head of the military department seems to me to prove that the Government really takes no account of what should be his higher duties. The lack of the conception of a national policy is thus about to embarrass the military management of the army.
It is not my object here to consider in detail how the principles of organization for war should be applied to the British army. That subject has been fully treated by Sir Charles Dilke and myself in the last chapter of our "Imperial Defence," a chapter which has not been criticised except with approval. But I am concerned to show that the German practice cannot at any point be quoted in support either of the recommendations of the Hartington Commission or of the proposals now announced by the Government, which to any one who regards them from the point of view of the nation, that is of the defence of the Empire, must appear to be at once unnecessary, rash and inopportune.
3, MADEIRA ROAD,
STREATHAM, S.W.
September 3rd, 1895.
[[1]] See in particular the passage in Moltke, Gesammelte Schriften, V. 298-9, which I have translated in an essay entitled "The Brain of the Navy," p. 28.
[[2]] It seems incredible that so important and so interesting a work as Moltke's military correspondence in relation to the Danish war of 1864 should hitherto have been ignored by English military writers.
[[3]] The reference is to a passage in the last chapter of the first edition, which has been rewritten.
[[4]] The passage which Moltke disliked was erased in the first edition, its place being supplied by words borrowed from his letter. In this edition it is printed as it was first written, in order to make the letter intelligible. The last chapter has in this edition been condensed, and I hope made simpler and clearer. One or two other slight changes in expression arise from the reconsideration of phrases which Count Moltke marked in reading the proof.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
In May, 1887, a Select Committee was appointed to examine into the Army and Navy Estimates. On the 8th of July Major-General (now Lieut-General) Brackenbury, in the course of examination by the Committee, made a series of comparisons between the English and the German systems of army management. He referred particularly to the great general staff of the German army, which he described as "the keystone of the whole system of German military organization ... the cause of the great efficiency of the German army ... acting as the powerful brain of the military body, to the designs of which brain the whole body is made to work." "I cannot but feel," he said, "that to the want of any such great central thinking department is due that want of economy and efficiency which to a certain extent exists in our army."
If at any time a statesman should be found to undertake the work of an English Minister of War, his first wish would be to grasp the nature of this keystone of the German system, to distinguish in it between essentials and accessories, to perceive which of its peculiarities are local, temporary, and personal; and what are the unchangeable principles in virtue of which it has prospered. Equipped with this knowledge, he would be able to reform without destroying, to rise above that servile imitation which copies defects as well as excellences, and, without sacrificing its national features, to infuse into the English system the merits of the German.
For such a statesman, and for the public upon whose support he must depend, this book has been written. It is an endeavour to describe the German general staff and its relation to the military institutions from which it is inseparable.
To illustrate the general staff at work in war, the campaign of 1866, rather than that of 1870, has been chosen, because it better exemplifies some of the relations between strategy and policy.
December, 1889.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I
THE GENERAL STAFF IN THE MANAGEMENT OF A CAMPAIGN
THE EVE OF KÖNIGGRÄTZ
Political and military situation on the 2nd of July—Position of the Prussian armies—-Topography of the district—Supposed position of the Austrian army, and consequent arrangements for July 3rd—True position of the Austrian army discovered—Consequent fresh orders for July 3rd—Which result in a decisive victory
BEHIND THE SCENES
The secret of King William's military success—His selection of a single adviser, and resolute adherence to his proposals—History of the office of chief of the general staff—Proceedings at Gitschin the night before the battle
FIVE SHORT ORDERS
Prussian system of division of labour and organization of responsibility—Simplicity of its working illustrated from the fewness and brevity of the orders issued
PRELIMINARIES OF A CAMPAIGN
Nature of the preparations for a campaign—Mobilization—Concentration—Influence of considerations of policy—King William in 1866 anxious to avoid war—Problems solved by the Prussian staff in preparation for the campaign: calculation of the force required—Its distribution in the theatre of war—Choice of points of concentration; formation of two armies in 1866 inevitable—Movement of troops to the points selected; transport by rail and subsequent marches—Position on June 6th—Opening of campaign postponed for political reasons—Delay leads to better knowledge of Austrian movements, and corresponding modification of Prussian arrangements—King William finally decides for war—Invasion of Saxony—Position of Prussian armies on June 22nd—Summary
THE CRITICS
Difficulties which beset the judgment of the conduct of a campaign—Insufficiency of the attainable knowledge of the motives which guided the commanders—Reserve therefore incumbent on the military critic—Illustration of hasty judgment—Impartiality consists only in the attempt to understand
PART II
THE GENERAL STAFF AND THE ARMY
THE SPIRIT OF PRUSSIAN MILITARY INSTITUTIONS
Spirit of the Prussian officers—The officer the teacher and leader of his men—System of promotion—Selection for the higher commands—Superiors responsible for the efficiency of their subordinates
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY
The army corps and its subdivisions—The company, squadron, and battery commanders—The superior prescribes the object, and leaves to his subordinate the choice of means—Graduation of authority and responsibility—Resulting in freedom of superiors from the burden of detail
THE SYSTEM OF TRAINING
Peace training determined solely by the requirements of war—It culminates in the manoeuvres—Which complete the training of the troops—And develop and test the capacity of the generals
THE ARMY CORPS
Review of the means adopted to secure its proper handling—Vastness of the administrative tasks involved in its management—Sketch of a mobilized Prussian army corps on the march and in quarters—Dual nature of its commander's anxieties—System devised to relieve him—Administrative services organized under two or three responsible heads—Military functions partly those of direction, partly those of routine—The latter dealt with by the adjutancy
THE GENERAL STAFF IN THE ARMY CORPS
The bureau which assists the general in the military direction—Enumeration of its functions in war—And in peace—The chief of the general staff of the army corps—Summary
COMPOSITION OF THE GENERAL STAFF AND ITS DISTRIBUTION
THROUGH THE ARMY
Forms a corps by itself, but not a close corporation—Alternation between service on the general staff and service with the troops—No career merely on the staff except for scientific work, involving abandonment of prospect of command—Numbers and distribution of general staff—Alternative service on great general staff, and on general staff of a constituent part of the army—Influence on the work of the experience thus acquired—Members of the general staff dispersed throughout the army—The general staff recruited from the pick of the young combatant officers
PART III
THE GREAT GENERAL STAFF
AN INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT
Direct preparation for war consists in determining beforehand the distribution of the forces, their concentration and transport to the frontier—Information on which these arrangements are based collected by general staff—Its subdivision for the purpose—Thoroughness of the work—The Registrande—Merely a preliminary groundwork—Explains Prussian knowledge of enemy's resources in 1866 and 1870—Similar organization in other armies—Railway arrangements—Production of maps
A MILITARY UNIVERSITY
Regeneration of Prussia assisted by education—War school founded by Scharnhorst in 1810—Scharnhorst's earlier educational work—History of the war academy since 1810—The present regulations—The order of service—Object of the war academy—Constitution and management—Entrance examination—Practical lessons compulsory—The order of teaching—Standard by which to judge it—-Course of study at the academy—Method of instruction—Tactics—Military history—History—Staff duties and tour—Comparison with the university ideal
THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
Relation between teaching and research—Exemplified in practice of general staff—Military history—School of Clausewitz—The critical method—Historical works of the Prussian general staff—Campaign of 1859—The "applicatory method"—Campaigns of 1866 and of 1870-71—Historical monographs—Connection between military history and theory—Theory in Prussia the work of individuals—Moltke's paper on the influence of new firearms upon tactics—His views justified by the events of 1866—Contributions to military doctrine by individual members of the Prussian staff—Moral influence of the intellectual lead taken by the general staff
THE CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF
Character needed for a strategist—Relation between a commander-in-chief and the chief of his staff—Element of permanent value in the Prussian system—Classification of duties—General summary
SKETCH MAPS
I. [THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF KÖNIGGRÄTZ]
III. [THE OPENING MOVEMENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1866]
PART I
THE GENERAL STAFF
IN THE
MANAGEMENT OF A CAMPAIGN
THE BRAIN OF AN ARMY
CHAPTER I
THE EVE OF KÖNIGGRÄTZ
On the afternoon of Monday, the 2nd of July, 1866, King William of Prussia with his retinue drove into the little town of Gitschin, in the hilly region of Northern Bohemia, on the southern side of the Giant Mountains. His upright bearing scarcely showed the burden of his sixty-nine years, nor did his frank expression reveal the weight of care that pressed upon him. After months of weary diplomacy, the political crisis had been brought to a head by a resolution of the Diet of the Germanic Confederation to the effect that Prussia had violated "the peace of the Confederation," and that the armies of the confederated States were to be called out. This resolution, not three weeks old, meant that Prussia was at war with Saxony, Hanover, Hesse, Bavaria and Würtemberg, and with the Austrian Empire. Besides this long array of enemies there were friends of various degrees of good and ill will to be considered. Russia was a benevolent onlooker; Italy an active ally, not indeed very formidable in the field, but able to occupy a portion of the Austrian forces. France was the ambiguous busybody, waiting to take a side according to the prospect of advantage, and the French ambassador was on his way to pay his unwelcome respects to the Prussian king. Even at home there were grave difficulties. The Prussian Parliament, representing at that time a liberal electorate, was directly opposed to the whole policy of which the war was a part. The king had left Berlin to join the army only on Saturday morning, after a fortnight of constant anxiety over the complicated operations which had resulted in the capture of the Hanoverian army and the occupation without fighting of the kingdom of Saxony.
