The recent conflict in Asia shows that it is as important to get
wounded men cured and back on the firing line as it is to punish the
other side. A nation that would now enter into armed conflict without
a general staff or some similar body of men would be hurling its
soldiers, however brave, to certain death.
And yet Von Moltke, Germany's greatest captain, originated the modern
general staff; and the United States, with all of our American
progressiveness, had no general staff at all until Secretary Root
prevailed upon Congress to provide one. These general staffs plan,
during the long years of peace, every possible conflict. They map out
with absolute accuracy every imaginable field of operations in the
country of every possible enemy; they equip the general in the field
with information on all subjects, perfect to the smallest detail.
Japan's general staff has been preparing day and night for the present
war for every month of every year of an entire decade. Oyama's
victories were ripening in the brain of this modern Attila for ten
long years. Von Moltke had thought out the conquest of France years
before fate blew the trumpet that set the tremendous enginery of his
plans in motion.
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