Most military innovations involve the employment of some technological development. Yet, one of the most influential of such innovations is the development of the General Staff, which one British author referred to as “the Brain of an Army.” First developed in Prussia, this much-imitated organization was essential to success in war since the 1860s.

Jonathan House is Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. A graduate of Hamilton College, he received both his doctorate in French military history and his commission in the U.S. Army at the University of Michigan in 1975. House retired as a colonel of Military Intelligence. He is the author of Combined Arms Warfare in the Twentieth Century (2001), A Military History of the Cold War, 1944-1962 (2012), and Controlling Paris: Armed Forces and Counter-Revolution, 1789-1848 (2014). He is also the co-author, with David Glantz, of numerous studies of the Soviet-German portion of World War II.