The invasion of Bohemia by two separate armies had been ordered on June 22nd. Each of these armies had passed the mountain wall that shelters Bohemia on the north, and they were now only a day's march apart quartered in scattered villages a few hours' drive to the east of Gitschin. The troops were fatigued with a week's hard work. The Crown Prince coming from Silesia with 115,000 men had with various portions of his army fought three severe battles and as many serious skirmishes. His force lay on the left bank of the Elbe around his headquarters at Königinhof, twenty-one miles due east of Gitschin.[[1]] Prince Frederick Charles, the king's nephew, commanded the other army of 140,000 men, which had met with little serious resistance, though the troops were tired with the needless marching caused by ill-considered arrangements. This prince had come to report in person to Gitschin from his headquarters at Kamenitz, six or seven miles to the east.
The exact whereabouts of the Austrian army was unknown. It was supposed to have placed itself in position behind the Elbe, which here being about the size of the Isis above Oxford, runs from north to south with a gentle curve to the east. From Königinhof to Königgrätz the straight line, five-and-twenty miles long, runs due north and south. If this line be taken as a bowstring, the Elbe corresponds to the bow, of which the handle is the fortress of Josephstadt. Königgrätz, the southern point of the bow, is in a straight line twenty-seven miles from Gitschin, and the high road roughly coincides with this line. On the Monday afternoon at Gitschin it was believed that the Austrian army was on the left (eastern) bank of the Elbe, with its flanks covered by the fortresses of Königgrätz and Josephstadt. This was an awkward position to attack, and it had been decided to let both Prussian armies rest next day, while officers should be sent to study the approaches and make arrangements for a turning manoeuvre.
Prince Frederick Charles on returning to his headquarters at Kamenitz learned that the whole supposition was wrong. Some of his officers reconnoitring towards Königgrätz had found large bodies of Austrian troops in bivouac on both sides of the high road along the valley of the Bistritz brook, which runs nearly parallel with the Elbe about seven miles to the west of that river. A comparison of reports showed that there must be at least four Austrian army corps behind the Bistritz, so Frederick Charles, interpreting this as indicating the intention to attack him next morning, determined to be beforehand with the enemy and himself to attack at daybreak. At 9 p.m. he issued his orders for this movement, and at 9.45 sent off to Königinhof a letter asking the Crown Prince to send one or more corps towards Josephstadt to occupy the enemy in that quarter. The chief of his staff was sent to Gitschin to report to the king, and arrived there at 11 p.m.
"The king[[2]] at once decided to attack the enemy in front of the Elbe with all his forces, whether the whole Austrian army or only a large portion of it should be found there.... Accordingly by his Majesty's command the following communication to the second army [that of the Crown Prince] was at once prepared":—
"According to the information received by the first army the enemy in the strength of about three corps, which, however, may be further reinforced, has advanced beyond the line formed by the Bistritz at Sadowa, where an encounter with the first army is to be expected very early in the morning.
"According to the orders issued, the first army will stand to-morrow morning, July 3rd, at 2 a.m., with two divisions at Horsitz with one at Milowitz, one at Cerekwitz, with two at Pschanek and Briskan, the cavalry corps at Gutwasser.
"Your Royal Highness will at once make the arrangements necessary to be able to move with all your forces in support of the first army against the right flank of the enemy's expected advance, and to come into action as soon as possible. The orders sent from here this afternoon under other conditions are no longer valid.
"V. MOLTKE."
Sketch Map 1—THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF KÖNIGGRÄTZ.
This note, with a shorter note to the commander of one of the corps lying between Gitschin and Königinhof (the only part of the second army at this time west of the Elbe), telling him to be ready for the Crown Prince's orders, was despatched at midnight.
The whole Austro-Saxon army (eight corps) was in fact concentrated between the Elbe and the Bistritz, not indeed for attack but for the defence of a strong position on the left bank of the brook, facing westwards. Had the arrangements of Prince Frederick Charles not been supplemented, the 3rd of July might have been an unfortunate day for Prussia. The first army would have been engaged against an enemy strongly posted and counting nearly double its numbers. The detachment by the second army of one corps towards Josephstadt could hardly have produced a decisive effect, and the rest of the second army would have been too far away to co-operate in time. But the order sent from Gitschin entirely met the situation. Without interfering with Prince Frederick Charles's attack it brought the entire second army to his help in the direction where its action would produce the greatest effect—on the enemy's flank.
When the morning came, the attack of the first army as it developed, disclosed the great strength of the Austrian position and the numbers by which it was defended. Prince Frederick Charles was unable to do much more than keep the Austrians engaged until the second army came up. The attack of the Crown Prince's leading divisions decided the day. With their capture and maintenance of Chlum, the key of the position, the situation of the Austrian army became critical, and the issue not only of the fight but of the whole campaign was practically settled. The resolution formed between eleven and twelve at night on July 2nd, in the Lion Inn at Gitschin, had secured the victory of Königgrätz, perhaps the greatest battle of modern times,[[3]] and without exception the most decisive in its results.
[[1]] See [sketch map 1].
[[2]] Der Feldzitg von 1866 in Deutschland. Redigirt von der Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abtheilung des groszen Generalstabes, p. 249.
[[3]] There is a doubt whether the number of combatants was greater at Leipsic or at Königgrätz. According to the Belgian Précis (Bibliothèque Internationale d'Histoire militaire) the figures are:—
At Leipsic: Allies . . . . . . . . . 300,000
" French . . . . . . . . . 180,000
-------
Total . . . . . . . 480,000
=======
At Königgrätz: Austrians . . . . . . 215,000
" Prussians . . . . . . 220,000
-------
Total . . . . . . . 435,000
=======
According to Rüstow (Feldhernkunst des 19ten Jahrhunderts) the numbers engaged were:—
At Leipsic (Oct. 18th): French . . . 130,000
" " Allies . . . 290,000
-------
Total . . . . . . 430,000
=======
At Königgrätz, total of both sides 450,000
=======
CHAPTER II
BEHIND THE SCENES
The King of Prussia is reputed to have been a modest man and to have known the limits of his faculties. He was not a great strategist. He once said to his brother (the father of Prince Frederick Charles), "If I had not been born a Hohenzollern I should have been a sergeant-major." How then did he make the swift decision resulting in a success that would have done credit to the genius of Frederick the Great or Napoleon? The answer is supplied by the Prussian historian of the Italian campaign of 1859. "There are generals," says this writer, "who need no counsel, who deliberate and resolve in their own minds, those about them having only to carry out their intentions. But such generals are stars of the first magnitude who scarcely appear once in a century. In the great majority of cases the leader of an army will not be willing to dispense with advice. The suggestions made may very well be the result of the deliberations of a smaller or greater number of men specially qualified by training and experience to form a correct judgment. But even among them only one opinion ought to assert itself. The organization of the military hierarchy should promote subordination even in thought. This one opinion only should be submitted for the consideration of the commander-in-chief by the one person to whom this particular service is assigned. Him let the general choose, not according to rank or seniority, but in accordance with his own personal confidence. Though the advice given may not always be unconditionally the best, yet, if the action taken be consistent and the leading idea once adopted be steadfastly followed, the affair may always be brought to a satisfactory issue. The commander-in-chief retains as against his adviser the infinitely weightier merit of taking upon himself the responsibility for all that is done.
