TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

GERMANY: Great General Staff

The Great German General Staff and all similar organizations shall be dissolved and may not be reconstituted in any form. —Treaty of Versailles, Article 160.

When Napoleon Bonaparte planned a move in the midst of a campaign, he conferred with overworked generals who were simultaneously commanding troops in the field. First to realize that the complexity of modern warfare rendered a good commander at the front a poor adviser at headquarters was Napoleon's old adversary, Prussian General Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst. To him goes historic credit for establishing the first general staff and setting up a War Academy to train...

Time.com on Digg

POWERED BY digg

For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.