VI. Contemporary Battlefield Tours and Staff Rides: A Military Practitioner’s View

Prefatory Note

On joining the Headquarters Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps (HQ ARRC) staff a few years ago, one of my first commitments was to join a staff ride in Italy. Looking at Allied operations at Monte Cassino and Anzio, it was a valuable training event, highlighting inter alia the challenges of conducting multinational operations – a particularly pertinent theme for a HQ staff composed of personnel drawn from 17 out of NATO’s then 19 nations. But it also became clear to me by the end of that exercise, that few of the 34 participants – ranged from major to lieutenant general – might have appreciated what differentiates a staff ride from a battlefield tour, or how either could be linked to a Tactical Exercise Without Troops (TEWT). On the ‘put‐up or shut‐up basis’, my gentle criticisms of that particular exercise were reflected in me being given responsibility for planning the next staff ride. I offered to apply some of the techniques I had gathered, based on over 10 years’ experience of organising staff rides and battlefield tours, both on a joint and single component basis, including the staff ride of the Higher Command and Staff Course at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, and another staff ride for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). Over the next two years at HQ ARRC I then took on the planning and organisation of three quite different battlefield tours and staff rides. This experience has helped me, with the advice and assistance of some first‐class military historians and senior officers, develop my thoughts on ‘staff‐riding’. ¹

Introduction

It is a fact, which reflects the various traditions of the nations concerned, that in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) only the British and German, together with the American and Canadian armed forces, have embraced to any marked extent staff rides and battlefield tours in their military training courses and programmes. And in Britain it has been very much an army matter: only in the last ten years or so have naval or air force personnel seen the value in such activities and taken a professional interest in them accordingly. For those who do not see any worth in it at all, and there remain some, even in high places, the images of ‘expensive military tourism’ and ‘commercialisation’ often arise. ² The fact that so many civilian and indeed former military personnel are involved in running bona fide battlefield tours (and that it has become a substantial business) can also put a legitimate form of military training in bad light. Yet while a battlefield tour can be organised for either a civilian or military audience, a staff ride is a specific military activity.

Furthermore, the first lesson in organising battlefield tours or staff rides is to be clear on what is to be achieved in terms of training objectives, and then to select the appropriate training tool. This in turn rests on an understanding of the inherent limitations and opportunities of each training method. For that reason, some definitions are required.

The terms ‘battlefield tour’, ‘staff ride’, ‘terrain walk’ and ‘tactical exercise without troops’ (TEWT) are often loosely interchanged. Yet they each have different functions. A battlefield tour is concerned with looking at past operations for general interest. Systematic preparation for a battlefield tour is the exception rather than the norm. In contrast, a staff ride concentrates more on the analysis of operations rather than on providing an historical narrative. As a formal military training activity, its objectives are of direct relevance to the training audience concerned. In their original form, staff rides – such as those organised by the Prussian Great General Staff in the nineteenth century – were designed as map exercises for the staff and conducted in open terrain largely from the saddle. Hence the term ‘staff ride’ came into use. For those seeking a contemporary formal definition, a staff ride consists of:

Systematic preliminary study of a selected campaign, an extensive visit to the actual sites associated with that campaign, and an opportunity to integrate the lessons from each. It envisions maximum student involvement before arrival at the site to guarantee thought, analysis and discussion. A staff ride thus links historical event, preliminary study and terrain to produce battle analysis in three dimensions. It consists of three distinct phases: preliminary study, field study and integration in an after action review. ³

In comparison, a commander’s ground reconnaissance or terrain walk undertaken prior to a major operation or exercise has no direct historical connection. A TEWT (for military training purposes) typically also involves a hypothetical scenario conducted on actual terrain, employing contemporary operational art, tactics, techniques and procedures. Although a terrain walk or TEWT may take place on an actual battlesite, there is usually no direct relationship to historical events. Thus a TEWT, in common with a terrain walk, uses terrain, rather than the combination of history and terrain, as its primary teaching vehicle. In practice, however, battlefield tours, staff rides, terrain walks and TEWTs all share many features in common such as specially selected terrain ‘stands’ or viewpoints that are designed to bring out specific discussion points. Further, there is no firm line of demarcation between them: it is perfectly possible to combine elements of a staff ride with those of a TEWT on the same piece of ground.

From these definitions, the following model illustrates the connection between a battlefield tour, a staff ride, and a combined staff ride and TEWT:

FIGURE 1 STAFF RIDE MODEL

Note that the model offers no indication of relative training value. The choice of the most suitable training method remains dependent on the desired aim and objectives, and any limitations that may affect that choice. Thus in certain circumstances a unit battlefield tour may represent a more effective training vehicle than a staff ride. However, higher‐level training normally demands a greater element of preparation and participation by the training audience; hence a staff ride or combined staff ride and TEWT may be the optimal choice at formation level.

Before we consider the practicalities of planning and conducting battlefield tours and staff rides today, it is necessary to trace their historical development and to consider how they have evolved in more recent times. This approach sets the scene for several contemporary case studies based on personal experience. Finally, assuming that effective training should reflect a postulated view of war, that is subject to change, some thoughts are offered on how battlefield tours and staff rides might be developed in the future. Thus the unifying object here is to give a military practitioner’s view on the history, theory and practice of battlefield tours and staff rides, reflecting mainly the British armed forces’ tradition and experience in this field within an international context.

Historical Development

What we might describe today as a TEWT was a staff ride or ‘staff tour’ of yesteryear. The essential historical element of a staff ride was not necessarily observed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke’s staff rides were part of his instructional programme for aspiring general staff officers. As the leading historian of the German General Staff has noted, ‘The climax of the General Staff officer’s training was the annual practice journey carried out under Moltke’s personal supervision.’ ⁴ Moltke’s staff rides were also conducted on an army basis. His, and the later staff rides conducted by Field Marshal Count Alfred von Schlieffen, were large‐scale wargames carried out in open terrain testing the mobilisation, deployment and especially tactical employment of the Army, either using real war plans or specific exercise scenarios. Such activities were thus more akin to the terrain walks, TEWTs or even map and command post exercises that we recognise today.

