The Prussian general staff forms a corps by itself. The officers belonging to it wear a special uniform, and their names do not appear in any regimental lists. The proposals for their promotion are made by the chief of the staff of the army,[1] and advancement in its ranks is quicker than in the army generally. The corps thus constituted is, however, not a close corporation. By the rule that regimental service must alternate with employment on the general staff, the connection between the army and the staff is maintained, and the practical competence of the staff officers is secured. The first appointment to the staff and the subsequent return to it are alike dependent upon selection, or, in other words, upon special merit. A captain on the staff after four or five years' work is transferred to a regiment. A year or two later he may be again selected for the staff as major. After a further term he will receive the command of a battalion, then return to work on the staff, and afterwards be promoted to the command of a regiment. From this post he may again be chosen to the staff, returning eventually as a major-general to the command of a brigade. Those officers who are selected for the purely scientific work of the general staff, such, for instance, as the geographical and topographical surveys, are considered to have embraced a special career and to have given up the prospect of command in the field. They are placed on an auxiliary establishment or side list of the general staff. As a rule they are students rather than fighting men, or officers of distinguished scientific attainments who have not the bodily activity required for service in the field. They remain on the auxiliary establishment, and do not revert to the wider field of active service among the combatants. The Prussian general staff numbers altogether about 200 officers, 90 of whom are distributed among the divisions and army corps,[2] whilst about 100, half of whom belong to the auxiliary establishment, form the great general staff at Berlin. Service in the staff office of a division or army corps alternates with employment on the great general staff, so that the officer whose diligence and ability have opened for him the staff career, and whose performance secures his periodical return to it, passes through the various stages of regimental service, of service on the general staff of the great constituent units of the army, and of employment in the great central agency of direction.