



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 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