One point stands out from the exercise scenarios and associated problems – these General Staff Reisen were not merely ‘walk‐throughs’ of existing operational plans. Incorporating contemporary battlefield tactics, techniques and procedures, the set problems demanded intellectual rigour and especially creativity on the part of the participants. The staff ride scenarios and associated problems changed from year to year in order to keep minds fresh. ⁵

In contrast to the Prussian‐German tradition, the British approach to battlefield tours and staff rides was more modest in aspiration, reflecting perhaps the less than enthusiastic adoption of the general staff system between the Boer and Great Wars. However, there are records of such activity in the late Victorian Army. It should be noted that in this period the term ‘staff tour’ was often used as a synonym for either a ‘staff ride’ or a TEWT. In his memoir of the much admired Colonel G. F. R. Henderson (1854–1903), Professor of Military History and Tactics at the British Army Staff College in Camberley in the 1890s, Field Marshal Lord Roberts noted:

As at Sandhurst, so at the Staff College, Henderson introduced original methods of training. He added largely to the practical out‐of‐door work, and in his personally conducted tours to the battlefields of the campaigns upon which he had been lecturing, his intimate knowledge of the ground and his splendid memory for detail enabled him to describe to his auditors [sic] what actually took place, with a realistic distinctness which created a lasting impression on their minds. ⁶

This sympathetic view of Henderson’s benign influence on students is echoed in the then Major Alfred Godwin‐Austen’s 1927 history, The Staff and the Staff College. However, the evidence is mixed as to the start date of the staff rides or staff tours. Brian Bond states: ‘In 1895 the first “Staff Tour” took place in imitation of a system of training that had been in vogue for years in Germany and has been called the ‘“best means ever invented of teaching officers their duties in the field”.’ ⁷ The first overseas battlefield tour, however, would appear to have been conducted as early as 1893. In his biography of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, Major‐General Charles Callwell notes that in March 1893, Wilson accompanied Henderson on a visit to the battlefields of 1870, and returned from Sedan to Brussels via a personal visit to Waterloo. Callwell quotes Wilson’s diary: ‘I have had the most wonderful weather and have been most interested in all I have seen.’ ⁸ On the evidence of Wilson’s diary, together with the date of Henderson’s appointment in the autumn of 1892 and his long‐standing interest in military history, it is reasonable to suppose that Henderson introduced the first overseas tours.

Yet the origin of the first staff tours in the United Kingdom remains unclear. The earliest copy of the Staff College programme retained in the college archives is of 1903. It includes details of an overseas tour to the 1870 battlefields ‘meeting at Niederbronn and Metz’, and lists a variety of tours in the United Kingdom including coastal reconnaissance in southern England and mountain warfare in Wales. ⁹ Because of the expense of overseas tours, students were expected to make a personal financial contribution, a typical piece of British military meanness that can still arise in organising battlefield tours and staff rides today, on the basis that ‘if you’re enjoying it, then you can help pay for it’. ¹⁰

What is clear from the surviving records of the period 1893–1914, is that the term ‘tour’ was used for a broad spectrum of Staff College and Army training events, spanning battlefield tours abroad and, to use modern terminology, TEWTS in Britain and in India. With regard to the staff tours, a number of commentators have voiced some concerns as to their rigour and utility. Godwin‐Austen, for example, criticises that it was ‘far too frequently assumed in the “General Idea” that England had been invaded by a large continental army’; and further that in 1892 that the final exercise in Staff Duties was ‘that set by Count von Moltke for officers leaving the German Staff College [sic]; characterized by him as “a very easy one’”. ¹¹

The criticism is easy to make in hindsight, but for what large war should island Britain then have prepared for? The focus on preparing for a continental war against Germany did not come until about 1905. Brian Bond, while noting that the British Army had made considerable progress in the late Victorian period, notes that the Staff College ‘produced only thirty‐two graduates a year, insufficient to fill all staff appointments in peacetime let alone in war’, and declares further that British officers ‘lacked the common education and mental attitudes which von Moltke had regarded as a crucial cementing element in training officers for the German General Staff ’. ¹² Yet the British Army was having to catch up fast with the Germans, and despite the enthusiasm of a few noted individuals, a general staff training methodology and tradition cannot be created in a decade or two.

Looking back at this period one can deduce that whatever the merits of the staff ride or tour conducted under Staff College auspices, no such training activity could fully compensate for the infrequency of large‐scale formation exercises where commanders and staffs could get to know each other. Certainly, ‘staff tours’ conducted in Britain and India did compensate for the infrequency of large‐scale army and corps level manoeuvres. Field Marshal Lord Haig, however, appears to be one of the late Victorian Army’s leading proponents of staff rides or tours. As John Terraine has documented, Haig participated in one of the then General Sir Evelyn Wood’s staff rides in England as a captain in June 1895. ¹³ Less than ten years later, as Inspector of Cavalry, Colonel Haig introduced the staff ride concept to India. The proceedings of five of his Indian rides were published in a remarkably detailed and practical book titled Cavalry Studies. Haig wrote in his introduction:

Certainly a knowledge of military history is all‐important to an officer. In studying it we see the great masters at work. We learn from their experience and become acquainted with the difficulties to be encountered in applying principles. But such work contributes little to developing our powers of decision. On the other hand "War Games" and "Staff Rides" should be framed chiefly with the latter object. ¹⁴

Haig put his finger on a key matter still highly relevant today. A military battlefield tour or staff ride that requires no original thought or decision making by the participants surely fails to meet its training object. Haig, the dour Scot and professional soldier par excellence, was applying a necessary cold logic to an important training issue, reflecting the Prussian/German tradition. Competence in high command during war demands practical and rigorous general staff training methods in peacetime that apply to commanders and their senior staff officers alike. Following this tour in India the now Major‐General Haig served in the War Office as Director of Military Training and Director of Army Staff Duties, two key appointments in the new General Staff during which he pursued his professional interest in staff rides. ¹⁵ As the records in the Public Record Office indicate, in the years between the start of the post‐Boer War Army reforms and the outbreak of World War I, a considerable number of staff rides were held at varying levels from the Chief of the Imperial General Staff leading the General Staff, through director and command level down to arms schools, corps and divisions.

