ABSTRACT
The work of British staff officers during the First World War has courted much controversy. Some commentators have held them responsible for the mismanagement of the war effort and the profligate loss of British lives in futile offensives.1 The staff have often been characterised as arrogant, remote and out of touch with the realities of the front line. Such views have developed as part of a ‘cultural’ rather than a military assessment of the staff. Their function and role in the war effort has been the target of much opprobrium but little systematic study. This has painted an incomplete picture of the command function. As Brian Bond observed, ‘Our understanding of the quality of generalship and the performance of units and formations will be seriously flawed without systematic studies of the staff and staff work from brigade major to the chief of staff at GHQ.’2