"But surround a commander with a number of independent men—-the more numerous, the more distinguished, the abler they are and the worse it will be—let him hear the advice now of one now of another; let him carry out up to a certain point a measure judicious in itself, then adopt a still more judicious but different plan, and then be convinced by the thoroughly sound objections of a third adviser and the remedial suggestions of a fourth,—it is a hundred to one that though for each of his measures excellent reasons can be given, he will lose the campaign."
The one authorised adviser here described was by the Prussian system provided for the king in the person of the chief of the general staff of the army. This office had risen to importance during the wars of liberation, though at that epoch the general staff was in the peace organization a subordinate branch of the Ministry of War. The Prussians fighting Napoleon, had had no Napoleon to pit against him. The best they could do was to put Blücher in command with Scharnhorst, and after Scharnhorst's death with Gneisenau to keep him straight.[[1]] In the period that followed the peace of 1815 the position of the general staff received strict definition. In 1821 Müffling was appointed its chief, and it was settled that he should not be subordinate to the Minister of War but directly responsible to the king. This constitution of the office on a new basis outside of and independent of the Ministry of War was an advance in the division of labour implying the want of a fresh organ to perform functions not before satisfactorily exercised. The business of the Ministry of War was to raise, maintain and administer the army. The business of the staff was to direct the army in war, and during peace to make such special preparations as might be necessary to this end. In order to be able to devote all its energies to the conduct of armies fighting in the field, unhampered by the details of daily administration, the general staff was placed on an independent footing. In 1829 Müffling was succeeded by Lieut-Gen. von Krauseneck, whose successor (in 1848) was Lieut-Gen. von Reyher. Reyher died in 1857, when the duties of the office were intrusted to Major-General von Moltke.
The division of labour between the royal commander-in-chief and the chief of the staff may be illustrated by the proceedings of the evening before the battle of Königgrätz. When General von Voigts-Rhetz (the chief of Prince Frederick Charles' staff) reached Gitschin and reported to the king, who was just going to bed, the king sent him to Moltke saying, "If General Moltke thinks this information involves a fresh decision he is to come for orders whatever be the time of night." Voigts-Rhetz went to Moltke's quarters and made his report. Moltke made up his mind what ought to be done, and then went to the king, whom he found in bed, and explained his view that whether the whole Austrian army or only a part of it was at Sadowa the sound course was to move forward both Prussian armies, so as to take the Austrians in front and flank. An attack like this from two sides at once must in any case give the Prussians the best chance of victory they could hope for, and the result would be the more decisive the larger the portion of the Austrian army to be engaged. The king at once gave his assent. Moltke then wrote the two notes, which were sent off immediately.
It was 11 p.m. when Voigts-Rhetz reached Gitschin. The letters were despatched at midnight. In that hour fall the reports of Voigts-Rhetz to the king and to Moltke; Moltke's deliberation and determination; his visit to the king's quarters and the writing and despatching of the notes. It appears from these data that there was no discussion, and that even at this period, the opening of their first great campaign, the king's confidence in Moltke was as thoroughly established as we know it to have been four years later.[[2]]
[[1]] It might perhaps have been better to have given Scharnhorst and Gneisenau the actual command. In any case the arrangement adopted in 1813 laid the foundation of the German system of the general staff.
[[2]] In the Crown Prince's diary of the Franco-German War we read under the date January 15th, "Werder asks whether he would not do better now to abandon Belfort as he thinks he can still defend Alsace? Moltke read this out and added, with unshakeable icy calmness, 'Your Majesty will no doubt approve of General Werder being informed in reply that he has simply to stay where he is and beat the enemy where he finds him.' Moltke appeared to me admirable beyond all praise. In one second he had settled the whole affair." Deutsche Rundschau, October, 1888, p. 25.
CHAPTER III
FIVE SHORT ORDERS
In one sense there is nothing remarkable in the decision of the 2nd of July. Given two armies fighting on the same side and within a day's march of each other, and a hostile army within a day's march of both of them, it is not difficult to see what the two armies should do. Nothing is easier than to solve problems of this sort in the study. Even with the imperfect knowledge of the facts which the Prussians possessed, the arrangements made at Gitschin were no more than the suggestions of military common sense. But simple as the situation seems, nothing is so difficult as to secure such a solution in the practice of war. It is a common-place in that kind of military criticism which is wise after the event that Benedek might have avoided disaster if he had only acted on any reasonable plan and stuck to it. The merit of the Prussians lay in the system which gave military common sense its due place in the organization, so as to make sure that it would be applied when wanted. It was a matter of the judicious division of labour.
At the headquarters of an army there are a hundred different anxieties. In peace there is the recruiting, training, clothing, feeding, and arming of the troops; the distribution of commands; the maintenance of discipline. In war most of these matters continue to require attention; subordinates must be kept to their appointed tasks; above all the field of politics must be watched from day to day, sometimes even from hour to hour. The Prussian system gave to the chief of the general staff the sole duty of attending to the movements of the armies, and, regarding each new situation as a problem in strategy, of explaining the solution which presented itself to his trained judgment as the best. Free from the pressure of other cares and responsibilities an officer in this position would be more likely to see clearly and judge coolly than one overloaded with work and distracted with the thousand worries of command. This is the division of labour according to kind, which gives each sort of work to a man specially trained for its performance. It is supplemented by an organization of responsibility which relieves a man from detail in proportion to the extent and grasp of his supervision. The army was broken up into minor armies each with its own commander and his chief of the staff, so that the chief of the general staff himself had to consider only the large problems of the campaign, the general nature of the movements to be effected by the two or three pieces on his board. The head of each army is told the general intention and the share of work assigned to his force. He in turn regards his army corps or divisions[[1]] as so many units, and besides a statement of the object to be aimed at gives only such general directions as the corps or division commanders cannot arrange for themselves. All the detail of the movements is left in the hands of the corps or division commanders and their special staffs.
It is worth while showing by a convincing proof to what simplicity the system here described reduces the business of supreme command. On June 21 a Prussian parlementaire handed in to the Austrian outposts a notification of the commencement of hostilities. At that time the first army was concentrated opposite the Austrian frontier across the border that separates Saxony from Silesia; the second army was concentrated near Neisse. From that day until the decisive battle only five short orders from the king's headquarters are on record:—
(1) June 22.—Telegram from Berlin to both armies (at Görlitz and Neisse): "His Majesty orders both armies to advance into Bohemia and to seek to unite in the direction of Gitschin."
A letter of the same date contained a slightly fuller explanation, and added, to Prince Frederick Charles, that as the second army had the difficult task of issuing from the mountains the first army must shorten the crisis by pushing on rapidly.
(2) June 29.—Telegram from Berlin to Prince Frederick Charles: "His Majesty expects that the first army by a quickened advance will disengage the second army which, in spite of a series of victorious actions, is still for the time being in a difficult situation."
(A repetition to Prince Frederick Charles, who had been losing time by his timid and methodical movements, of his original instructions.)
