Chapter IV: The Army Corps

The Prussian army in 1866 consisted of nine army corps. The German army to-day has twenty, and in case of war the number would be increased. Large forces like these are rendered manageable by grouping them into armies of four or five corps, and dealing with the armies as units. It is evident that the working of the armies and therefore of the whole depends upon the ease and certainty with which the several corps are directed. Some of the means taken to secure this end have been already touched upon. In the first place each of the component parts of the corps must be perfectly trained and disciplined. Secondly, the corps must have had so much practice in working together as a whole that it has none of the weaknesses of a "scratch team." Thirdly, the general must be a real commander, able to read a battle-field, to judge a situation coolly, and to decide promptly. These qualities are secured partly by the selection[1] exercised in the appointment of generals, partly by the frequent opportunities for practice and testing afforded by the manoeuvres.

But it is not enough to secure a general of tactical and strategical ability and experience. He must be protected against the danger of being absorbed by the worries of administration.

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. Among 30,000 men there will always be a number of sick who require attention. If the corps should meet the enemy there may be thousands of wounded to be tended, removed, protected, and fed. Order must be maintained, so that a special set of functionaries is needed to apply and enforce the laws by which the army is regulated. The numbers of the corps can be maintained only by a constant stream of fresh men, trained soldiers not before employed in the war, arriving from its peace quarters.

Every one of these matters needs constant attention, or the whole machine would get out of gear and cease to work.

The friction that inevitably arises from these complicated necessities is diminished and to some extent overcome by the organization of responsibility among the several bodies composing the army corps. But the anxieties of the commanding general can never be removed. In order to realize the magnitude and variety of his cares, the attempt may be made to draw a rough picture of the army corps at work during a campaign.

The corps is moving westward along one of the great Continental high-roads. A vast forest spreading on each side for many miles confines the troops to the actual roadway.

The cavalry division is looking out for the enemy in the open country twenty miles in advance to the west of the forest. Parties of hussars in every road, lane, and bypath are watching the country as they move on across a front of eight or nine miles, followed two or three miles behind on the main road by the rest of the division, a column two miles long of dragoons, uhlans, and horse artillery. At the head of this column is the lieutenant-general commanding the cavalry division, with his staff. It is ten o'clock in the morning, and under the hot July sun a cloud of dust envelops all but the leading squadron as horse and guns move on at a steady trot. Now and then a fitful breeze carries the dust towards the south and reveals for a moment the long cavalcade.

The pace has just slackened to a walk as two horsemen gallop towards the road from the north-west. They are a young officer of hussars and a private whose bandaged arm shows that he has been wounded. Both are covered with dust, and their horses show signs of extreme fatigue. As they approach the road the general and his suite move on to a pasture field to the right to meet them, the column continuing along the road. The lieutenant respectfully salutes and tells his story briefly. A few questions are asked and answered. The column is halted, and during the short rest which ensues the general dictates a note which is written by one of his officers. The note is handed to an uhlan, who gallops off at once along the road towards the rear. A few minutes later the signal to mount is given, and the whole mass of horsemen and guns in a succession of parallel columns leaves the road and trots over the fields to the north-west, soon disappearing in a fold of the ground.

The uhlan sent back with the letter approaches after a five-mile gallop a group of comrades lying by the roadside, with their horses tethered near in the grass. One of the horses is saddled and bridled, and as the messenger comes up its rider springs into the saddle. A few sentences are exchanged as the new-comer, dismounting, hands the note to the fresh rider, who in turn gallops off along the road towards the rear. Three times the note thus changes hands. The fourth rider, whose station was five miles from the western edge of the forest region, is continually meeting troops on the march. He passes first a few squadrons of cuirassiers, then a mile or two further infantry, guns, more infantry, and then a string of waggons a mile long, laden with cartridges, shell, bridging material, and appliances for the comfort of wounded men. All this is merely the advanced guard of the army corps.

As the rider draws nearer to the wood he finds a mile of clear road, and then meets the general commanding the corps to whom his note is addressed.

The hussar lieutenant had started before dawn, and after riding many miles to the front, evading the enemy's scouting parties, had watched a hostile cavalry division break up from its bivouac. He had been able to identify the division and to ascertain that it was unusually strong both in cavalry and horse artillery. On his return he had been seen by an enemy's patrol, and had escaped capture only by running the gauntlet.

The information thus obtained is of great importance, not only to the cavalry division, whose commander has promptly acted upon it, but to the army corps and to the army of which it is a part. The general commanding the army corps therefore sends an officer with the report and a further note from himself to the army headquarters in rear, on the east of the forest. This officer having to follow the high-road, meets and rides past the main body of the army corps on the march.

The leading brigade of infantry, with a number of guns and ammunition waggons, covers the road for a mile and three-quarters; then for another mile and a half is the corps' artillery, then the whole second division of infantry (with its cavalry regiment and its artillery) trailing its length for four and a half miles. Then after having the road to himself for a quarter of an hour, as he emerges from the forest on its eastern side, the rider passes the heavy baggage, a line of military carts and waggons conveying those requisites which the troops need every night for comfort, and which cannot be carried in the knapsacks. These waggons stretch for a mile and a half along the road. Soon after passing them the rider takes a cross-road leading to the north, just as he is meeting the foremost portion of the army corps trains, which in their turn would cover the road for eleven or twelve miles with their long succession of vehicles: ammunition waggons for guns and small arms; provision stores for four days for 30,000 men; hay and oats for the horses of cavalry, artillery, and waggons; the corps pontoon train; the hospital carts, and a multitude of country carts pressed into the service to enable extra stores of provisions to be taken on, and to relieve the military waggons.

