The great general staff has a special division devoted to the manipulation of railways in war, and the attempt is made to give every officer of the general staff the benefit of a period of service in this particular branch. The production of maps for the army is so closely connected with the study of the various probable theatres of war that the two duties cannot safely be entrusted to different institutions. In Germany the principal government geographical establishment is a branch of the great general staff, the officers employed in it being on the auxiliary list. This service is arranged in three departments, the trigonometric, the topographic, and the cartographic, all of which are under the supervision of the chief of the National Survey, who is himself a subordinate of the chief of the general staff of the army. [1] See Part I. Chap. IV. [2] The details of this organization have been modified in recent years. [3] _Registrande der Geographisch-Statistischen Abtheilung des Grossen Generalstabes_. Berlin, 1869-83. [4] See a lecture delivered at the Royal United Service Institution in 1875 by the late Major-General, then Major C. B. Brackenbury, R.A., entitled "The Intelligence Duties of the Staff at Home and Abroad," in reading which, however, the date of its production should be remembered. [5] Jomini, _Troisième Appendice au Précis de l'Art de la Guerre_. Paris, 1866. CHAPTER II A MILITARY UNIVERSITY The distinctive feature of the regeneration by which modern Prussia was raised up, after the Prussia of Frederick the Great had been shattered in the first conflict with Napoleon, was the effort to lay a solid foundation in healthy institutions and especially in a sound education. The work which was done for Prussian institutions by Stein and for liberal education by Humboldt, was done for the army by Scharnhorst, to whom military education was the corner-stone of army reform. The University of Berlin began its work on October 15th, 1810, and on the same day[1] was opened the War School for officers, the great military high school of Germany, now known as the War Academy. It was the creation of Scharnhorst, whose greatness is nowhere more conspicuous than in his educational work.