ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The crucial importance of the Staff College before the First World War lay in the fact that it was the only institution devoted to the instruction of the future leaders of the Army after they had been commissioned. In the Crimea era it was still fashionable to deride the necessity for special training for the Staff, but the contribution of the Great General Staff under von Moltke to Prussia's dazzling victories in the 1860s ushered in a new era. In the nineteenth century, Britain possessed no General Staff in the German sense: if there was a 'Brain of the Army' capable of producing a 'school of Thought' it was to be found at Camberley in the Staff College. Considering the enormous importance of efficient staff work in modern warfare, it remains a field that has been badly neglected by military historians.
