Nagy-L István szerk.: Pápai Múzeumi Értesítő 11. (Pápa, 2006)
Haderő és hadviselés 1809-ben - DAVID HOLLINS: Ausztria vezérleti rendszere - a modern szervezet eredete
Charles' 1805 organisation Army Commander-in-Chief t Political Correspondence Operations Directorate Service Directorate Geheimkanzlei Army Chief of Staff Staff Officers Armee Generalkommando Logistics Staff Adjutants-general Fliigel-adjutants Artillery Director Technical Director Charles had already instituted changes in Italy, where he commanded the army in 1805, with Zach as his Chief of staff. His Dienstvorschrift (outline plan) of l sl September 1805. The Chief of Staffs role was now to direct Operations, Planning and intelligence (G2 & G3). The administration of the army, its supply and military justice (G4 and G5) were given to the Armee-Generalkommando, which was a mix of the falling to the Staff Dienst department and the Adjutant Staff, although the General Adjutant was still directly responsible to the Commander-in-Chief . The Archduke's own views reflect what has now become the NATO approach - "The Chief of Staff stands at the side of the Commander-in-Chief and is completely at his disposal. His sphere of work connects him with no specific unit". "The Comamnder-in-Chief decides what should happen and how; his chief assistant works out these decisions, so that each subordinate understands his allocated his allotted task". The Chief of Staff, Charles maintained, should be the commander's right-hand man and in effect, the senior commander in the army, while the Commander in chief was responsible to his political masters in Vienna. Appointed Generalissimus in 1806, Charles introduced the new organisation across the army and formalised the arrangements into three directorates: Political Correspondence, Operations & Planning and Service. Much is made of the Austrian move to a korps system in March 1809 - in fact, this did not represent a radical change, since the arrangements were just a permanet form of what had been done before - each Korps staff was a smaller version of the Army Command system, where the Korps Chief of Staff was responsible for directing operations, while being aware of the overall headquarters plan and objectives. The problem - as always in Austria - was the lack of peacetime training, caused by financial problems. The expanded wartime staff provided enough officers to perform the junior roles, but there was distinct lack of senior experienced men: II Korps' Chief of Staff was a Hauptman (Captain). Nevertheless, there is much discussion of Charles' performance throughout the campaign and much of it can be seen in fact in the holder of the key Chief of Staff position. The operational plan of early 1809 called for a bold offensive from Bohemia into Germany and had been devised by Anton Mayer.
