page_title: German General Staff
section_title: From unification to World War I
hierarchical_section_title: German General Staff / History / From unification to World War I
context_page_description: The German General Staff, originally the Prussian General Staff and officially Great General Staff, was a full-time body at the head of the Prussian Army and later, the German Army, responsible for the continuous study of all aspects of war, and for drawing up and reviewing plans for mobilization or campaign. It existed unofficially from 1806, and was formally established by law in 1814, the first general staff in existence. It was distinguished by the formal selection of its officers by intelligence and proven merit rather than patronage or wealth, and by the exhaustive and rigorously structured training which its staff officers undertook. Its rise and development gave the German armed forces a decisive strategic advantage over their adversaries for nearly a century and a half.
  The Prussian General Staff also enjoyed greater freedom from political control than its contemporaries, and this autonomy was enshrined in law on the unification of Germany and the establishment of the German Empire in 1871. It came to be regarded as the home of German militarism in the aftermath of World War I, and the victors attempted to suppress the institution.
context_section_description: With unification the Prussian General Staff became the Imperial German General Staff, with seconded general staff officers from Saxony, Württemberg and Bavaria, and was responsible for military planning for the German Empire. They began preparing for what seemed to be another inevitable war with France, which was intent on revenge and recovery of the provinces annexed by Germany. Bismarck's diplomatic skill had prevented any hostile European coalition forming against Germany, but the young Kaiser William II replaced him in 1890 and turned away from their friendly accommodation with Russia in favor of an alliance with Austria-Hungary. Before long France and Russia allied.
  Therefore, encircled Germany faced the possibility of war on both Eastern and Western fronts. To meet this threat, Chief of Staff Alfred von Schlieffen and his successor, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, drew up and continually refined the Schlieffen Plan to meet this eventuality. The Plan committed Germany to an early offensive against France while Russia was still mobilising and also required the invasion of neutral Belgium. In Bismarck's German constitution the kaiser commanded the army and also appointed the chancellor and his cabinet, who had no control of the military. The elected representatives in the Reichstag were needed to pass budgets, but aside from this had no power over the conduct of the government. This was one of the seeds of the mass destruction of the First World War, as military planning was not subject to political control. Thus, the Schlieffen Plan was adopted without political input, even though it required the violation of the neutrality of Belgium, which the Germans had guaranteed by treaty. Nor was the German Navy's high command informed. It failed to take adequate account of logistics and the inability of horse-drawn transport to supply troops far from rail-heads. The plan has been accused of being too rigid. The philosopher Manuel de Landa argues that the Prussian army now favored the Jominian theory, which gave preeminence to the Army and to its autonomy, compared to the civilian control advocated by Clausewitz.
  To an extent, the General Staff became obsessed with perfecting the methods which had gained victory in the late nineteenth century. Although he maintained an icy formal demeanor, Moltke the Elder had been a flexible and innovative thinker in many fields. Schlieffen, by comparison, was a single-minded, brilliant military specialist.
  Nor had the General Staff, before the war, considered the use of potential allies such as Turkey, or dissident factions within the French, British and Russian empires, to distract or weaken the Allied war effort. "A swift victory over the main armies in the main theatre of war was the German General Staff's solution for all outside difficulties, and absolved them from thinking of war in its wider aspects." 
  The General Staff mistakenly predicted that China would win the First Sino-Japanese War.
caption: William II with his generals
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