PROCESS OF SELECTION FOR GERMAN GENERAL STAFF.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLI, Issue 306, 30 November 1906, Page 1

PROCESS OF SELECTION FOR GERMAN GENERAL STAFF.

In the ahvays-to-be-admired German army the process of staff selection has been some generations in progress. Their staff, says a writer in "Blackwood's Magazine," h divided into "genoral staff" and "adjutant" branches.- The best of the graduates of their staff college, after a brief period with their regiments, are attached to the great general staff at headquarters for a year. If they arc satisfactory they remain on probation for a further year, and if then fit for appointment to the general staff are at once promoted captains. They are then employed on the general staff anywhere in the army, returning from time to time to their own arm of the service, to command the unit their rank suits them for —a company or squadron, a battalion or regiment, as the case may bo. Those graduates who are not attached to the great general staff, or who ,1, nnt .-,.,-v''-~ the first ' nrohition»rv year, rejoin their regiments, it being held that the staff college course is au i.iiiiiensj auvantage to any officer, staff or regimental. The "adjutant" branch officers, or administrative staff, are furnished as a rule from the staff college graduates not posted to the general staff. Its members receive some measure of special promotion, and men from ifc are from time to time selected for appointment to the general staff. This latter is also occasionally recruited by the selection of officers from regiments who have been able to bring themselves to the front without having been to the staff college. Thus the vital principle is maintained, which allows prospect of special advancement to a:*y man if he will be of advantage t-< "'" 0t it«. irrespective of recognised. qualificatioDi