had done so much declined into toleration in his later years. We read of his famous saying: 'Staff College Officers! I know these Staff College Officers! They are very ugly officers and very dirty officers!'-which Major Austen describes as a saying treasured by regimental officers who had suffered at the hands of the objectionable, and who naturally were inclined to tar all the Staff with the same brush.'

There is no need to describe the twenty years of work done at the Staff College immediately after its establishment in the present building. The first requirement was some appreciation, by those in high places, of the duties required of Staff Officers, before there could be any hope of devising an educational system to train them to perform their duties. Competitive examinations in such subjects as geology and mathematics held their sway for many years, almost to the exclusion of the application of theoretical knowledge to the practical needs of warfare. One name, that of the late General Sir E. B. Hamley, author of the standard work in the English language on 'Operations of War,' stands out above all others connected with the Staff College during this period. After serving as Professor of Military History, he became Commandant in 1870,

'he saved the College Staff, revived it when it was in danger of perishing from infantine debility, and, on quitting the post of Commandant, which he had held just five months longer than the seven years fixed for its tenure, richly deserved the tribute paid him by the Director-General of Military Education.' (Page 182.)

Hamley's departure seems to have shaken the faith of officers in the Staff College. In spite of the fine soldiers of the right type who had gone there, regimental officers still looked on the place with suspicion, and 'very few commanding officers encouraged their best to compete for entry. Even by the year 1888 'no real Staff organisation was evolved for war; save, perhaps, for the Intelligence Branch,' in spite of the influence of a plethora of Commissions and Committees which had conducted inquiries and issued sterile reports.

The year 1893 marked the beginning of the reforms initiated by Colonel H. J. T. Hildyard as Commandant

and by Colonel G. F. R. Henderson-best known to the public as the author of 'Stonewall Jackson'-as the most influential member of the Staff. From that time forward progress was continuous. 6 Hildyard and Henderson won their students' affection not only by efficiency but by personal sympathy.' The final examination was abolished, and classification of students was based on the impression that they had made on their instructors, a method followed ever since.' In 1895, 120 competed for 24 vacancies; in 1927, 553 for 31. This continuous progress was due, amongst other causes, to the personality of successive Commandants, to the class of regimental officers selected as candidates, to the recognition of the p.s.c. as a claim for Staff appointments, and to the appreciation of good work done by the Directing Staff by the selection of its members for higher employment.

In the wider field of Army reform, due credit must be accorded to the Esher Committee reforms of 1904:

The institution of the Army Council gave a fillip to military progress. Every department was raked through, while the recommendations of the Norfolk Commission, the Elgin Report, and the Esher Committee, were examined and put into practice whenever considered desirable. Mr Brodrick and his successor, Mr Arnold Forster, jeered at in the Clubs, paved the way for the greater reforms that were to follow. A great military awakening began. Officers throughout the Army realised that soldiering was something more than filling in the time between breakfast and lunch.' (Page 241.)|

It fell to the lot of Brigadier-General Sir H. S. Rawlinson, in December 1903, to become Commandant on a rising tide of zeal and efficiency, and his influence was reinforced by a Directing Staff whose merit is proved by the distinction they were to earn later. Hamley, in his Operations of War,' had treated the subject of war from the Continental Army point of view, rather than from that of an island Empire. Rawlinson's mental grasp was far wider:

"Thanks to and Rawlinson, a far closer liaison was established with the Navy. We have all heard of the only certain means of establishing perfect liaison between the sister services: a tunnel under Whitehall connecting the

War Office with the Admiralty, and a bar in the middle. Rawlinson and did the next best thing. Both were members of the "In and Out." They arranged a small luncheon party. Henry Wilson, Colonel in the Staff Duties Department of the War Office, was invited to meet Admiral Slade, in charge of the War College at Portsmouth. Captain

and Commander Royal Navy, joined the Staff College as students on May 16, 1906. So simple. In addition, a combined Naval and Military Exercise formed part of the course. The "Matlows" have been favourites at the Staff College ever since.' (Page 242.)

