



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
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,
    11_th 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