ORGANIZATION

ORGANIZATION
HOW ARMIES ARE FORMED FOR WAR

BY
COLONEL HUBERT FOSTER
ROYAL ENGINEERS

LONDON
HUGH REES, Ltd.
119 PALL MALL, S.W.

1911
(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)

PRINTED AND BOUND BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

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The Author was led to compile this account ofArmy Organization owing to his inability to discoverany book dealing systematically with thatsubject. Military writers do, of course, makefrequent allusions to Organization, but a previousacquaintance with the subject is generally assumed.One looks in vain for an explicit account, eitherof the principles underlying organization, or of thedevelopment of its forms and methods.

It is true that the word Organization figures inthe title of more than one Military treatise, butthe subject is handled unsystematically and empirically,so that the ordinary reader is unableto realize the significance of the facts. In somecases the term Organization is interpreted in sowide a sense as to include not only Tactics, StaffDuties, and Administration, but any matters ofmoment to an army. Thus, in the volume ofessays recently published, an author of weight statesthat “Organization for War means thorough andsound preparation for war in all its branches,” andgoes on to say, “the raising of men, their physicaland moral improvement ... their education andtraining ... are the fruits of a sound organization.”

viIn the present work, Organization is taken in amore literal and limited sense. The book wouldotherwise have tended to become a discussionof every question affecting the efficiency of armies.The intention of the Author is to give in broadoutline a general account of Organization for War,and of the psychological principles underlying theexercise of Command, which it is the main purposeof Organization to facilitate.

At the same time the organization discussedis not restricted to that of the British Army, butis that of modern armies in general, as well as ofindividual armies in particular, that of the BritishArmy being described in greater detail, in Part II.

In Part IV. will be found a sketch of the Historyof Organization, which should interest any one who,like the Author, is not content with knowing thingsas they happen to be at present, unless he cantrace the steps by which they came to be so.

The subject is intentionally not treated withminuteness of detail. To have made the booka cyclopædia of detailed information about organizationwould have obscured its purpose. Itis hoped that the work may prove useful to theincreasing numbers of those who have taken upMilitary work throughout the Empire, and notuninteresting to general readers, and students ofhistory.

Hubert Foster.

Sydney, June 1910.

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