(3) June 30.—Telegram from Kohlfurt (on the way from Berlin to the army) to both armies: instructing the second army to maintain itself on the Elbe and the first army to push forward towards Königgrätz. (A modification, to suit events, of the plan of No. 1.)
(4) July 2.—Gitschin. Order arranging for both armies to rest on July 3, while the country to the front and the Austrian supposed position should be reconnoitred. Cancelled the same evening by
(5) Moltke's note (quoted p. 54) to the Crown Prince.
The brevity and simplicity of these instructions find a counterpart in the orders issued by the army commanders. Moltke's note sent off from Gitschin at midnight on Monday was delivered at the Crown Prince's headquarters at Königinhof at four on Tuesday morning. At five General von Blumenthal, the chief of the general staff of the second army, sent out an army order of some twenty lines:—
"According to information received here it is expected that the enemy will to-day attack the first army which is at Horsitz, Milowitz, and Cerekwitz. The second army will advance to its support as follows:—
(l) "The first army corps will march in two columns by Zabres and Gr. Trotin to Gr. Burglitz." ...
And so on for the other corps. In this way an army of 115,000 men (four army corps and a cavalry division) was directed by five sentences of two lines each. This was sufficient. The details were arranged for each army corps by the corps commander with the assistance of his staff officers.
[[1]] In 1866 the first army was composed of divisions not combined into army corps. The second army was worked by army corps.
CHAPTER IV
PRELIMINARIES OF A CAMPAIGN
The movements of an army during a campaign after the first serious engagements can rarely, if ever, be settled in detail before the war. They must needs depend largely on those of the enemy, which cannot be accurately foreseen. But before war is declared, before the fighting begins, while the troops are still in their own territory, a well-conducted government can make its preparations without hindrance. The army can be placed on a war footing, and assembled at whatever point or points are judged most advantageous. These preparations in Prussia fall in different degrees within the domain of the general staff.
The changes by which the army is placed on a war footing, known collectively as mobilization, include the calling out of the reserves of men and horses; their distribution among the various corps and their equipment; and the creation and completion of the staffs and of the different services of supply. All these proceedings in Prussia the general staff had perfectly arranged and regulated down to the minutest detail, so that the order needed only to be issued, and the whole operation would take place as if by clockwork within a given number of days.[[1]] The process of mobilization is in essentials the same whatever be the frontier on which the war is to be fought. It places the troops ready at their ordinary headquarters, and in Prussia no regiment leaves its headquarters except in perfect readiness to take the field.
On the other hand, the collection of the army on the frontier is the first stage of the actual operations, resembling the opening of a game of chess, and it is of the greatest importance that the points selected should be those best suited for the beginning of the particular campaign in prospect.
The placing of an army on a war footing and its transport to a frontier are political acts of the gravest moment. They are therefore usually controlled almost as much by political as by military considerations, and it is impossible rightly to appreciate them without taking into account the political circumstances by which they are affected. The influence of politics upon the two processes is however different. In regard to mobilization, which may be compared to a mechanical process, the statesman may urge its postponement or its execution by gradual instalments. In neither case is the essential nature of the operation changed, though the amount of friction involved may be increased. But the assembling of an army is the immediate preliminary to attack or defence, and the statesman's unwillingness to attack may affect the choice of time and place for the collection of the force available.
The King of Prussia was sincerely anxious to avoid a war, and until June 14 was determined not to take the initiative nor to agree to any measure which might savour of attack. He was with difficulty induced to consent to the successive stages of preparation. Not until the beginning of May, when the Austrian mobilization was far advanced and the transport to the frontiers impending, were the orders for the Prussian mobilization issued, and that not at once, but piecemeal between May 3 and May 12. The forces thus called out formed a total of 326,000 combatants, divided into nine army corps,[[2]] a reserve corps at Berlin,[[3]] the corps of occupation in Holstein, and the corps collected at Wetzlar from the Prussian garrisons withdrawn from fortresses of the German confederation. The arrangements made for the disposition of these forces between May 12 and June 22 form the basis of the subsequent success, and may perhaps best be described in the form of a series of problems and their solutions.
1. The first step of preparation for a war is the calculation of the force required.[[4]] In the case of our own small wars it is self-evident that such a calculation is necessary, and the campaign of 1882 in Egypt is an instance in which it was worked out to a nicety. It might seem equally a matter of course that when two Continental states go to war each of them will assume from the beginning that its whole available force will be employed. Yet instances are numerous in which campaigns have been lost mainly through neglect to work out this calculation. In 1859 the Austrians undertook with little more than half their army a war against the combined forces of France and Sardinia; in 1885 King Milan attacked the Bulgarians without calling out the whole of the Servian army. In both cases defeat was largely due to this initial error.
The basis of the calculation is furnished by an estimate of the force which will be at the disposal of the enemy. In 1866 the Prussian staff had to face the preliminary difficulty that it was uncertain even as late as May 8 which of the German states would be on the Prussian and which on the Austrian side. The least favourable assumption was made, and it was estimated that the hostile forces would be in North Germany 36,000, in South Germany 100,000, and in Saxony and Austria 264,000, making a total of 400,000 men.[[5]] There could be no doubt that Prussia must employ the whole of her available forces.
2. The next question was how to distribute the Prussian forces against these three sets of enemies. A proportionate division based on the estimate just given would have resulted in the employment of 215,000 men against Austria and Saxony, of 30,000 against North Germany, and of 80,000 against South Germany. The staff, however, expected that the South German forces would not be ready until a late stage of the war, and might in the first instance be neglected. Hanover and Hesse lying between the two halves of Prussia and separating Westphalia and Rhenish Prussia from the main body of the kingdom,[[6]] were more serious foes. It would be necessary to strike hard at them, if possible, before their preparations could be completed. But the fate of Prussia and of Germany really depended upon the issue of the conflict with Austria. If she were beaten here, Prussia would in any case be undone; if she were successful in this struggle, the minor states, even though not themselves beaten, must needs fall under her sway. It was decided to employ almost the whole army (eight and a half corps and the reserve corps, 278,000 men) against Austria and Saxony, and to meet the rest of the German enemies with a scratch army (48,000) made up of half the seventh corps and of the troops assembled in Holstein and at Wetzlar. This force was destined first of all to disarm Hesse and Hanover (capitulation of Langensalza June 29), and then to attack and defeat the South German contingents.
3. The next problem is the choice of the point or points at which the army is to be assembled for the purpose of beginning the operations. This is the first act of generalship in the campaign, and a mistake here is usually the prelude of misfortune. Every general wishes, if possible, to meet with his whole force the divided forces of the enemy, and therefore his first thought is to assemble his army at one place, or at least to collect it so that all its parts may unite for battle.
Sketch Map 2—PRUSSIA in 1866
The Prussian army, if assembled in Upper Silesia, would be at the point of Prussia nearest to the Austrian capital; if assembled at Görlitz,[[7]] it would interpose between Berlin or Breslau and an Austrian army approaching from Bohemia. These were, therefore, the most favourable points of assembly, the one for attack and the other for defence. But the position in Silesia would lose much of its value unless it were intended, as soon as the army should be ready, to march on Vienna; and this course in the middle of May was, to the king's mind, inadmissible. There was, however, a second quite unanswerable argument against assembling the whole army at either place. The movement could not be carried out in a reasonable time. To march to either district from the distant provinces would have been an affair of many weeks, and the concentration would run the risk of being too late. The difficulty could not be overcome by the use of the railways. To move a whole army corps by a single railway required, according to the nature of the line, irrespective of the distance, from nine to twelve days. But for the transport to Upper Silesia only one, and for that to Görlitz only two, through railways were available, so that a very long time would be required to move the whole army by rail to either point. Moreover, neither of the districts in question is so fertile as to be able to feed a large army for more than a few days. As the king was determined not to fight, if fighting could be avoided, it might become necessary to keep the army waiting for some weeks after its concentration. This would be to starve it before a shot had been fired. Thus it was impracticable in the political circumstances to collect all the nine corps into one army, either for offence or defence. Separate armies had to be formed, and considerations of defence to prevail. The principal centres of concentration were fixed in the neighbourhood of Görlitz and of Schweidnitz, points on the lines of an Austrian advance towards Berlin and Breslau respectively from Northern Bohemia, where at this time (the middle of May) the Austrian army was believed to be assembling.