There is little evidence to indicate, however, that, away from the Staff College training regime, formations or units conducted their own historically‐based battlefield tours in the early twentieth century. This trend appeared after World War II. Meanwhile, the Staff College retained its interest in battlefield tours right up to the eve of World War I. Visits to the Franco‐Prussian War battlefields remained especially popular. This was particularly so during Major‐General Henry Wilson’s spell as Commandant between January 1907 and July 1910. During the overseas tour he used to make his students run the course of Generalmajor Friedrich Wilhelm von Bredow’s famous cavalry charge across the ploughed field at Mars‐la‐Tour, a stand still used today by the Higher Command and Staff Course on its annual staff ride. ¹⁶ Today’s students, however, do not have to complete the run; rather, they stand somewhat in awe, captivated by Professor Richard Holmes’ epic account of the battle.

Notwithstanding the creation of a general staff and the adoption of much of the Prussian/German staff method, British interest in large‐scale staff tours at home and continental battlefield tours was limited by the practicality of much of the Army’s continual garrisoning and operational commitments abroad. Despite the Esher reforms generated by the Boer War and the growing awareness of the possibility of continental war from 1906, half the British Army, some 74 battalions of infantry plus supporting arms, was deployed abroad. These units – strung out across the Empire – were engaged in, or preparing for, quite another type of conflict. While Colonel Callwell (later Wilson’s biographer) gave no direct reference to training in his celebrated work on small wars, he nonetheless valued the contribution of military history and historical example: ‘…the strategic problems presented by operations of this nature have not altered to at all the same extent [as tactics]. Therefore there is much belonging to this branch of military art still to be learnt from campaigns dating as far back as the conquest of Algeria and as the terrible Indian struggle of 1857–58.’ ¹⁷

There is a certain irony in this today (from early 2002) as much of Callwell’s treatise on small wars dealt with the lessons learned (and some of them very bitter) from the British Army’s experience of fighting on the North‐West Frontier, including the First and Second Afghan Wars. Callwell makes the fundamental point that whereas military technology and tactics continue to evolve, the strategic issues pertaining to small wars remain largely unchanged. This would indicate that there is valuable hunting ground for contemporary staff rides, if not battlefield rides, across large tracts of the globe. ¹⁸ Yet such training activities on the sites of Britain’s expansion of, and retreat from, Empire have yet to catch on for a variety of reasons, no doubt a certain element of political sensitivity (if not correctness) must be observed. There is also the problem of accommodating far‐flung expeditions within tight training budgets. However, there are a few notable exceptions: the Zulu and Boer Wars have been the subject of very successful battlefield tours in recent years.

As World War I approached, British staff ride terminology evolved. The War Office’s ‘Training and Manoeuvre Regulations’ of 1913 record the effective absorption of ‘staff rides’ into what came known as ‘Tactical Exercises Without Troops’. Thus ‘exercises on the ground without troops include what have hitherto be known as staff rides or staff tours’. Staff rides later became associated with the study of past campaigns, and for many were indistinguishable from battlefield tours in concept and execution.

After World War I, the primary military historical interest turned to the Western Front, which remains the most popular location for battlefield tours today for civilian and military audiences alike. Four years before World War II, officers and civilians could purchase the official War Office Battle of the Marne 8th–10th September, 1914: Tour of the Battlefield published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office in November 1935 for two shillings a piece. However, there appears little evidence to suggest that ‘staff rides’ of the Haig style were encouraged. The Army needed to manoeuvre on a large scale. In a pre‐simulation age, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. minuted the Army Board on 25 May 1937 with the proposal:

Training in the art of command can best be given by means of full‐scale exercises with troops, where commanders are pitted one against another in conditions as closely approximating to those of actual warfare as possible. For this reason I consider that we should now revert to the pre‐war custom of making army manoeuvres, in which forces approximating to a corps on each side are employed, a normal and not a very exceptional part of our training. I propose that such manoeuvres should be held once in every two years. ¹⁹

Within three years the consequences of financial restrictions, equipment and establishment limitations and failing to hold manoeuvres, whether on a TEWT, skeletal or ‘full‐troops’ basis, was evident in the British Expeditionary Force in 1940. During World War II there are frequent references to TEWTs on various formation training schemes and school courses, but none to staff rides. After World War II there was a conscious effort to record past campaigns, major operations and battles with a view to running future battlefield tours. This applied particularly to the campaign in North‐West Europe. In 1947 the British Army of the Rhine, for example, conducted and documented seven large‐scale battlefield tours of major operations carried out by formations of 21st Army Group in Europe from the Normandy beaches to the Rhine in June 1944 to March 1945. ²⁰ These resulting battlefield tour books remain ‘classics’ on account of their comprehensive approach, level of detail and wealth of illustration including maps and photographs.

Anyone planning a staff ride or battlefield tour to Normandy, or to the Seine or Rhine crossings, for example, would be well advised to consult the appropriate volume. There are several particular benefits of these guides. First, they are hugely authentic, having been produced largely by the participants themselves; the ‘Directing Staff’ editions of the guides contain full personal accounts from divisional to company commanders. Second, the mapwork is superb. Third, there are full details of each stand, including terrain summaries and timetables (which would need in any case to be updated today, over 50 years since publication). Finally, Directing Staff editions contain introductory lectures, problems and summing up points that indicate that these battlefield tours were planned and conducted as staff rides in all but name.

