Staff (military)

From the earliest days of conflict, leaders had staff assistants, if only to hand them the next rock to throw at the mammoth. As man's ability to kill grew, so did the need for assistance to leaders. Still, for centuries, a military staff was organized around an individual, rather than in a systematic way.

Napoleon Bonaparte did not have a staff on the general model used by modern militaries, but was important in the transition between assistants to an individual and a modern staff. He had, for example, a Quartermaster-General concerned with logistics. He had aides that he trusted both to carry his orders to subordinate units, and return with an accurate assessment of the units' situation. His headquarters contained clerks, mapmakers, and other assistants.

Recognizable staff organization, which split planning and supervisory functions into reasonably well-defined functions, usually are attributed to the Prussians. Their earliest staffs did not follow the current model, but began with a military historian that would record how things were done in a given conflict, so officers could study and avoid mistakes of the past. Current staffs still have a historical function, which sometimes is formalized as a center for "lessons learned", as with Australia, Canada and the United States.