4. Upon the basis of this decision the movement of the troops to the frontier was arranged. The railway system, as has been seen, did not admit of moving the corps directly and speedily to Görlitz and Schweidnitz. Five railways in all were available, leading to points on the Prussian frontier facing the kingdom of Saxony and the Austrian Empire. They ended at Zeitz, Halle, Hertzberg, Görlitz, and Schweidnitz (or Neisse), places scattered along a curve some 250 miles long. The quickest practicable way of assembling the army was to use all these railways at once, and when the troops had thus been deposited on the frontier to continue the concentration by marches. The shortest lines of march to assemble the whole army would be the radii leading to the centre of the curve; but this was in the enemy's territory, so that these lines, if they had been for other reasons desirable, could not be adopted before war had been declared. The alternative was to concentrate by marches along the circumference, and this was the plan adopted. Each corps, as soon as its debarkation from the train was complete, was marched along the arc towards the point of concentration selected for it.
The corps from Posen and Silesia, collected at Schweidnitz and Neisse (grouped together as the second army under the Crown Prince), were moved to their right to Landshut and Waldenburg.[[8]] Those of Westphalia (half a corps) and Rhenish Prussia were detrained at Zeitz and Halle, and marched round the frontier of Saxony to the point where the Elbe emerges from that kingdom. These troops, with the reserve corps from Berlin, formed the Elbe army, destined to continue its eastward movement by the invasion of Saxony. The corps from Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Prussian Saxony, were combined into the first army, under Prince Frederick Charles. They were first assembled between Torgau and Cottbus, and then marched along the frontier towards Görlitz, reaching the western corner of Silesia (neighbourhood of Hoyerswerda) about the end of the first week in June, when the other movements described were also completed.
5. The staff was now anxious to begin the campaign. The three armies could not be united on Prussian soil without leaving some important district unprotected, nor await where they were the Austrian attack without the risk that one of them in isolation might be exposed to the blows of a superior force. This same risk only would be incurred in the attempt to meet by a concentric advance towards some point of Austrian territory; it would increase with every additional day allowed for the Austrian preparations. But the king still thought a settlement possible, and would not permit hostilities to commence.
6. On June 11, the Prussian staff learned that of seven Austrian army corps destined to operate against Prussia six were in Moravia, not in Bohemia, as had been supposed. The inference was, that the Austrians contemplated advancing upon Breslau by way of Neisse, for which movement the data obtained showed that they would be able to cross the Silesian border with five or six army corps by about June 19. To meet this invasion, if it should take place, the second army was moved to the river Neisse, facing south, and was reinforced by the guard corps from Berlin, and by the first corps, moved originally from East Prussia by rail to Görlitz, and now by marching transferred from the first army to the second. At the same time the first army continued its eastward march as far as Görlitz, where it would be near enough to reach Breslau as soon as the Austrians, if they should really invade Silesia, or, if not required in that direction, could be moved readily into either Saxony or Bohemia. These movements were effected by June 19.
The Elbe army was also to be moved to the east, to join the first army, but its most convenient route from Torgau to Görlitz lay through Dresden. While the changes just described were in the course of execution, the political situation also had changed. The hostile resolution of the diet on June 14 enabled the king to make up his mind. On June 15 war was declared against Saxony. On the 16th the Elbe army crossed the border; on the 18th occupied Dresden; and on the 19th, connection having been established with the first army, now about Görlitz, was placed under the command of Prince Frederick Charles. This prince concentrated the first army to the south of Görlitz, on the confines of Saxony and Silesia, close to the Bohemian border, while the Elbe army from Dresden rapidly closed up to his right flank. The intention was that both should advance as one army into Bohemia, and move, with the left wing skirting the foot of the Giant Mountains, to meet the second army. There had been no sign of an Austrian attack on Silesia, so the Crown Prince was ordered to prepare for a march westward into Bohemia to meet his cousin. On the 19th he was to send one corps in advance to Landshut, still keeping the rest of his force on the Neisse ready to face either south or west. A day or two later two more of his corps were withdrawn to the mountains, a single corps only remaining on the Neisse, and much trouble being taken to deceive the Austrians into the belief that the whole army was still there and was about to march towards Moravia. This was the position of both Prussian armies on June 22, when the telegram already quoted ordered them to cross the Bohemian frontier and to try to effect their union about Gitschin.
Sketch map 3—THE OPENING MOVEMENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1866.
It will be observed that from the first stage of the preparations one object, the concentration of as large a force as possible for the purpose of defeating the Austro-Saxon forces, had been followed by the chief of the staff. His arrangements were at first controlled by political considerations, the effect of which in the circumstances was to render impracticable the formation at the outset of a single army. Afterwards, before war had been finally decided upon, the armies were moved to meet the changed situation created by the Austrian arrangements at length known. The invasion of Saxony was a further stage in the general concentration. By June 22 it had become clear that the Austrians were not invading Silesia. The question was, whether to continue through Prussian territory the march of the first army towards the second—a safe course now that the Austrian position was known—or to take for both the shortest line of meeting, that into Bohemia, with the attendant risk to the second army. The bolder course was adopted, and was abundantly justified by success.
[[1]] The details of the operation of mobilization are kept secret, but the elementary principles have everywhere been copied from the Prussian system and may be explained in an imaginary example. Suppose a company to have a peace strength of 120 men and to pass each year forty men into the reserve, receiving instead the same number of recruits, the war strength being 240. The public announcement of the decree for mobilization makes it the duty of each of the 120 reservists to proceed directly to the headquarters of the company, where they will arrive, according to the distance from their homes, say on the first, second, or third day of mobilization. The captain has a nominal list of the whole company, and keeps in store under his own responsibility the complete new war kit for each of the 240 men. As they arrive the men pass the doctor, receive their kits, and are told off to their posts in the completed company. According to the care with which the rules have been framed (this is the staff's principal share in the work) so as to divide the labour, occupying every man from the general to the bugler and giving to each that work which he can best do, and to none more than he can do in the time allowed, will be the rapidity, ease, and certainty with which the whole mobilization will be effected.
[[2]] The guard with its peace quarters at Berlin, and corps I. to VIII. quartered in peace in districts corresponding in the main to the eight provinces: Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Prussian Saxony, Posen, Silesia, Westphalia, Rhenish Prussia. See [sketch map 2].
[[3]] Called out on May 19th.
[[4]] "What king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage and desireth conditions of peace."
[[5]] The numbers actually called out against Prussia proved to be:—
North Germans . . . . . . 25,000
South Germans . . . . . . 94,000
Austrians and Saxons . . 271,000
-------
Total . . . . . . . . 390,000
[[6]] See [sketch map 2].
[[7]] See [sketch map 3].
[[8]] See [sketch map 3].
