2024 Academia Sinica Open House

The General Staff is the nerve center of modern national military power, often called "the brain of the army.” Throughout the 19th century, Germany reformed its General Staff and significantly improved its operational effectiveness, a model later emulated by other nations. Japan, during the Meiji Restoration, adopted the German military system and established its own General Staff, leading to victories in foreign wars such as the First Sino-Japanese War. After its defeat in that war, China accelerated its military modernization efforts, looking to Japan and Germany as models. In the last year of the Qing Empire (1911), China finally established its General Staff (Junzifu). However, rather than demonstrating its capabilities during the 1911 revolution, the newly established General Staff failed to be effective; worse, it hastened the demise of the Qing Empire. This talk will describe what was the development of China's General Staff in the late Qing period, why Japan's General Staff led its military to strength, while China's led to the collapse of a dynasty, and what this tells us about China's military structure and the challenges it faced.