Spenser Wilkinson

“ The man whose insight remains clear, whose judgment retains its even balance, when the greater part of mankind are stunned with the awe of great events, who remains true to himself while others are carried away by what seems an irresistible current, is not cast in the common mould. Ordinary men shrink into insignificance beside him. He is separated from the average officer by a gulf which no system of training can bridge. The inner calm which neither great occurrences, nor danger, nor responsibility can disturb cannot be imparted, and no method can be prescribed for its acquisition. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The advocates of original research as the true instrument of higher education may not at first sight recognise their ideal in Moltke's Order of Teaching. They may smile at an academy where natural science and history are taught in lectures appealing only to the intelligence and the memory. But the school at Berlin has a practical aim. It is a school of war, and in all that relates to war the German staff officer learns to apply that science which consists in the true method of apprehending. ”

“ It thus appears that the institution of a general staff as one of the organs of the management of an army is based upon a true analysis applying equally to all civilized armies, and to all ordered warfare. ”

“ Every army is constantly in danger of decay from mental stagnation. Free criticism is liable to undermine discipline, and the habit of unconditional obedience too often destroys the independence of judgment without which moral and intellectual progress is impossible. The Prussian general staff has escaped from this dilemma by itself taking the lead in scientific progress, and organizing itself, in regard to all that concerns the business of national defence, as an institution for the advancement of learning. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The benefits of teaching in the higher stages are therefore never one-sided. The pupil returns in a different form the help which he receives. For while the elucidation of principles acquires a peculiar freshness and force in the hands of an active pioneer of knowledge, the necessities of exposition compel the investigator to keep his researches in contact with the system or body of doctrine which he expounds. This fundamental relation between teaching and research is realized in the connection between the War Academy and the great general staff. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has already been shown how the great general staff is the organ by which during peace its chief collects and sifts the information upon which he bases his plan for the opening of a campaign, and how, when the operations have begun, the general staff, through its several ramifications, keeps him supplied with the data concerning his own army and that of the enemy which he requires from time to time in order to shape his further decisions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every system has its failures, and there is no possibility of entirely excluding the influences of favour or prejudice. But it may be asserted with confidence that the high average of practical ability secured in the superior officers of the Prussian army is due in the main to the practice of selection, the careful inspection by the superiors, at every stage, and to the mature wisdom by which the higher education of the general staff is directed. The intellectual advancement of the officers of every army is confronted by a peculiar difficulty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A University, strictly speaking, is a school of free thought, and should give to those who have lived its life and breathed its spirit a view of the world, of nature and of humanity, of which the characteristic is freedom, spontaneity, independence. ”

“ 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. ”