CHAPTER V
THE CRITICS
Except the conduct of military operations there is nothing so difficult as to appreciate them truly. A multitude of considerations affect the leading of armies and many of them evade the research of the historian. The critic therefore can rarely be sure that he has placed himself in the exact position of the general whose acts he is studying. If, for example, he supposes a commander to have been without information which in fact he possessed, his judgment may be founded upon a picture completely distorted. Such mistakes are made even by the most careful historians. The Prussian staff history of the campaign of 1866 alleges that the Austrian commanders were unaware of the Crown Prince's march westwards from the Neisse. The Austrian staff history shows that very good information on the subject had reached the Austrian headquarters as early as June 25, before any of the Crown Prince's corps had crossed the border. Where it is so difficult to avoid error it is rash to be dogmatic. But it may be permissible to raise a doubt as to the value of some of the judgments that seem to have become traditional concerning this campaign. Mr. O'Connor Morris, for example, in the Academy of March 23, 1889, wrote:—"The strategy of Moltke is not perfection, as worshippers of success have boasted, but he never attempted, in his invasion of France, to unite widely divided armies, within striking distance of a concentrated foe, as he did at Gitschin, under the very beard of Benedek."[[1]] A similar criticism, without the sneer, may be found in the Belgian Précis. But neither writer has explained where the mistake lay. Even the Austrian historian declares that, given the Prussian positions on the Neisse and in Lusatia, the only sound course was the advance to meet at Gitschin. Was the error in the original dispersion of the forces along the frontier? If so, the critics should explain what alternative was practicable in view of the political conditions and of the geography of the theatre of war. Would it not be safer to say that the preparations for the campaign of 1866 show the influence upon strategy of a very complicated political situation? The opening of the campaign of 1870 presented in comparison a simple problem. There was a single enemy to be faced; and there was no motive for hesitation or delay. Moreover, the German staff could count upon beginning the campaign on the least favourable hypothesis with 330,000 men against 250,000.[[2]] Possibly in 1866 the strategists' task would have been easier, and posterity would have thought no worse of Prussian policy if the king had realized early in May that mobilization meant war, and had given Moltke from that time a free hand. But this again is a criticism easy to make twenty years after the event. The conflict was between Germans, and the general opinion at the time condemned the Prussian policy. Moreover, Prussia had then no important success on record since the decisive stroke at Waterloo. In these conditions the king's hesitation was natural enough, and even the anxiety to cover every part of Prussian territory is quite intelligible. Much must needs remain obscure, for it may be years before the personal history of the principal actors at this period is given to the world. Meanwhile, the function of criticism is to seek first of all to understand the events with which it deals.
It is of little purpose to read a summary of the movements of the troops during a campaign, and to be given a list of the mistakes made by the generals on each side. Such a system leads the reader to suppose that generals as a rule have been remarkably careless, weak, and ignorant, and entirely conceals from him the difficulties which always beset the conduct of operations. But where a measure adopted in the field is shown by the result to have been attended with risks or followed by disaster, the attempt to ascertain why it was employed invariably throws light upon the nature of war; and this method of study, though it offers little satisfaction to the vanity that likes to take a side and to distribute praise or blame, rewards, by quickening the insight and forming the judgment, the labour which it requires.
[[1]] If Mr. O'Connor Morris will mark on a map the positions of the Austrian and Prussian armies on June 22nd, the date of the order "to unite widely divided armies," etc., he will discover that the Austrian forces were distributed over an area not less extended than that which included both Prussian armies.
[[2]] German Staff History, 1870-71, vol. i. p. 74.
PART II
THE GENERAL STAFF AND THE ARMY
CHAPTER I
THE SPIRIT OF PRUSSIAN MILITARY INSTITUTIONS
The general staff has been described as the "brain of an army." The metaphor is peculiarly apt, for the staff, like the human brain, is not independent but a part of an organic whole. It can perform its functions only in connection with a body adapted to its control, and united with it by the ramifications of a nervous system. How then is the Prussian army adapted to receive the impulses conveyed from its intellectual centre?
An army is what its officers make it, and in the Prussian army the officers take their profession seriously. It may be doubted whether there is in the world any body of men so entirely single-minded in their devotion to duty. Most of them are, according to English notions, ridiculously poor. Their pay is small, and they have never made the acquaintance of luxury.
In 1874 the emperor in an official address to the army wrote, "The more general the spread of luxury and comfort, the more solemnly is the officer confronted by the duty never to forget that his honourable position in the state and in society has not been gained and cannot be maintained by material wealth. Not only does an enervating mode of life damage the combatant qualities of an officer, but the pursuit of gain and comfort would dangerously undermine the very ground upon which the officer's position is built up."[[1]] These words fairly express the spirit of those to whom they were addressed, and many an officer takes a pride in his poverty, and starves with cheerfulness and even with merriment. Some of the superior officers have set the example by abandoning the dearly-loved cigar, and a Prussian officer's mess has decidedly no attractions for the gourmet.
"Teacher and leader in every department is the officer. This implies that he is superior to his men in knowledge, experience, and strength of character. Without fearing responsibility, every officer in all circumstances however extraordinary is to stake his whole personality for the fulfilment of his mission, even without waiting for orders."[[2]] This is the foundation stone of Prussian discipline, the secret by which is secured "the legitimate ascendency of the officers, the justified confidence of the soldiers, the daily interchange of mutual devotion, the conviction that each one is useful to all and that the chiefs are the most useful of all."[[3]] The attainment of the ideal thus officially set up is facilitated by the system of promotion. The principle of seniority, without which no public service can be a profession or offer a career, is allowed its legitimate place, being modified only by the retirement of the incapable, and by special selection for the general staff. "It is necessary that the higher commands should be attained only by such officers as unite distinguished abilities and military education with corresponding qualities of character and with bodily activity."[[4]] Moreover, "it is the special duty of the general commanding to see that all the commandants of fortresses, all the commanders of divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions, and all the field-officers in the district of his army-corps, retain their posts only so long as they have the bodily activity necessary for service in the field, and the knowledge and capacity needed for their several particular callings. The moment he notices in this respect the slightest change to the detriment of my service, it is his duty, for which he will be held responsible, to inform me. He must also send me the names of all officers who distinguish themselves or are fit for a higher post."[[5]]
The first feature, then, of the Prussian system is the method by which it is attempted, with considerable success, always to put the right man in the right place, and having done so, to see that he keeps up to the mark.
[[1]] Verordnung über die Ehrengerichte der Offiziere im Preussischen Heere, May 2nd, 1874.
[[2]] Felddienstordnung, 1887, § 6.
[[3]] Taine, L'Ancien Régime, p. 108.
[[4]] Cabinet order of May 8th, 1849.
[[5]] Cabinet order, i.e. King's order in Cabinet of March 13th, 1816.
CHAPTER II
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY
Organization implies that every man's work is defined; that he knows exactly what he must answer for, and that his authority is co-extensive with his responsibility.
A modern army fights by army corps, and by army corps the Prussian army is managed, in peace as well as in war. Each province is an army corps district.[[1]] All the troops in it belong to the corps[[2]] and are under the command of the general, who has in military matters absolute authority, being independent of the Ministry of War and responsible directly to the king and to no one else. Every question that comes up in the corps can be finally settled by its commanding general, except a very few matters which require the king's assent, or an arrangement with the Ministry of War. But comparatively few questions of detail come as high as the commanding general.
His corps is at all times organized very much as it would be in war. In the infantry four companies make a battalion, three battalions a regiment, two regiments a brigade, two infantry brigades with their due proportion of cavalry and artillery form an infantry division. In the cavalry four or five squadrons form the regiment, two or three regiments the brigade, and two or three brigades the division. In the artillery two or three batteries form a group (Abtheilung, now officially translated brigade division), two or three groups a regiment, and two regiments a brigade. The corps is made up of infantry divisions, a cavalry brigade or division,[[3]] and an artillery brigade.
Responsibility and authority begin with the smallest units, the company, squadron, or battery. The captain, the commander of such a unit, is the lowest officer who has the power of punishment. In his hands lies in peace the training, and in war the leading of the company, squadron, or battery. The lieutenants and in a lower sphere the noncommissioned officers are his assistants acting under his responsibility. In the company, to take the infantry as the type, the captain is supreme. The methods of instruction, the distribution of time, and the order to be followed in the process are matters which he settles according to his own judgment. His superiors abstain from any interference. They are concerned only with the result, of which they satisfy themselves by inspection at the end of the period assigned to company training. If any of the soldiers have not been properly instructed, or if the company is not fit to take its place in the battalion, that is the captain's fault, and he is likely to lose his chance of promotion.
