Fostering Joy
The Art of Command (Part II)
Recently, while looking for something else, I ran across a translation, made by the British War Office, of an article that appeared, in 1907, in the pages of a German military magazine. Called ‘The Art of Command’, the piece dealt with two subjects dear to my heart - the tradition of mission command and the applicatory method of studying tactics. I therefore decided to make a fresh translation for the readers of The Tactical Notebook.
The author of ‘The Art of Command’ came into this world in1853. Seventeen years later, Clemens Spohn found himself fighting on the battlefields of France. In the years that followed, he followed the customary path of a Prussian infantry officer of the late nineteenth century, dividing his time between the training of recruits and the exploration of the (already enormous) German-language literature on military matters.
Soon after the start of the twentieth century, Spohn began to add to that literature, reviewing books for military magazines, revising guides to military examinations, updating handbooks for the conduct of honor courts, and writing articles on the place of military institutions in German society.
Day‑to‑day duty provides no time to practice the act of giving orders. Service absorbs attention and must be managed with due regard to its own nature. No one should therefore neglect to set himself tactical problems at home, on the map, and then write out the orders or directives as if for real operations. It is striking to watch how many corrections one makes at once, and how many more suggest themselves later, once problem and order have lain aside for a time.
A second and even better means of training in the art of command lies in war games, tactical exercises on foot and horseback, and similar work, but only if the directors insist with full rigor that leaders of all ranks deliver their orders in proper form and with the tone of command. They must say, not ‘I would now employ Battalion X on the left flank’, but rather: ‘Major von O., deploy your battalion to the left of Battalion N; the regiment attacks’.
Where time allows, every order should be issued in writing.
What, then, should a proper order contain if it is to be clear, intelligible to subordinates, and free of innate misunderstanding? Our regulations offer enough guidance; the rest depends on us as users.
The Field Service Regulations, in paragraphs 46 to 51, lay down that an order must include everything the subordinate needs to know in order to act independently to achieve the aim, but nothing more. The order must therefore be short, clear, and definite, and it must fit the mental horizon of the recipient.
Orders whose transmission may face changing conditions, or whose execution may unfold in circumstances that one cannot foresee, must avoid detail. In such cases the directive takes the place of a full order. The directive states the aim and leaves the choice of means open. Orders that reach far ahead in time and descend into particulars almost never see full execution.
In the Infantry Training Regulations, paragraph 274 reads: ‘Since one cannot devise a fixed pattern for battle, the drafting of battle orders must likewise remain free of any pattern. As a rule, the first need is to bring the troops quickly onto the desired course by means of a brief verbal order; further directions follow thereafter.’ Paragraph 275 continues: ‘Higher commanders should not give more orders than they must. They must refrain from intervening in detail, leaving the choice of means to subordinate leaders.’
These are wise provisions. Do all commanders heed them, and in all circumstances? Does not lack of confidence in the abilities of subordinates, or the wish to see an order executed exactly as one imagines it, drive many a leader to overstep these clear limits? Each of us should ask his own conscience.
One thing stands firm: we raise independent, active, and responsibility‑loving subalterns only when we avoid constricting them and instead grant them free movement within the frame we set. Guided well, that freedom will never grow into the arbitrariness that Paragraph 276 of the Infantry Training Regulations rightly condemns.
To strip a subordinate of rightful independence is to rob him of the joy of service and action. It drains his interest and shrivels the seed of all vitality in his work.
All these considerations show that commanding truly counts as an art. In substance, it requires us to find the necessary limit and not overstep it, yet to approach it as closely as the situation demands. In form, it requires that we cast our words so that our intention stands out sharply and leaves no doubt, so that misunderstanding cannot arise.
Only a commander who has accustomed himself from youth onward to give sound, purposeful orders, and who has never ceased to practice, will meet these demands.
To be continued …
Related Reading
Sources
Clemens Spohn ‘Die Kunst des Befehlens’ (‘The Art of Command’) Jahrbücher für die Deutsche Armee und Marine (Annuals for the German Army and Navy) (October 1907) pages 337-340 (Hathi Trust)
‘The Art of Command’ (unpublished typescript prepared by the British War Office, 1907) (Military Learning Library)
Prussia (War Ministry) Felddienst Ordnung (Field Service Regulations) (Berlin: E.S. Mittler, 1900)
Bavaria (War Ministry) Exerzier Reglement für die Infanterie (Infantry Training Regulations) (Munich, 1906) (Internet Archive)
Please note that the book published in Munich promulgates the same content as the Prussian manual of the same name.
Excellent.