But there are also distinct limitations to these books. The enemy viewpoint is often very limited (most senior surviving Germans were then still prisoners of war); there is often a lack of the higher‐level operational context; and, most notably, objective criticism of the planning and conduct of the battles described is absent. Yet the scope of these battlefield tour books is worth giving in full for future reference in Table 1:

TABLE 1 BAOR BATTLEFIELD TOUR BOOKS

Name of Operation	Action Covered
GOODWOOD	Operations of 8 Corps East of the River ORNE (Normandy) 18–22 July 1944, with particular reference to 11th Armoured Division.
BLUECOAT	Operations of 8 Corps South of CAUMONT (Normandy) 30–31 July 1944, with particular reference to 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division.
TOTALIZE	Operations of 2 Canadian Corps astride the road CAEN‐FALAISE (Normandy) 7–8 August 1944, with particular reference to 51st (Highland) Infantry Division.
NEPTUNE	Assault crossing of the River SEINE by 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division 25–28 August 1944.
VERITABLE	Operations by 30 Corps between the Rivers MAAS and RHINE 8–10 February 1945, with particular reference to 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division.
PLUNDER	Assault river crossing of the River Rhine by 12 Corps 24–25 March 1945, with particular reference to 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division.
VARSITY	Airborne operations of XVIII United States Corps (Airborne) in support of the crossing of the River Rhine 24–25 March 1945, with particular reference to 6th British Airborne Division.

The major failings of almost all commercially published military history works and battlefield tour guides is that the maps (if any are supplied at all) are too small and of poor quality, and that the operational level context of the tactical events is often omitted. Schematics do not help when trying to plot the axis of an armoured brigade on the ground: there is no alternative to a 1:50,000 scale marked map showing the tactical detail. Taking the example of the Normandy campaign, there is plenty of material to choose from on the bookshelves of the tourist and museum shops. Unfortunately only a fraction of what is commercially available is of any value to a serious military audience. For most publishers, the costs involved in producing the very necessary maps are prohibitive and in any case many of the authors writing for a predominantly civilian readership possess only a modest understanding of the dynamics of war. ²¹ Thus there are typically few short cuts in researching battlefield tours and staff rides. There is often no alternative to returning to the detail of the Official Histories and to the analysis contained in later scholarly military historical material.

An alternative excellent source for a limited number of campaigns and battles in Belgium and Northern France is the Army Battlefield Guide. Unfortunately, Richard Holmes was only able to complete one book out of a projected three‐volume series ‘designed to facilitate visits to battlefields by serving officers and soldiers’. The publication of the Battlefield Guide corresponded to an increase in the number of battlefield tours and staff rides being conducted within the British Army by both regular and Territorial Army units following the end of the Cold War. Although the British Army sponsored series of battlefield guides has not been completed as originally intended, Richard Holmes has gone on to write three further very useful battlefield books, which are based on his popular BBC television series. ²²

Returning to the historical development of battlefield tours and staff rides, the British Army’s general training instructions and regulations from World War II onwards until the late 1960s make little (in effect no) reference to ‘staff rides’. Even the value of conducting TEWTS on the ground was played down. Regulations stressed the fact that ‘no problem should be set that could not equally well be discussed indoors or off a map’. Hence the MAPEX (‘Map Exercise’), rather than a staff ride, became the favoured method of tactical instruction.

Yet the battlefield tour tradition at the Staff College lived on. From the end of World War II until the late 1970s, the Staff College ran an annual tour to Normandy. This most popular activity (for most students it represented the highlight of the staff course) included personal vignettes from a wide cross‐section of veterans. One of the most celebrated speakers was the German regimental commander Colonel Hans von Luck who is credited with making a particularly notable contribution to the German defence during the British attack during the first day of Operation ‘Goodwood’ on 18 July 1944. ²³ In 1979 the Commandant of the Staff College decided to wind down the battlefield tour, perhaps conscious of its largely unfair reputation as the ‘bottlefield tour’. His official reasoning for the decision was based on the sad fact that the veteran speakers were becoming increasingly frail and their personal accounts over time were becoming less objective. ²⁴ One suspects that the cost issue was also raised.

Formation and unit interest in battlefield tours and staff rides grew in the 1980s and continues today, only abated by the lack of time and resources. However, most formations (brigades, divisions and corps) manage at least one staff ride every year or so, such is the demand for this particular type of training.

Contemporary Staff Riding

Staff rides can be designed to achieve many training objectives. The primary purpose of a staff ride, however, is usually the professional development of a selected group of officers either undergoing some form of training course or serving together in a formation or unit. It is a very flexible training vehicle. Depending on the campaign, major operation or battle selected, the staff ride can be designed to expose and illustrate a wide range of principles and lessons. On account of the three stages of preliminary study, field activity and integration in some form of after action review, which all prompt participants’ active involvement and thereby retention of the material presented, long‐term military educational benefits can be expected as well as meeting specific training objectives.