The battalion commander receives his trained companies and practises them in battalion manoeuvres. His business is with the battalion as a body composed of four units, not with the internal affairs of the companies. In battle as on the parade ground this rule is observed. For example: "If a battalion receives the order to attack a farm its commander must assign to the several companies the part which each is to play, must prescribe the points of attack, and at least in general terms the directions of their advance. He must also arrange the time of their coming into action so that they may co-operate. But how each company is to accomplish the task assigned to it, in what formation it is to fight—these and similar details he will do well, if he knows that his captains have the necessary insight, to leave to them."[[4]]
In this way authority and responsibility are graduated throughout the army corps. Every commander above the rank of captain deals with a body composed of units with the interior affairs of none of which he meddles, except in the case of failure on the part of the officer directly responsible. The higher the commander and the greater his authority, the more general becomes the supervision and the less the burden of detail. The superior prescribes the object to be attained. The subordinate is left free to choose the means, and is interfered with only in exceptional circumstances. Thus every officer in his own sphere is accustomed to the exercise of authority and to the free application of his own judgment.
By this system the labour and responsibility of commanding an army corps are reduced to practicable dimensions. Regimental affairs are settled by the colonels; brigade affairs by the major-generals. The divisions commanded by lieutenant-generals are completely organized bodies capable, in case of need, of independent action and requiring little supervision from the corps commander. The general commanding the army corps has to deal directly with only a few subordinates, the commanders of his infantry divisions, of his cavalry brigade or division, and of his artillery brigade, and with the heads of the corps organizations for such purposes as supply and medical service. He inspects and tests the condition of all the various units, but he does not attempt to do the work of his subordinates. He is thus at liberty to keep his mind concentrated upon those essential matters which properly require his decision, for example, in war, whether he will advance or retire, whether he will move to the right or to the left, whether to fight or to postpone an engagement; how to distribute his force;—what portion he will at once engage and where he will place his reserve. When he receives an order from the army headquarters he is able to deliberate upon the best way of realizing the intention conveyed, for he is as far as possible unhampered by the worry of detail. He can make up his mind coolly, a very necessary process, seeing that he will stake life and reputation to carry out what he has once decided.
[[1]] The civil and military boundaries are not quite identical.
[[2]] The garrisons of fortresses are exceptions.
[[3]] In recent years the cavalry division has been made independent of the army corps.
[[4]] Blume, Strategic, p. 136.
CHAPTER III
THE SYSTEM OF TRAINING
"The demands which war makes upon the troops must determine their training in peace.... The tasks of the soldier in war are simple. He must always be able to march and to use his weapon. He can do both only so far as his moral and intellectual qualities suffice and his bodily and military training has been effective. Moreover, his performance will be fully useful only when it is guided by the will of the leader and regulated by discipline."[[1]]
The ideal here formulated is realized by devoting much time and attention to training and teaching each individual recruit. Next comes the exercise of the company, also as thorough as possible. These two stages of schooling occupy the greater part of the military year. Then when the companies are perfect they take their places in the battalion, and the battalions in due time in the regiment and in the brigade. The crown of the whole training is formed by the manoeuvres, in which divisions and occasionally army corps are assembled for practice, resembling as nearly as may be the operations of actual war.
Several objects are served by these manoeuvres. In the first place, the separate exercise of brigades preceding the manoeuvres proper completes the formal training of the troops, and gives practice in the evolutions of large homogeneous masses of each of the three arms. The manoeuvres of divisions and army corps serve to accustom the three arms to act in concert, and to overcome the great friction which at first always impedes the movements of such large composite bodies. All the various manoeuvres, moreover, give the superior officers the opportunity of inspecting the work of their inferiors, that is, of ascertaining how far the training of the troops has been thorough, and with what degree of skill they are handled.
Not the least important purpose of the manoeuvres is the training of commanders. The troops are divided into two parties supposed to be enemies at some stage of an imaginary war. The commander of each side learns from the umpire the nature of the supposed operations which have brought his forces into their actual situation, together with such information concerning the enemy as in real war he might be presumed to have obtained. He has then to act according to his own judgment. In this way the generals are practised and tested in the power of rapidly and surely grasping situations such as occur in war and of acting upon the insight thus gained. The arrangements are so made as to afford practice like this to as many officers as possible of all ranks, though it is chiefly the generals, the commanders of brigades, divisions, and army corps who profit by them.
Thus the Prussian system of training produces as the net result on the one hand an army corps as an instrument pliable to its commander's touch, so that it can be surely and easily handled in any situation, and on the other hand a general skilled in the manipulation of this powerful and complicated instrument.
[[1]] Felddienstordnung, §§ 1, 2.
CHAPTER IV
THE ARMY CORPS
The Prussian army in 1866 consisted of nine army corps. The German army to-day has twenty, and in case of war the number would be increased. Large forces like these are rendered manageable by grouping them into armies of four or five corps, and dealing with the armies as units. It is evident that the working of the armies and therefore of the whole depends upon the ease and certainty with which the several corps are directed. Some of the means taken to secure this end have been already touched upon. In the first place each of the component parts of the corps must be perfectly trained and disciplined. Secondly, the corps must have had so much practice in working together as a whole that it has none of the weaknesses of a "scratch team." Thirdly, the general must be a real commander, able to read a battle-field, to judge a situation coolly, and to decide promptly. These qualities are secured partly by the selection[[1]] exercised in the appointment of generals, partly by the frequent opportunities for practice and testing afforded by the manoeuvres.
But it is not enough to secure a general of tactical and strategical ability and experience. He must be protected against the danger of being absorbed by the worries of administration.
Before a body of 30,000 men can be assembled on the ground selected for manoeuvres or on the field of battle, a vast amount of business must be transacted, requiring for its performance abilities of quite another sort than those needed to handle and lead the troops in action. The men must all be clothed and equipped. They must be properly and regularly fed. The task of supplying an army corps with provisions is like that of feeding a small town which, instead of remaining in its place, moves every day to a new site ten or fifteen miles distant from the old one. Among 30,000 men there will always be a number of sick who require attention. If the corps should meet the enemy there may be thousands of wounded to be tended, removed, protected, and fed. Order must be maintained, so that a special set of functionaries is needed to apply and enforce the laws by which the army is regulated. The numbers of the corps can be maintained only by a constant stream of fresh men, trained soldiers not before employed in the war, arriving from its peace quarters.
Every one of these matters needs constant attention, or the whole machine would get out of gear and cease to work.
The friction that inevitably arises from these complicated necessities is diminished and to some extent overcome by the organization of responsibility among the several bodies composing the army corps. But the anxieties of the commanding general can never be removed. In order to realize the magnitude and variety of his cares, the attempt may be made to draw a rough picture of the army corps at work during a campaign.
The corps is moving westward along one of the great Continental high-roads. A vast forest spreading on each side for many miles confines the troops to the actual roadway.
The cavalry division is looking out for the enemy in the open country twenty miles in advance to the west of the forest. Parties of hussars in every road, lane, and bypath are watching the country as they move on across a front of eight or nine miles, followed two or three miles behind on the main road by the rest of the division, a column two miles long of dragoons, uhlans, and horse artillery. At the head of this column is the lieutenant-general commanding the cavalry division, with his staff. It is ten o'clock in the morning, and under the hot July sun a cloud of dust envelops all but the leading squadron as horse and guns move on at a steady trot. Now and then a fitful breeze carries the dust towards the south and reveals for a moment the long cavalcade.
The pace has just slackened to a walk as two horsemen gallop towards the road from the north-west. They are a young officer of hussars and a private whose bandaged arm shows that he has been wounded. Both are covered with dust, and their horses show signs of extreme fatigue. As they approach the road the general and his suite move on to a pasture field to the right to meet them, the column continuing along the road. The lieutenant respectfully salutes and tells his story briefly. A few questions are asked and answered. The column is halted, and during the short rest which ensues the general dictates a note which is written by one of his officers. The note is handed to an uhlan, who gallops off at once along the road towards the rear. A few minutes later the signal to mount is given, and the whole mass of horsemen and guns in a succession of parallel columns leaves the road and trots over the fields to the north-west, soon disappearing in a fold of the ground.
