Paul von Hindenburg

“ Commandeering every available motor vehicle from the entire surrounding countryside, he immediately extended his line and swung around the Russian right as previously he had swung around their left. Almost every road, rail or otherwise, that was of any importance was now in the hands of the Germans and along them could be sent men and guns with overwhelming rapidity. With relentless energy Von Hindenburg now used his intimate knowledge of the territory in which he was fighting. Wherever he knew the most hopeless territory to be, there he drove the Russians. ”

“ An intolerant old warrior who cares not what the newspapers say in his praise, who is bored with the thousands of letters and presents that are being sent him from all parts of Germany, who when this war is over has not the slightest desire to become Minister of War—Field Marshal von Hindenburg is a military genius with a kind German heart in spite of his grim exterior, fond of a glass of good wine and a good story, but accomplishing both work and play in the fascination of strategical study. ”

“ He's very unforgiving, you know. You don't care? But, my dear dead General Von Kluck, you must care. What is it you say you wanted to do? Congratulate me? What on? My splendid defence of the Hindenburg line? Now, look here. As one German General to another do you mean to tell me you believe in the Hindenburg line? No, of course you don't. You thought I believed in it? Was that what you said? Come, don't wriggle, though you are a dead man. Yes, that was what you said. Well, then understand henceforth that there is no Hindenburg line and there never was anything of the sort. ”

“ I have a vast respect for Hindenburg (a man who can drink the mixtures he does, and still sit up and smile sunnily into the jaws of a camera ten times a day, is worthy of anybody's veneration) , but if he thought that by blowing these poor little French villages into small smithereens he would deprive the B.E.F. of head-cover and cause it to catch cold and trot home to mother, he will have to sit up late and do some more thinking. ”

“ An American "movie man" finally induced Von Hindenburg to stand before a camera. He did it in a way that made you think of the old J. P. Morgan who wanted to smash every camera he saw. For only a few seconds did Hindenburg walk in front of the movie machine but when that picture was shown in a Berlin theater the audience broke into wild applause. Von Hindenburg is the big man in Germany to-day. As a popular idol he rivals the Kaiser. The Germans have a new war poem that you hear recited in the music halls. ”

“ The All-Highest never bestows thanks upon those who obey his orders. It is, indeed, said to-day that Hindenburg has never once, during his whole official career, been verbally thanked by his Imperial Master.
The Emperor, with impatient fingers, tore open the envelope, read its contents, and then smiled contentedly, after which I went to old Von Donaustauf's room, and, tired out by the long journey, smoked a good cigar in his company.
Next day we were all back at the Berlin Schloss—for we never knew from day to day where we might be—Hamburg, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf or Danzig. ”

“ On Wednesday, the 26th of August, his advance guards were everywhere driven in. As he pushed on he discovered the enemy in great numbers, and late in the day realized that he was facing a great army.
Von Hindenburg had taken a position astride the railway from Allenstein to Soldau, and all access to his front was barred by lakes and swamps. He was safe from frontal attack, and could reinforce each wing at pleasure. From his right ran the only two good roads in the region, and at his left was the Osterode railway. ”

“ The school-children take a real interest in German victories. They get a holiday on the strength of one, and they measure the victory only by the length of their holiday. The joy is slightly adulterated by having to go to school first and listen to a careful explanation of what they are about to celebrate. Their fondness for Hindenburg is quite immoderate. In the eyes of German children, a campaign against the Russians is a most praiseworthy undertaking.
The great wooden statue of Hindenburg, encased in geranium plants and scaffolding, had many nails driven into it to-day. ”

“ Von Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived at the place that had been chosen as headquarters and he took command of the Army of the East. You know what happened, you know how the Russian invasion poured in across East Prussia, past the Masurian lakes in a semi-circle from Tilsit southwards.
You know that Hindenburg elected to give battle on a field that was four times as large as Sedan. Back of the German line Hindenburg and his staff were watching the big maps. Like a great pair of tongs his soldiers were closing in from north and south. ”

“ The marshes and the lakes form a labyrinth, difficult to pass even to those familiar with the country. The Masurian region is a great trap for any commander who has not had unlimited acquaintance with the place. Causeways, filled with great care, and railroads permit an orderly advance, but in a confused retreat disaster at once threatens.
This was the ground that von Hindenburg knew so well. The Russians resisted desperately, but their position could not be held. ”

“ VON PAPEN: The instructions given me by Von Hindenburg were as follows:
Proposal for the formation of a government under the leadership of Hitler, with the utmost restriction of National Socialist influence and within the framework of the Constitution.
I should like to add that it was quite unusual for the Reich President to ask any person to form a government which would not be headed by the person himself. In the normal course of events Hindenburg should, of course, have entrusted Hitler himself with the formation of a government ”

“ People want to smash England, of course, because, as they explain, she brought on the war and is trying to starve them, and they roar with the applause when the lightning-change man at the Wintergarten impersonates Hindenburg, because Hindenburg is a grand old scout who is keeping those millions of slovenly Russians from overrunning our tidy, busy, well-ordered Germany. ”

“ And from his headquarters the command would go by telephone to the General in the field.
I think it will not be until after this war is over that the world will know in detail what happened at Tannenberg. Von Hindenburg's strategy has jealously been hidden by the German General Staff. Not a single military attaché of a neutral country has been able to learn it. All one knows is that the Old Man of the Swamps drove the Russians into the swamps and that they perished by the thousands. ”

