The practical service in the transport battalions and the duties performed by the officers of the last-mentioned category who are assigned to these battalions are insufficient to attain this object.  They learn from these mainly practical duties next to nothing of the system as a whole.  It would therefore be advisable that all these officers should go through a special preliminary course for this service, in which the whole machinery of the army movements would be explained to them by the officers of the General Staff and the higher transport service officers, and they would then learn by practical examples to calculate the whole movement of the columns in the most varied positions with precise regard to distances and time.  This would be far more valuable for war than the many and often excessive trainings in driving, etc., on which so much time is wasted.  The technical driver’s duty is very simple in all columns and trains, but it is not easy to know in each position what is the crucial point, in order to be able, when occasion arises, to act independently.

While, therefore, on the one hand, driving instruction must be thoroughly carried out, on the other hand, the institution of a scientific transport service course, in which, by practical examples out of military history, the importance of these matters can be explained, is under present circumstances an absolute necessity.  I have shown elsewhere how necessary it is to proceed absolutely systematically in the arrangements for relays of supplies, since the operative capabilities of the army depend on this system.  Its nature, however, cannot be realized by the officers concerned like a sudden inspiration when mobilization takes place; knowledge of its principles must be gained by study, and a proof of the complete misapprehension of the importance which this service has attained under modern conditions is that officers are supposed to be able to manage it successfully without having made in peace-time a profound scientific study of the matter.

The transport service has advanced to a place of extraordinary importance in the general system of modern warfare.  It should be appreciated accordingly.  Every active transport service officer ought, after some years’ service, to attend a scientific course; all the senior officers on the furlough establishment intended for transport service ought, as their first duty, to be summoned to attend such a course.  If these educational courses were held in the autumn in the training camps of the troops, they would entail little extra cost, and an inestimable advantage would be gained with a very trifling outlay.

The results of such a measure can only be fully realized in war, when the superior officers also thoroughly grasp these matters and do not make demands contrary to the nature of the case, and therefore impossible to be met.  They should therefore be obliged to undergo a thorough education in the practical duties of the General Staff, and not merely in leading troops in action.