Generic staff ride objectives, some of which are shared by battlefield tours and TEWTs, may be summarised as follows in Table 2:

TABLE 2 TRAINING OBJECTIVES AND TRAINING EVENTS

	Training Event
Training Objective	Battlefield Tour	Staff Ride	TEWT
To demonstrate the principles of war and the essential links between strategy, operational art and tactics.	Perhaps	Very likely	Likely
To expose the realities of war, underlining the timeless human dimension of conflict, or the ‘face of battle’. This aspect invariably includes the study of command, leadership, morale and unit cohesion.	YES	YES	Perhaps
To illustrate the dynamics of battle in terms of time, space and forces, showing the effects of terrain and weather on the conduct of operations.	YES	YES	YES
To provide a variety of case studies to study joint operations, combined arms tactics, logistics, civil‐military relations and the battlefield effects of technology, training and doctrine.	Depends on specific training objectives
To encourage personal professional development through awakening or reinforcing an interest in military history, offering an analytical framework for the systematic study of campaigns and battles.	YES	YES	Not likely unless combined with a battlefield tour or staff ride
To hone relevant military skills including decision making in battle.	Not likely	YES	YES

To illustrate how these objectives may be applied in practice, four different types of staff ride, battlefield tour or TEWT, in which the author has been recently involved, are described.

Example 1

The Staff Ride of the annual Higher Command and Staff Course (HCSC), set up by the British Army at the Staff College in Camberley in 1988 and now run on fully joint basis at the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC), has established itself as the premier staff ride conducted in the British armed forces. It is run at the end of the course, and by past experience has proved to be a very interesting and popular aspect of the HCSC, notwithstanding the requirement laid on each student to write a 5,000‐word preliminary research paper.

Over the last few years, the HCSC Staff Ride has been refined to include greater emphasis on the planning and conduct of air and maritime operations. It retains a clear practical focus for the study of the nature of high command at the operational level, learning as much from past failures as from the more obvious success stories. For example, not only are the Allied experiences in Normandy in the summer of 1944 studied but also the collapse of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in May 1940 and its subsequent evacuation at Dunkirk. Remarkably, some stands near Metz and Sedan from the Franco‐Prussian War, used by Henderson and Wilson 100 years ago, have proved readily adaptable for discussion of contemporary command issues. Likewise, time‐honoured stands at the battlefields of Verdun or the Somme still offer excellent opportunities for renewed discussion of that old doctrinal chestnut of ‘attrition versus manoeuvre’, and of the never‐to‐be‐forgotten human aspect of war, including ‘morale in battle’.

There is always the danger, prevalent on any staff ride, that the majority of participants default into a comfortable ‘receive‐only mode’. Paradoxically, the more and better the historian explains the issues, the less overall discussion may result. An evolving feature of the HCSC Staff Ride, therefore, has been the inclusion of seminars throughout the exercise to encourage the fullest possible discussion and debate by all participants. Students are now expected to present their essay topics at a particular stand: the combined pressures of personal pride and peer review normally generate some excellent points.

Yet one interesting question remains: does such an historically focused joint professional educational event provide the right sort of mental challenges to aspiring joint force and component commanders and their principal staff officers? A change of location to NATO’s southern region to embrace, for example, aspects of the Italian campaign in World War II would certainly bring fresh discussion and essay topics but might not bring any fundamental advantages over the more logistically sustainable staff ride in France. The answer to such a question remains that, provided the discussion topics have an enduring nature, the historical location (recalling it is only a means to an educational or training end) should not really matter. Whether the right balance between historical and contemporary issues can be achieved depends, as ever, on the skill of the organisers and the presenters.

Example 2

Mr Eric Morris and the author (then the Deputy Director of the HCSC) developed another type of Staff Ride in Sicily, during the autumn of 1999, from first principles. The object was twofold: first, to conduct an initial reconnaissance of a staff ride for use by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) high‐level exercise (HILEX) programme for NATO’s senior officers; and second, to evaluate Sicily as an alternative location for the HCSC staff ride. ²⁵ At the suggestion of the HILEX Senior Mentor, General (Ret’d) Helge Hansen, a former C‐in‐C Central Europe, the underlying intent was to set the conditions for discussion of a variety of component and joint issues that would provoke predominantly operational level study and debate.

Previous HILEX staff rides run in Norway, Normandy and in the Monte Cassino/Anzio‐Nettuno area of Italy had all provided very good exercises, but none of these in the opinion of General Hansen, had quite produced the required level of discussion. The study of the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 (Operation ‘Husky’) provides an interesting blend of joint and multinational operations (Anglo‐American‐Canadian and German‐Italian) within a relatively small geographical area and limited campaign duration.

Further, the level of forces involved (on land at least) represents a scale of effort – albeit very large in today’s policy terms – that is conceivable in modern contingency planning. In short, it offers an ideal case study in terms of forces, time and space for the analysis of military strategy, joint operational art, combined arms tactics and high command. Interestingly, a campaign study of Sicily was already conducted by HCSC as a MAPEX in combination with a parallel study of the Dardanelles operations of 1915–16. The HILEX Staff Ride was subsequently developed by SHAPE Special Exercises Branch staff and ran in Sicily for a number of iterations in 2000 and 2001 with continuing advice and input from the HCSC team. HQ ARRC also developed this Sicily Staff Ride further for use as its annual staff ride in May 2002.

Example 3

HQ ARRC can also look back on two other extremely successful staff rides in 2000 and 2001 that drew on World War II: the first concerned the Rhine crossing in March 1945, the second a study of Eastern Front operations in January–May 1945. Exercise ‘Arrcade Rover 01’ was conducted in western Poland and eastern Germany over a five‐day period in July 2001. The aim of this training event was ‘To study and tour the Vistula–Oder and Berlin operations of 1945 in order to prepare HQ ARRC senior staff for large‐scale operations and exercises.’ Involving a training audience of 45 personnel, including senior national representatives, the objectives of the staff ride were to:

• Identify enduring lessons relating to joint campaign planning and operational art, including deception.

• Consider the impact of difficult terrain on manoeuvre.

• Study the nature of high command and leadership in battle.

• Highlight combined arms lessons, including logistics, from the major operations and battles studied.

• Provide Commander ARRC (COMARRC) with an opportunity to train his senior staff.

