ABSTRACT
The first significant event in 1915 was a reorganization of the command system, so we will start there, and look at it from the top down. In modern war, the greatest commander still needs a staff. The staff takes the commander’s ideas and turns them into the orders that send troops where they are most needed. In peacetime, the command system reflects expectations of the next war, what each part of the army is supposed to do, but also how they are to work together. Thus its organization and priorities also reflect how an army thinks about its components. Wartime changes are nearly inevitable as these pre-war assumptions are proven false. These changes are reactive, fixing things that go wrong. In the First World War, armies faced unprecedented tactical, strategic, and logistical problems. new technologies had to be harnessed to solve current problems rather than create new ones-a process that tended to expand staffs as officers who understood at least some of the new technologies were assigned to help those who did not. Commanders had to grapple with everything from laundries to poison gas, and new staff arrangements were inevitable. Here we will look at 1915, but also at the outline of where things would head later in the war.
