adaptability in all wars. Robertson had begun the proceedings by arguing that the
job of a general staff was to lay down general principles. 32 Although as persuaded
as Haig of the need for the general staff to be the central intellectual organ of the
army, and equally determined that ‘any scheme for the creation of a National
Army should be based on European and not Asiatic conditions’, 33 he was less
dirigiste. He wrote, when commandant of the Staff College in 1912, in a paper
summarizing his reactions to a battlefield tour, that the aim of the regulations was
‘to train the judgment of all officers so that when left to themselves they may do
the right thing; to make the best use of the ground; to avoid normal formations
and hard and fast rules; and to train the individual’. 34 Haig took great pride in the
Field Service Regulations, for whose publication he had to fight, 35 but their
content reflected Robertson’s philosophy more than his own. ‘They lay down
certain principles’, Robertson wrote in 1912, ‘but they do not pretend to show
how those principles must be treated or modified under conditions which are so
infinitely diversified’. 36
Like the teaching of Henderson whom Robertson so much admired, the
published version ofField Service Regulations Part Irested on the assumption
of expeditionary warfare, and the consequent reliance of the army on the Royal
Navy. This was a ‘joint’ documentavant la lettre. Chapter III, headed ‘Movements
by Land and Sea’, began with a paragraph on ‘strategical concentration’, which put
at least as much, if not more, weight on movement by water as by land, and
contained an independent section on ‘movements by sea’. The latter stated that
overseas expeditions would be undertaken for three possible reasons—to estab-
lish a base for operations against the enemy’s field army, or against a coastal
fortress; to create ‘a flying naval base’; or to conduct raids against shipping and
lines of communication.Field Service Regulationsaccepted that ‘the success of
such operations demands as a first postulate the command of the sea’; that it
would be the navy’s decision as to when that state had been reached; and that the
navy must be free to act to preserve command of the sea on its own terms, ‘having
in view the general strategical situation afloat’. It was to be understood, the
manual went on, ‘that each service is working for a common object, and will
render the other all assistance that lies in its power’. 37 And just to make sure that
the army, at any rate, could understand the navy, appendix II of the publication
was composed of definitions of naval terms and orders.
Chapter X ofField Service Regulationscovered ‘Warfare Against an Uncivilized
Enemy’, and divided its subject matter according to geography, one section
covering mountain warfare and the other bush fighting. It began, as did every
chapter, with a statement of general principles concerning the chapter’s particular
topic. The opening premise of chapter X was that, ‘in campaigns against savages,
the armament, tactics, and characteristics of the enemy, and the nature of the
theatre of operations demand that the principles of regular warfare be somewhat
modified’. 38 The next paragraph went on to stress the need for flexibility and
adaptability, the capacity to be able to meet unexpected conditions and to be able
to beat ‘the enemy at his own tactics’. But the important point to note was the
emphasis onmodifying, not on replacing, the principles of warfare. Regular and
106 The Evolution of Operational Art