A particular aspect of this staff ride was the requirement for considerable host nation support, particularly from the Polish military authorities. As a new NATO member, initially there was little understanding by the Polish of the needs of a staff ride. However, on the day everything worked perfectly from the supply of military helicopters to the provision of a wide range of administrative support.

Another key development, as far as HQ ARRC was concerned, was the inclusion of General Hansen as Senior Mentor to assist COMARRC as Exercise Director and to provide some additional historical expertise to supplement Professor Richard Holmes and Mr Charles Dick, experts on the German and Soviet perspectives respectively. Professor Holmes and General Hansen had worked together on HILEX staff rides, and Mr Dick and General Hansen had worked together in the HCSC Theatre War Game for several years. So HQ ARRC was blessed with an expert directing staff team as it journeyed from the citadel of Poznan, westwards through the Meseritz Fortified Region, north by helicopter to visit the site of the doomed German counter‐attack at Stargard near Stettin, and back south to cross into Germany over the river Oder at Küstrin, up and over the Seelow Heights and along the old Reichstrasse 1 to the Reichstag in the heart of Berlin.

All participants were struck by the special contribution of the Senior Mentor who not only provided some very valuable personal memories and perspectives, but also guided and focused discussion towards issues relevant to the planning and conduct of future operations. In contrast, the lack of a similar senior military figure of equivalent stature and experience on the HCSC staff ride remains a weakness. To rely on historians alone to bring out relevant points of doctrine and concepts is to misunderstand the historian’s role and to abrogate a military responsibility.

Example 4

For ‘ARRCADE ROVER 02’, the HQ ARRC staff ride in May 2002, a similar yet nonetheless refined approach was adopted to that tested in Poland. In Sicily, Eric Morris joined General Hansen, this pair being another proven HILEX team. As in the previous year about 40 officers (mostly NATO OF5 or OF6 level ²⁶ ) took part. The principal difference between the 2001 and 2002 staff rides was the inclusion of ‘tactical vignettes’ at several stands. These ‘tactical vignettes’were designed to challenge the participants with decision making in a contemporary scenario that sees HQ ARRC acting as a land component command within a Combined Joint Task Force setting.

In other words, the intent was to combine a staff ride with a TEWT on the same ground. Army brigadiers and colonels, therefore, had to consider the relative benefits of employing air assault or marine commando brigades, how to gain maximum leverage from the air and maritime power available, whilst considering how to combat a cunning enemy who may resort to asymmetric means of attack. Syndicates under the leadership of a Deputy Chief of Staff considered the various tactical problems presented, presenting solutions on the ground to COMARRC. The participants then drove along the axis of their intended manoeuvre to the next stand, returning to the historical scenario.

Although this sort of tandem training event is certainly more complex to plan, stage and run than either a ‘straight’ staff ride or a conventional TEWT with no historical content, the potential pay‐off in training terms is considerable.

Practical Lessons

Preliminary Study

A period of preliminary study enhances all types of battlefield tours and staff rides. In particular, either individual or collective study (or a combination of both) can be used to cover strategic or operational level issues that do not necessarily lend themselves to discussion on the battlefield, the realm of tactics.

Stand Selection

The presentation of logistics, moreover, can represent a particular challenge to the organiser of a battlefield tour or staff ride. Sometimes an obvious stand will offer itself. Good examples from the World Wars include the Voie Sacrée at Verdun, together with its monument, and Port Winston, the Mulberry Harbour at Arromaches on the Normandy coast. Where no such tangible link to the past exists, however, the logistic aspects of a campaign or battle are often best covered in a study period.

The next area of difficulty often encountered in battlefield tours and staff rides is the presentation of air or maritime issues. Littoral operations, of course, can be explained from the shore; ‘blue water’ operations on the other hand cannot. A stand at an airbase or radar station can be used as an effective backdrop for the discussion of a wide spectrum of both offensive and defensive counter‐air operations; a wide variety of ‘field’ stands, on the other hand, can be used to describe the effects of air interdiction and close air support. The impact of joint operations (and in particular those which look at the component interfaces) is easily integrated into a staff ride, particularly if the training event is designed to encompass the operational as well as the tactical level. That said, the majority of military battlefield tours and staff rides concentrate on land warfare at the tactical level, for it is on land that most people live and most wars have been fought.

It would be wrong to be too prescriptive about the suitability of battlefield tours vis‐à‐vis staff rides in relation to the levels of warfare. However, practical experience would indicate that while staff rides can embrace the military strategic and operational levels, battlefield tours cannot so easily. What a battlefield tour can do, however, is instil an understanding of the ‘realities of war’, and equally so for the benefit of both civilian and military audiences. In this respect, the presence and contribution of veterans on battlefield tours offer a great deal of authenticity and human interest. On staff rides, however, veterans, bearing in mind that those now surviving may have served at a relatively low level, may confuse rather than illuminate discussion and debate. It is an unfortunate fact that often an individual veteran’s perspective is proportional to his distance from the front during the battle.

Conduct of Stands

There are many practical points concerning the conduct of stands. Experience shows that the following sequence of activities at each stand works well:

• The first stage is a brief but clear terrain orientation – conducted by an officer of the directing staff who knows both the ground and the history well. Surprisingly, this aspect of a staff ride is often not done well in the military. It requires training and practice. The preferred approach is to pick out a number of key reference points that give the framework for subsequent narrative and discussion, using the standard method of ‘DIRECTION‐DISTANCE‐DESCRIPTION’, working left to right, front to back.

• Second, a concise historical description or narrative is given by the accompanying historian (on a battlefield tour, veterans’ vignettes may be used at this stage to advantage). Strict control must be exercised over a small minority of historians who may use these valuable training opportunities to pontificate on personal hobby horses or other matters of irrelevant detail.