Thus from the general to the rear of the baggage proper would be nearly twelve miles, from the rear of the baggage to the rear of the trains, if all were on the march at the same time, another twelve miles, while the general himself was found nearly five miles behind the front of the advanced guard of the corps.

When the officer, late in the afternoon, rides back from the army headquarters with a letter for the corps commander, he finds a different scene. At a village in the middle of the forest the leading waggons of the train are beginning to form up north and south of the road. There is here an extensive open space, which before night will be packed with waggons. Farther on the road is clear. The heavy baggage has dispersed among the cross-roads, each set of waggons seeking the quarters of its regiment. At the western edge of the forest the troops of the army corps have taken possession of all the villages on the road and in the neighbourhood, so that within a radius of six miles from where the road enters the open country every farm or cluster of buildings is tenanted by its company or battery. The villages farthest to the west contain the advanced guard, and beyond them still the outposts have placed picquets and sentries in all the roads and lanes leading to the west.

The general's quarters are in a straggling village on the main road, at the White Cross Inn. In front of the house an officer is explaining to an old farmer that the provisions produced by the villagers are satisfactory, that no further requisition will be made, but that for a further supply of oats, cheese, and bacon, if delivered next morning, payment will be made in cash. In a small parlour of the inn two officers are busy examining the contents of half a dozen mail bags collected from post-offices in the district.

Upstairs the general, who has just come in from the outposts, is hearing reports. The corps intendant proposes to form a temporary depot at the village where the trains are parked, and to send back the requisitioned carts next morning to the railway terminus assigned to the corps. Another officer announces that the telegraph from army headquarters will by evening be opened as far as the same village, a third that 150 horses are unserviceable, and that it will be two days before fresh horses from home will reach the depot. A fourth brings a list of the number of men who are disabled by sore feet, diarrhoea, and sunstroke. At this moment comes the letter from army headquarters, which instructs the general to be ready at short notice to march his whole corps towards the north, along the front of the forest. This involves the movement of the trains along a cross-road through the forest, and arrangements must be made to ensure this road, which is a bad one, being cleared of hindrances and made fit to bear the heavy traffic.

The examination of the mail bags has yielded fresh information about the enemy. All the officers but one are dismissed, and the general, with his confidential secretary, is proceeding to study the new situation thus revealed when a fresh messenger gallops up to the house with a note to the effect that the advanced guard of the neighbouring corps ten miles to the south is attacked by a superior force of the enemy, and that its commander begs the general to move his corps to its assistance, so as to be able to join in the action before noon next day.

This picture is a mere shadow of the reality.[2] It may help however to illustrate the dual nature of the cares by which a general is distracted. He has at the same time to perform the military functions of command and to superintend the business of management. His duty as a commander involves continuous attention to the enemy's movements and to the instructions of his own chief. He must study the intentions of the army commander to whom he is subordinate and conform to them in his own movements against the enemy. But the mere management of his corps requires an effort which tends to absorb his energies and make him forget both his commander and the enemy.

A good system must as far as possible relieve the general from these cares of management, so that he can keep his mind free to study his instructions and watch his foe. Accordingly side by side with that distribution of authority among the combatant units which facilitates the exercise of the general command is an organization upon similar principles of the administrative services. The supervision of each branch is in the hands of an executive officer in the _entourage_ of the general.

The corps intendant is responsible for the supplies of provisions, stores, and money, and for their transport. The hospitals and ambulance work are controlled by the surgeon-general. The legal business is conducted and prepared for the general's decision by an officer called the corps auditeur.

The strictly military functions of command fall naturally into two classes, according as they are concerned with the direction of the troops as pieces in the game played against the enemy, or with their internal management. The everyday life of a soldier is to a great extent a matter of routine. In every regiment there are at all times guards and sentries and an officer of the day; there are patrols and fatigue parties. These duties are undertaken by all in turn, and they therefore need to be equitably distributed from day to day. A roll of the regiment is therefore made every day accounting for all the officers and men. The working of all this internal mechanism is in every regiment arranged by the adjutant, under the authority and supervision of the commanding officer. The brigade, the division, and the army corps are each of them in like manner provided with an adjutancy, which in the case of an army corps is formed by a bureau of four officers.

[1] The thoroughness of this selection has increased in recent years, inasmuch as most of the generals appointed have enjoyed the special training of the staff. An incapable, of any rank is ruthlessly retired.

[2] The details of organization on which it is based are those of the German army in the period between 1875 and 1885. The materials for a similar account of the Prussian army corps of 1866 are not accessible. The reader may imagine the confusion which would follow a battle, especially a defeat which might compel the corps to retreat as best it could through the forest, with its trains perhaps entangled in the cross-road leading north.