troduced in July 1899 in the form of the Army Board,which consisted of both military and civilian personnel and embodied, for the first time, the united opinion of the War Office. The value of an Army Board lay in its ability to harmonize the conflicting civilian and military elements within the War Office. By 1900, its functions were assumed by the War Office Council. However, during the war, it was only a temporary measure that could be withdrawn at any time. Lord Esher, recognizing the value of this system, incorporated the idea in his 1904 report and developed it into the Army Council. The Army Council, which would be modeled on the Admiralty Board, was intended to put an end to the confusion surrounding the responsibilities of the Secretary of State for War, the Commander-in-Chief, the Adjutant-General (AG) and the Quartermaster-General (QMG). Much of the difficulty in the old arrangement lay in the fact that "civil servants were constitutionally incapable of believing that the army knew best how to arrange its own affairs." By i
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