Upon Lord Rawlinson's subsequent services we have already touched. His biographer writes of his later tasks as a leader of an Army in France, and as Commander-in-Chief in India-that:

'His work in command of the Fourth Army stamped him for all time as a great leader of men; his success in grappling with and, to a great extent, solving the many-sided problems of organisation and administration in India, revealed in him a capacity for military statesmanship of a very high order. It was fortunate for the Empire that during such critical years she possessed in Lord Rawlinson a man with all these qualifications.' (Page 11 of Pamphlet.)

Rawlinson died in the rank of General, his immediate successors at the Staff College, Sir Henry Wilson and Sir William Robertson, were promoted to the higher rank of Field-Marshal for their advisory services in the post of Chief of the Imperial General Staff, not for responsible leadership of armies in the field. This indicates the growth in the importance attached to staff work, as compared with that attached to personal responsibility in high command. It was given to these two officers to set before the political authorities who controlled our military strategy the advantages or disadvantages of the various courses which those authorities proposed to pursue, or, on some occasions, of the procedure which they had already adopted without consulting their responsible military advisers.

'Certain it is,' writes the author of 'The Staff and the Staff College,'' that the Army receives from Camberley exactly what it sends there, and that a two years' course of instruction, on whatever lines it may be conducted, Vol. 250.-No. 495.

L

cannot change the nature of a man in the thirties.' Still less was it likely that a sojourn for four years at the Staff College in the position of Commandant would change the natures of two such strong individualities as those possessed by Sir Henry Wilson and by Sir William Robertson, men differing completely in temperament and

in outlook.

It might, however, be expected that, after more than a century of teaching and study, the Staff College would have produced certain doctrines for the successful conduct of land warfare-not in the form of rules, but rather as warnings, taught by historical study, against courses of action which were proved by experience to militate against success in military operations. One of Hamley's warnings-against the temptation to commanders of field armies to take shelter in a fortress, as Bazaine took shelter in Metz-saved Sir John French, by his own admission, from the fatal error of sheltering in Maubeuge, instead of continuing his retreat from Mons.

For the political authorities charged with general strategy, as distinguished from the army commanders who handled the forces at their immediate disposal in the field, both Hamley and Henderson issued grave warnings, based upon the experiences of great strategists in the past, against unnecessary dispersal of their forces. They impressed the maxim that concentration of effort is the secret of success in military operations, as it is in other human activities. However well-established this warning may be, military strategists are usually confronted by political and by other influences that render complete concentration of effort impossible, and compel them to detach forces which have only an indirect influence, if any, upon the purpose to which concentration of effort is directed. Later editions of Hamley's 'Operations of War' contain a chapter on Detachments, wherein this subject is handled with skill by Colonel (afterwards Lieut-General, and Chief of Staff on the Western Front) L. E. Kiggell, who was Commandant at Camberley when war broke out in 1914. The subject is not one that lends itself to brief exposition, but, if we

* See 1914.'

can assume that concentration of effort is the best road to success, the deduction can be made that the utility of every detachment of force can best be judged by the extent to which it contributes to success in that effort.

To take a practical example. In August 1914, the political authorities, who bore the responsibility for distributing our troops about the world, recognised that the German Army constituted the chief menace to ourselves and to our Allies. Military effort was, therefore, concentrated against that objective. The entry of Turkey into the war towards the close of the year opened up many opportunities for military adventure and for diversions of force from the original purpose, which had not in any way decreased in importance. The principle was quite simple, but under the stress of war conditions and distractions the simple became difficult. Sir Henry Wilson and Sir William Robertson had followed the example of their predecessor, Lord Rawlinson, in impressing this point upon the Staff Officers whom they trained. It was commonly remarked amongst Staff College students of their day that, although the advantages of concentration of effort had been impressed upon them ad nauseam in books studied for the entrance examination, it was not until they had spent nearly two years in solving practical problems at the Staff College for themselves that they discovered the soundness of the theory, and acquired an instinct for its application. We can now study, from their own writings, the extent to which Sir Henry Wilson and Sir William Robertson had acquired this same quality, which they demanded from their students.

In 1914, both Sir William Robertson and Sir Henry Wilson seem to have shared in the prevalent delusion that the despatch of a British expeditionary force of six divisions would suffice to adjust the balance between the French and German armies on the Western Front, that the war would, therefore, be so short as to justify the abandonment of their posts by the General Staff at the War Office, leaving to others the responsible task of advising the Government on broad questions of military strategy.

Sir William Robertson provides us with valuable