It consists in
providing the army and the navy with a General Staff or Department for
the study, design, and direction of operations. In such a department
Bourcet, Napoleon's master, spent the best years of his life. In such a
department Moltke was trained; over such a department he presided. Its
characteristic is that it has one function, that of the study, design,
and direction of the movements in fighting of a fleet or an army, and
that it has nothing whatever to do with the maintenance of an army, or
with its recruiting, discipline, or peace administration. Its functions
in peace are intellectual and educational, and in war it becomes the
channel of executive power. Bourcet described the head of such a
department as "the soul of an army." The British navy is without such a
department. The army has borrowed the name, but has not maintained the
speciality of function which is essential. In armies other than the
British, the Chief of the General Staff is occupied solely with tactics
and strategy, with the work of intellectual research by which Nelson
and Napoleon prepared their great achievements. His business is to be
designing campaigns, to make up his mind at what point or points, in
case of war, he will assemble his fleets or his armies for the first
move, and what the nature of that move shall be.
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