• The third stage, and this important step is often overlooked, is an introduction to the discussion period by a member of the directing staff, and not necessarily the historian. In the present author’s opinion, this should be run by either the Exercise Director or a Senior Mentor to ensure that the training audience concentrates on contemporary issues and lessons rather than digressing on points of historical detail and personal interest. It is this authoritative introduction (and subsequent better focused discussion) that often distinguishes a really good staff ride from a perfectly acceptable battlefield tour.

• Fourth, and the key stage of any stand, is the discussion period in which the training audience poses questions to the historians and the military directing staff, who respond depending on the nature of the issue. Often it is extremely difficult to gauge how long this period should last – clearly this depends much on stand content but not least on the time of day and the make‐up of the training audience. Some staff ride organisers may elect to nominate particular members of the training audience to speak on a prepared topic, or to comment on particular issues.

• Fifth, the Exercise Director should sum up in a few minutes, highlighting the key lessons for contemporary and future operations. (This stage may not be required at each stand, but certainly should be held at the end of each day). Finally, an assistant member of the directing staff may give out any administrative points.

After Action Review (AAR)

The final, and often overlooked aspect of a battlefield tour or a staff ride is where the concluding ‘integration’ stage takes place. Whereas this stage can be undertaken informally at the end of a battlefield tour (which may often be concluded to advantage at a military cemetery or in a local hostelry), a staff ride of any rigour usually demands a more formal period of reflection and analysis. It can rarely be achieved on the ground itself as fatigue, weather and the lack of training aids may detract from its utility. A proven technique is to introduce potential ‘AAR’ points during the final stages of the staff ride and then to require selected individuals or syndicates to present their findings in a final plenary session before the exercise director sums up and concludes the staff ride in question.

Documentation

The real work in any staff ride is the preparation, reconnaissance and documentation stage. A good documentation pack should include a reader which summarises the historical context, a set of marked maps, and, ideally, a handy pocket guide which fits into a combat or civilian shooting jacket. The pocket guide should contain details of the programme, a brief historical narrative of events, and most importantly, a set of discussion topics for each stand.

Conclusion

The staff ride is a proven training method that has evolved over the last 150 years. Its value, like any other training event, lies in the clear and early definition of training objectives; the selection of the most appropriate campaign, battle and terrain; in the selection of speakers, both civilian and military; above all, in the meticulous research, reconnaissance and detailed preparation by the planning and directing staff; and, last but not least, in the enthusiastic contribution by the training audience itself. Good weather and traffic conditions, and a sense of humour all round, will put the icing on the cake.

Notes

1 In this respect I would like to thank in particular Richard Holmes, Brian Holden Reid, Charles Dick, Eric Morris, Keith Simpson and General (Retd) Helge Hansen for the personal support they have given me and my colleagues over many years of staff rides and battlefield tours. A successful battlefield tour or staff ride always represents a team effort, and I have been privileged to work with – and learn from – such subject matter experts.

2 This point of view, to the author’s regret, can still be found in senior naval and air force officers today. Most officers of the British, Canadian, German and United States Armies would have at some stage in their careers taken part in at least one battlefield tour or staff ride, and appreciated its real training value. The commercialisation of battlefields, of course, is not a new phenomenon. As the Cranfield Security Studies Institute booklet Battlefield Tours and Staff Rides recalls, ‘Sergeant‐Major Edward Cotton, late of the 7th Hussars, was famous for his guided tours around the battlefield [of Waterloo] where he had fought in 1815.’ The booklet represents an admirably compact guide (aimed at a military readership) on the practicalities of organising battlefield tours and staff rides, and sets out how the Cranfield Security Studies Institute supports them.

3 Developed from William G. Robertson, The Staff Ride (Washington DC: Center of Military History 1987).

4 Walter Goerlitz, History of the German General Staff 1657–1945, trans. by Brian Battershaw (New York and London: Praeger 1953) p.96. Originally published under the title Der Deutsche Generalstab by Verlag der Frankfurter Hefte, Frankfurt am Main, 1951. Note that the English translation of ‘journey’ from the German does not adequately render the true meaning of Reise to a German military audience; a better indication can be given by ‘field trip’ or ‘tour’.

5 See, for example, Prussian Great General Staff (ed.) and trans. by Karl von Donat, Moltke’s Tactical Problems from 1858 to 1882 (London: Hugh Rees 1903) which contains details of 66 problems, and for the majority, written solutions and ‘verbatim shorthand reports of Moltke’s verbal criticism’ (field critique), together with 28 maps. As the anonymous editors declare in their preface: ‘…all of [the problems] will, on account of their lucidity and surprising simplicity, ever remain model decisions, and afford by their pronounced originality a fountain of suggestion and information’.

6 Field Marshal Lord Roberts’ introduction to Col. G.F.R. Henderson, The Science of War: A Collection of Essays and Lectures 1892–1903, ed. by Captain Neill Malcolm (London, New York and Bombay: Longmans 1905) pp.xxix–xxx.

7 Brian Bond, The Victorian Army and the Staff College 1854–1914 (London: Eyre Methuen 1972) p.175 and p.180 (fn.40). The ‘best means’ wording quoted by Bond is taken from Sir Edward May, Changes and Chances of a Soldier’s Life (London 1925) pp.186–7.

8 Maj.‐Gen. Sir C.E. Callwell, Field‐Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries, Vol. I, (London: Cassell 1927) pp.13–14.

9 I am grateful to Mrs Pam Bendall, Librarian of the Conflict Studies Research Centre, Sandhurst, and former Senior Librarian at the Staff College, Camberley, for finding this evidence in the Former Staff College archives, now resting under new management at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Watchfield (Shrivenham). Mrs Bendall has also assisted me in locating some references for this section ; she pointed out, for example, the discrepancy between the Bond and Callwell accounts. She also tracked down on my behalf a copy of Douglas Haig’s Cavalry Studies.

