The emancipation from the War Ministry of the General Staff and the right to consult the monarch directly, which had been granted de facto to Moltke as early as 1883, however, led to an uneasy coexistence between military planning and political activities. This caused friction between Moltke and the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the wars of 1866 and 1870-71 and required the intervention of the monarch. When Field Marshal Count von Schlieffen planned to employ the bulk of German forces at the outbreak of war first in the west, politicians reluctantly-if at all-participated in the planning process. By accepting this, the German Emperor, Wilhelm II, and the political leadership de facto invested in the Chief of the General Staff the power of a military dictator. This was contradictory to General von Clausewitz's axioms on the relationship of political and military powers in the process of policymaking and command and control in times of war. In his work, On War, Clausewitz had stated in this context:
.. war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means.... war in itself does not suspend political intercourse or change it into something entirely different.... war cannot be divorced from political life; and whenever this occurs in our thinking about war, the many links that connect the two elements are destroyed and we are left with something pointless and devoid of sense.... if war is to be fully consonant with political objectives, and policy suited to the means available for war, then unless statesman and soldier are combined in one person, the only sound expedient is to make the commander-in-chief (i.e., the Chief of the General Staff in the German system) a member of the Cabinet, so that the Cabinet can share in the major aspects of his activities.
Emperor Wilhelm II, unlike his grandfather Wilhelm I, the last German monarch, was not strong enough in leadership to give his Chief of the General Staff a position in the Clausewitzian sense, that is to say, under political control. This failure would result in fatal consequences for Germany in World War I.
The study of historical milestones reveals two striking characteristics of General Staff in the First World War that have not been repeated. First, in the course of the First World War, the General Staff became the strongest political power in Germany. The 3rd Supreme Army Command (Oberste Heereleitung) under Field Marshal von Hindenburg and his first Quartermaster General, i.e., his first General Staff officer, General of the Infantry Ludendorff, not only directed the operations at all fronts, but also increasingly determined the political destiny of the German Empire. This phenomenon does not represent a remarkable historic milestone for Bundeswehr officers, since it is contradictory to the relationship of the political and military powers as described by Clausewitz. Sheer military virtuosity cannot compensate for the lack of political direction and national strategic objectives. The second characteristic lies in the fact that the Chief of the General Staff of the 2nd Supreme Army Command, General of the Infantry von Falkenhayn, and after him General Ludendorff, the 1st Quartermaster General of the 3rd Supreme Army Command, went too far with the concept of the commander's adviser by putting him above the responsible military leader. In the literature this process is called the "Chief System."
As has already been discussed, the Prussian German General Staff system encourages a powerful adviser to the responsible superior. It was necessary to appoint strong personalities as Chiefs of the General Staff of World War I army commanders of high nobility. They in fact commanded the armies of the princes. This had been the expressed wish of Emperor Wilhelm II. In the course of World War I, Generals von Falkenhayn and Ludendorff extended the powers of the Chiefs of General Staffs and increasingly dealt directly with them, and not with their responsible commanders. The Supreme Army Command increasingly called the first advisers to account for mistakes in the command and control of major formations, and not the commanders in chief of the army groups and armies. So-called "super chiefs" like Colonel von Lossberg, Colonel Bauer or Colonel von Seeckt were employed in every theater of war in critical situations. Their predecessors were simply removed from their posts and the Supreme Army Command did not always inform the respective commanders of this move in advance. The rank of the "super chief" was not important at all. The memoirs of Colonel General von Einem contain pertinent examples of the "Chief System." For instance, the former Prussian War Minister commanded the 3rd Army from the end of the 1st Marne battle in September 1914 to the armistice of 1918. During this time the Supreme Army Command replaced five of his chiefs of the General Staff. The commander in chief had never been consulted beforehand. The ranks of the Chiefs of General Staff varied from lieutenant general to major. General Colonel von Einem wrote in his memoirs that he had been upset, deeply hurt and angered about this behavior of the Supreme Army Command. Any other consequences of the army commander in chief are not known. It is quite obvious that the World War I army commanders accepted the "Chief System," even though it was detrimental to their authority.
Another case in point is that army commanders accepted orders of General Staff officers holding considerably lower ranks: Lieutenant Colonel Hentsch, who had been sent to the German armies in the 1st Marne battle by the Supreme Army Command, gave the order to break off the battle in September 1914. Consequently, the "Chief System" paralyzed the indivisible responsibility of high-ranking military commanders. Here we have another historic root of today's General Staff officers: function overrides rank. Orders issued by junior General Staff officers "for the commander" must be executed. In the revolutionary confusion of 1918, the General Staff and the Prussian Ministry of War remained the only organizations able to bring back the armed forces and to reestablish order in the German Empire. On November 9, the chairman of the Council of People's Representatives (Rat der Volksbeauftragten), Friedrich Ebert, called on the General Staff to assist in the fight against Bolshevism and to bring the army back home. This alliance between the Social Democrats around Friedrich Ebert and the General Staff accounts for the fact that its reputation remained untouched in spite of the military defeat in the First World War.