The uhlan sent back with the letter approaches after a five-mile gallop a group of comrades lying by the roadside, with their horses tethered near in the grass. One of the horses is saddled and bridled, and as the messenger comes up its rider springs into the saddle. A few sentences are exchanged as the new-comer, dismounting, hands the note to the fresh rider, who in turn gallops off along the road towards the rear. Three times the note thus changes hands. The fourth rider, whose station was five miles from the western edge of the forest region, is continually meeting troops on the march. He passes first a few squadrons of cuirassiers, then a mile or two further infantry, guns, more infantry, and then a string of waggons a mile long, laden with cartridges, shell, bridging material, and appliances for the comfort of wounded men. All this is merely the advanced guard of the army corps.
As the rider draws nearer to the wood he finds a mile of clear road, and then meets the general commanding the corps to whom his note is addressed.
The hussar lieutenant had started before dawn, and after riding many miles to the front, evading the enemy's scouting parties, had watched a hostile cavalry division break up from its bivouac. He had been able to identify the division and to ascertain that it was unusually strong both in cavalry and horse artillery. On his return he had been seen by an enemy's patrol, and had escaped capture only by running the gauntlet.
The information thus obtained is of great importance, not only to the cavalry division, whose commander has promptly acted upon it, but to the army corps and to the army of which it is a part. The general commanding the army corps therefore sends an officer with the report and a further note from himself to the army headquarters in rear, on the east of the forest. This officer having to follow the high-road, meets and rides past the main body of the army corps on the march.
The leading brigade of infantry, with a number of guns and ammunition waggons, covers the road for a mile and three-quarters; then for another mile and a half is the corps' artillery, then the whole second division of infantry (with its cavalry regiment and its artillery) trailing its length for four and a half miles. Then after having the road to himself for a quarter of an hour, as he emerges from the forest on its eastern side, the rider passes the heavy baggage, a line of military carts and waggons conveying those requisites which the troops need every night for comfort, and which cannot be carried in the knapsacks. These waggons stretch for a mile and a half along the road. Soon after passing them the rider takes a cross-road leading to the north, just as he is meeting the foremost portion of the army corps trains, which in their turn would cover the road for eleven or twelve miles with their long succession of vehicles: ammunition waggons for guns and small arms; provision stores for four days for 30,000 men; hay and oats for the horses of cavalry, artillery, and waggons; the corps pontoon train; the hospital carts, and a multitude of country carts pressed into the service to enable extra stores of provisions to be taken on, and to relieve the military waggons.
Thus from the general to the rear of the baggage proper would be nearly twelve miles, from the rear of the baggage to the rear of the trains, if all were on the march at the same time, another twelve miles, while the general himself was found nearly five miles behind the front of the advanced guard of the corps.
When the officer, late in the afternoon, rides back from the army headquarters with a letter for the corps commander, he finds a different scene. At a village in the middle of the forest the leading waggons of the train are beginning to form up north and south of the road. There is here an extensive open space, which before night will be packed with waggons. Farther on the road is clear. The heavy baggage has dispersed among the cross-roads, each set of waggons seeking the quarters of its regiment. At the western edge of the forest the troops of the army corps have taken possession of all the villages on the road and in the neighbourhood, so that within a radius of six miles from where the road enters the open country every farm or cluster of buildings is tenanted by its company or battery. The villages farthest to the west contain the advanced guard, and beyond them still the outposts have placed picquets and sentries in all the roads and lanes leading to the west.
The general's quarters are in a straggling village on the main road, at the White Cross Inn. In front of the house an officer is explaining to an old farmer that the provisions produced by the villagers are satisfactory, that no further requisition will be made, but that for a further supply of oats, cheese, and bacon, if delivered next morning, payment will be made in cash. In a small parlour of the inn two officers are busy examining the contents of half a dozen mail bags collected from post-offices in the district.
Upstairs the general, who has just come in from the outposts, is hearing reports. The corps intendant proposes to form a temporary depot at the village where the trains are parked, and to send back the requisitioned carts next morning to the railway terminus assigned to the corps. Another officer announces that the telegraph from army headquarters will by evening be opened as far as the same village, a third that 150 horses are unserviceable, and that it will be two days before fresh horses from home will reach the depot. A fourth brings a list of the number of men who are disabled by sore feet, diarrhoea, and sunstroke. At this moment comes the letter from army headquarters, which instructs the general to be ready at short notice to march his whole corps towards the north, along the front of the forest. This involves the movement of the trains along a cross-road through the forest, and arrangements must be made to ensure this road, which is a bad one, being cleared of hindrances and made fit to bear the heavy traffic.
The examination of the mail bags has yielded fresh information about the enemy. All the officers but one are dismissed, and the general, with his confidential secretary, is proceeding to study the new situation thus revealed when a fresh messenger gallops up to the house with a note to the effect that the advanced guard of the neighbouring corps ten miles to the south is attacked by a superior force of the enemy, and that its commander begs the general to move his corps to its assistance, so as to be able to join in the action before noon next day.
This picture is a mere shadow of the reality.[[2]] It may help however to illustrate the dual nature of the cares by which a general is distracted. He has at the same time to perform the military functions of command and to superintend the business of management. His duty as a commander involves continuous attention to the enemy's movements and to the instructions of his own chief. He must study the intentions of the army commander to whom he is subordinate and conform to them in his own movements against the enemy. But the mere management of his corps requires an effort which tends to absorb his energies and make him forget both his commander and the enemy.
A good system must as far as possible relieve the general from these cares of management, so that he can keep his mind free to study his instructions and watch his foe. Accordingly side by side with that distribution of authority among the combatant units which facilitates the exercise of the general command is an organization upon similar principles of the administrative services. The supervision of each branch is in the hands of an executive officer in the entourage of the general.
The corps intendant is responsible for the supplies of provisions, stores, and money, and for their transport. The hospitals and ambulance work are controlled by the surgeon-general. The legal business is conducted and prepared for the general's decision by an officer called the corps auditeur.
The strictly military functions of command fall naturally into two classes, according as they are concerned with the direction of the troops as pieces in the game played against the enemy, or with their internal management. The everyday life of a soldier is to a great extent a matter of routine. In every regiment there are at all times guards and sentries and an officer of the day; there are patrols and fatigue parties. These duties are undertaken by all in turn, and they therefore need to be equitably distributed from day to day. A roll of the regiment is therefore made every day accounting for all the officers and men. The working of all this internal mechanism is in every regiment arranged by the adjutant, under the authority and supervision of the commanding officer. The brigade, the division, and the army corps are each of them in like manner provided with an adjutancy, which in the case of an army corps is formed by a bureau of four officers.
[[1]] The thoroughness of this selection has increased in recent years, inasmuch as most of the generals appointed have enjoyed the special training of the staff. An incapable, of any rank is ruthlessly retired.
[[2]] The details of organization on which it is based are those of the German army in the period between 1875 and 1885. The materials for a similar account of the Prussian army corps of 1866 are not accessible. The reader may imagine the confusion which would follow a battle, especially a defeat which might compel the corps to retreat as best it could through the forest, with its trains perhaps entangled in the cross-road leading north.
CHAPTER V
THE GENERAL STAFF IN THE ARMY CORPS
There remain as the general's special province the communication with the army headquarters and the direction of the troops as fighting bodies; the regulation of marches, halts, and combats; the reconnaissance of the country with a view to these operations; the collection and sifting of news about the enemy; and the compilation of reports for the information of the higher commanders and for the records of the army corps.
The bureau or department which assists the general in these matters is the general staff of the army corps. It consists of a colonel or lieutenant-colonel as chief, one field officer, and two captains.[[1]] The functions of the general staff of a division or army corps during war may be summarised under the following heads:[[2]]—
(1) Elaboration in accordance with the situation from time to time of all arrangements concerning the fighting, marching, repose, and safety of the troops.
(2) Communication of these arrangements in the form of orders.