10 The fact that a staff ride is a doctrinally endorsed training method (see Army Doctrine Publication Volume 2 Command (1995) would not appear to matter to some accountants. However, some formations and units by their choice of exotic and far‐flung exercise destinations have courted the criticism of profligate expenditure of public monies.

11 JSCSC Archive. See A.R. Godwin‐Austen, The Staff and the Staff College (London: Constable 1927) p.229.

12 Bond, The Victorian Army and the Staff College (note 7) pp.176–7. Yet the Prussian influence was felt in the British Army. A formal manual, Preparation and Conduct of Tactical Rides and Tours on the Ground, written by von Moser, Colonel and Section Chief in the Great [German] General Staff in the early 1900s, was translated and published by the War Office in 1911. Three types of exercise were defined in accordance with German Field Service Regulations. At unit level were: ‘tactical rides, or conferences, in which the commanding officer and his officers take part, [which] should be carried out as far as possible over unfamiliar ground. They are invaluable for widening the experience of officers, and are calculated to develop an eye for country and skill in map reading.’ At the next level were the ‘tactical tours, in which officers of all arms take part, afford[ing] valuable instruction in combined [arms] tactics’, suitable for a ‘force the size of a division’. At the highest level, ‘general staff tours and cavalry tactical tours are intended principally for instruction in warlike operations on a large scale’. These tours were carried out annually in ‘strange country under the Chiefs of the General Staff of Army Corps and Inspectors of Cavalry, and extend over some fourteen days, including Sundays and rest days’ (v. Moser, p.3). I am grateful to John Harding of the Historical Branch (Army) in bringing von Moser’s work to my attention.

13 Bond (note 7) pp.174–5.

14 Quoted by John Terraine, Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier (London: Hutchinson 1963) pp.10, 35 and 47. Page references are to the Cassell (2000) paperback edition. The original reference is to be found in Major‐General Douglas Haig, Cavalry Studies: Strategical and Tactical (London: Hugh Rees 1907) p.19.

15 See, for example, ‘Report on the Second Cavalry Staff Ride held by the Director of Staff Duties, 21st to 26th June, 1909’, published by the War Office in Aug. 1909. Haig’s practical methods, which hold today, were much evident: ‘In order to illustrate how the main principles inculcated might be applied to concrete instances, solutions of the problems were issued, usually in the form of diagrams. Stress was, however, laid by the Director on the point that these solutions were in no case to be considered final, and were not to be looked upon as stereotyped models to be followed blindly, but were given only as possible examples of how such problems might be dealt with in the particular circumstances according to accepted principles.’

16 On 5 May 1909 Wilson recorded the results of the cross‐country run ‘stand’ in his diary: ‘I took the extreme left, and so had much the furthest to go, and yet was easily in first, Perks [Col. Perceval in charge of the Senior Division] coming next. Not bad on my 45th birthday; 2 miles over plough and 3 young seed.’ Brian Bond has cast doubt over the accuracy of the ‘young seed’ figure. He argues that this would appear to be a transcription of Wilson’s manuscript by Callwell in Field‐Marshal Sir Henry Wilson (note 8) ; see Bond (note 7) pp.250 and 271.

17 Colonel C.E. Callwell, Small Wars. Their Principles and Practice, 3rd edn. (London: General Staff, War Office/HMSO 1906) [reprinted 1909] p.24. The book is still in print as Small Wars: A Tactical Textbook for Imperial Soldiers (London: Greenhill and Novato, CA: Presidio, 1990).

18 A potential starting point for research of an ‘Empire’ battlefield tour or staff ride is Brian Bond (ed.), Victorian Military Campaigns (London: Hutchinson 1967), which includes chapters on the Sikh Wars (1845–49), the Third China War (1860), the Expedition to Abyssinia (1867–68), the Ashanti Campaign (1873–74), the South African War (1880–81), the Egyptian Campaign (1882) and the Reconquest of the Sudan (1896–99). In his introduction Bond gives a valuable commentary on Callwell’s Small Wars.

19 The Adjutant‐General noted ‘I am in complete agreement… All training throughout the Army is at present seriously handicapped through lack of men and I trust that the Cabinet will sanction whatever steps are necessary in order to bring the Army up to establishment. If they do not do so I fear our training efforts will be largely nullified.’ What would he say today? The Army Council went on to promulgate CIGS’s training policy (43/Training/2224 of 13 July 1937 refers).

20 Similar books were written on each of the seven operations, of which 400 copies were printed, 100 of these containing notes for Directing Staff. A further 50 Directing Staff and 250 Spectators’ copies were distributed to various libraries, original speakers and ‘certain other individuals’. These splendid books are now extremely hard to obtain.

21 Commercial guides, at the risk of broad generalisation, are good on the fine tactical detail but are poor on the operational and strategic levels context of operations. They also tend to focus too much on the British point of view, which while understandable in terms of the reading audience, leads to a lack of balance.

22 Richard Holmes, Army Battlefield Guide (London: HMSO 1995).

23 He claimed to have ordered a Luftwaffe officer at gunpoint to lower his 88mm antiaircraft guns in the village of Cagny near Caen to engage British armour.

24 However, this reasoning is open to some questioning. The author attended a brigade‐level combined battlefield tour and TEWT in Normandy in 1992 supported by a number of the veterans (including some of the ‘stars’ of the former Staff College battlefield tour such as von Luck) present: their accounts were factual and lucid. A number of veterans still attend the annual JSCSC ‘realities of war’ dinner.

25 This programme, initiated by Supreme Allied Commander Europe during the mid‐1990s, was designed to keep alive a warfighting ethos in NATO and to develop joint operational understanding while much of the senior leadership within Allied Command Europe was focused on peacekeeping in the Balkans. After seven successful years, the 2002 programme was cancelled due to budgetary pressures at SHAPE. Only time will tell the appropriateness of this decision.

26 Corresponding to colonels or brigadiers.