It seems natural to say that if England wants victory on sea or land,
she must provide herself with a Nelson or a Napoleon. The statement is
quite true, but it requires to be rightly interpreted. If it means that
a nation must always choose a great man to command its navy or its army
it is an impossible maxim, because a great man cannot be recognised
until his power has been revealed in some kind of work. Moreover, to say
that Nelson and Napoleon won victories because they were great men is to
invert the order of nature and of truth. They are recognised as great
men because of the mastery of their business which they manifested in
action. That mastery was due primarily to knowledge. Wordsworth hit the
mark when, in answer to the question "Who is the Happy Warrior?" he
replied that it was he--

"Who with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn."

The quality that made them both so valuable was that they knew the best
that was known and thought in regard to the art of war. This is the
quality which a nation must secure in those whom it entrusts with the
design and the conduct of the operations of its fleets and its armies.

There is a method for securing this, not by any means a new one, and not
originally, as is commonly supposed, a German invention. It consists in
providing the army and the navy with a General Staff or Department for
the study, design, and direction of operations. In such a department
Bourcet, Napoleon's master, spent the best years of his life. In such a
department Moltke was trained; over such a department he presided. Its
characteristic is that it has one function, that of the study, design,
and direction of the movements in fighting of a fleet or an army, and
that it has nothing whatever to do with the maintenance of an army, or