“ Having worn down his enemy, von Hindenburg counter-attacked. His first movement was on his right. This not only deceived Samsonov and led him to reinforce his left, but also enabled von Hindenburg to seize the only good road that would give the Russian army a chance of retreat. Meanwhile the German general was hurrying masses of troops northeastward to outflank the Russian right. While the Russians were reinforcing one flank, he was concentrating every man he could upon the other. ”

“ The battle of Gumbinnen was the first decisive engagement of the war. Its immediate result was to make Russia master of the whole of Prussia east of the line from Königsberg to Allenstein. There was no position which afforded von Hindenburg any hope of successful resistance even if he were able to collect his routed troops. Insterburg, the main point in the network of German strategic railways, fell into127 Russian hands on the evening after the battle and ensured for Rennenkampf ample supplies. ”

“ But it is fairly certain that the Russians had sent such large masses of men northwards and southwards for the operations in East Prussia and Galicia, besides providing for an army they were concentrating on the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus, that their forces in Central Poland had been considerably reduced. During Von Hindenburg’s advance they were busily engaged in reinforcing the army on the middle Vistula and in the Polish triangle of fortresses, and for this purpose they drew in several army corps from their left. ”

“ Hindenburg stands over six feet high. His whole personality radiates strength, brute, animal strength. He was, when I met him, sixty-nine years of age, but looked very much younger. His hair and moustache were still pepper and salt color. His face and forehead are deeply furrowed, which adds to his forbidding appearance. His nose and chin are prominent, but the most striking feature of the man's whole appearance are his eyes. They are steel-blue and very small, much too small for his head, which, in turn, is much too small compared with his large body. ”

“ Large forces were detached from the west and sent to the aid of the eastern army. A new commander was appointed. He was General von Hindenburg, a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War who had been for some years retired. After his retirement he devoted his time to the study of East Prussia, especially the ground around the Masurian Lakes. He became more familiar with its roads, its fields, its marshes, its bogs than any of the peasants who spent their lives in the neighborhood of the lakes. ”

“ Hindenburg is the greatest hero in Germany, and all the children idealize him. Whatever he puts his name to, goes. He and a popular pastor worked up a huge subscription for war-waifs, and when the money had been raised it was found the waifs were already well provided for. ”

“ Practically every one has been called out who could carry a gun, but the women are running the mills and the prisoners are tilling the farms. Von Hindenburg will come down upon Italy, when he has lured the Italians up into some pass and given them a sample of what the Russians got in East Prussia. ”

“ General Byng's attack covered the whole length of what had become known as the redoubtable and supposedly impregnable "Hindenburg line," so called because it had been established by that greatest of all German military geniuses, Field Marshal von Hindenburg. From Drocourt, just to the northwest of Douai, the line stretched for forty miles in a fairly straight line down through Vitryen-Artois, Villiers, Cagnocourt to Queant and Pronville, thence on to Boursies, Havrincourt, Gour Zeacourt, Epehy and St. ”

“ The lively Hoffman, a wonderful strategist, adds, "We have absolute confidence in our superiority to the Russians. We have to win and therefore we will win. It is very simple."
And the silent Lieutenant General Ludendorff, a hero of Liége, says shortly, "We will manage it."
When the dinner is over and it is drawing near to eleven o'clock, you get ready to go, for you have heard that around midnight Von Hindenburg generally has "something to do." It is said that he works hardest at that hour. ”

“ There was no conversation as the little troop rode along, and at length they were well inside the German trenches. Here, after some delay, the three prisoners were conducted before General von Hindenburg, the Teuton commander in the East, a man of kindly face and courteous bearing, the man whose successes, brief though they were, earned him the name of “The German Napoleon.”
“How comes it,” asked General von Hindenburg of Hal, “that you two American lads are fighting with the Russians? How comes it that two lads born and reared in a civilized country have espoused the cause of the barbarians?” ”

“ The knowledge that this precious Prussian land was in the hands of the enemy could not be hidden from the German people, for there were crowds of refugees in the Berlin streets, bemoaning the loss of their farms and villages. Immediately the General Staff decided that East Prussia must be recovered at all costs. They had no need to look far for the general who was to undertake this task. There was only one soldier who could do it—von Hindenburg, a veteran of 1870, a tough, hardy man, although nearer seventy years of age than sixty. ”

“ Von Hindenburg himself directed the operations of the five army corps which were to make the grand assault. On Sunday, the 18th, the Germans were on the edge of the city, and the shells from their field howitzers were bursting in the suburbs. The windows of Warsaw shook with the roar of guns, and at night the western sky was bright with the flashes of artillery and the flames of burning homesteads. Fierce warfare was raging only a few miles away, but the citizens seemed as gay and light-hearted as ever. ”

“ During the Wednesday, the 26th, Hindenburg stood upon the [Pg 362] defensive, Samsonoff attacking him upon the line Allenstein-Soldau. At the end of that defensive, the attack on which was badly hampered in so difficult a country, von Hindenburg massed men upon his right near Soldau. This move had two objects: first, by pushing the Russians back there to make them lose the only good road and railway by which they could retire south upon their communications into the country whence they had come ”

“ On account of the roads he perceived that it would be difficult for the Russians to obtain reinforcements. Von Hindenburg had with him as Chief of Staff General von Ludendorff, one of the cleverest staff officers in the German army, and General von Mackensen, a commander of almost equal repute.
The Russian army in the north had been pretty well scattered. The Russian forces were now holding a front of nearly a thousand miles, with about two million men. The Russian right center, which now protected Warsaw from the new attack could hardly number more than two hundred thousand men. ”