Thus the general staff is not merely the intellectual spring which gives the impulse to the whole army, but it forms also a medium of circulation by which all the parts are kept in uninterrupted communication with the centre. At the great general staff the art of command is studied with special reference to the employment of the German army as a weapon against France, Russia, or any other probable adversary, and in conjunction with the Austrian, Italian, or any other allied army. The wide views thus acquired are applied to the handling of the several units of which the army is composed, while the central office in all its general studies has the benefit of the practical experience obtained in the management of the company, the squadron, and the battery, as well as of every unit up to the division and the army corps. The influence of the general staff is not limited to the work of the 200 officers who comprise it at any given time. Many of the commanders of regiments and battalions have been members of the general staff, and are taking their turn of practice with the troops. Nearly all the higher commanders have passed through the various stages of duty in the general staff. The great general staff is perpetually training fresh generations. Some sixty junior officers are temporarily attached to it without being incorporated, that is, without ceasing to belong to their regiments. They are the pick of the 100 lieutenants who every year leave the Kriegsakademie, or Staff College, at Berlin. They work for a year at the central general staff office, under the personal supervision of the chief of the general staff of the army, who thus acquires an intimate knowledge of their ability and character. At the end of their year they rejoin their regiments. After a term of regimental work the best of them will be chosen as captains to the general staff to fill up vacancies caused by promotions. In this way the general staff keeps up its numbers by the continual selection of the fittest. [1] In the case of regimental officers these proposals are made by the commander of the regiment; cf. Cabinet order of March 22, 1864. [2] Four of the German army corps--those of Saxony, Würtemberg, and Bavaria (two corps)--do not belong to the Prussian army. PART III _THE GREAT GENERAL STAFF_ CHAPTER I AN INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT The chief of the general staff of the army, assisted by the great general staff, which is his special organ, and which has its permanent abode in Berlin, is occupied during peace with preparations for the conduct of the army in war. The work undertaken with this object divides itself naturally into three branches, according as it consists in actual arrangements for particular wars regarded as probable, in the training of officers to the art of command, or in the scientific study of war as a means of forming and exercising the faculty of generalship.