"Setting the Record Straight: Scharnhorst and the..." Topic

… Origins of the Nineteenth-Century Prussian General Staff.

"Scharnhorst established the modern general staff. He was among the first anywhere to comprehend the transformation of war wrought by the citizen armies of the French Revolution. As early as 1793, then a captain in the Hanoverian army, Scharnhorst recommended combining organization and intellect into a collective or corporate genius called the General Staff with Troops. After Prussia's defeat in 1806, he was able to lay the foundations of the modern general staff. Using primary and secondary source material, this article analyses the tremendous contribution of Gerhard von Scharnhorst to modern military history."
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Amicalement
Armand

The first of the great chiefs of staff in history was Alexandre Berthier. Berthier organized and established the first modern general staff and that fact is generally overlooked in the Napoleonic period.

The Prussian general staff was in an embryonic form in 1815 and copied some of the staff organization and functioning from Berthier and the Imperial general staff, such as organizing the staff in staff sections and the practice, established by Berthier in 1795, of chiefs of staff communicating with each other in different armies without consulting the army commanders.

Berthier's staff instructions for the Armee des Alpes was codified by General Paul Thiebault in 1800 in his famous staff manual which was translated into both English and German. A second expanded edition was published in 1813 and was used by the French army for over twenty years.

Thanks Kevin!…

Amicalement
Armand