



Produced by Al Haines









  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