ABSTRACT
The supremacy of brains and the planning out of all operations of war in time of peace are essential to military success all the world over. They were perhaps more important for the British Army than for any other. The Staff College reforms of the 1890s had in fact put that institution far ahead of the professional expertise of the Army in general. The Committee's caustic criticisms and enlightened recommendations could, however, make little impression on the fundamental factor which determined the social composition of the officer class. Criticism of staff work in the South African War must be seen in a proper perspective. On the one hand the British Army revealed its unpreparedness for war in almost every conceivable respect from the troopers' fieldcraft to the generals' strategy, staff work could have been a great deal worse. On the other hand there was an understandable tendency to blame the staff for what were really the mistakes of the commanders.
