Hindenburg

Before the warm glow of his German hearth,, many a citizen of the Deutsches Reich scanned with rage and alarm, last week, the intemperate bombast of the German press, which thundered a warning that the Allied Powers were even then "packing" the Council of the League of Nations against Germany. (See THE LEAGUE, opposite page.)

Only one soothing note was struck: the assertion that Germany's "will to enter the League alone," as epitomized in the inflexible person of her President, must triumph. As youthful Germans crowded about their parents to know the meaning of all these developments, there was told to them again the plenipotent legend of Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und Hindenburg:

"Eine Selbstverstandlichkeit." To begin, the von Beneckendorffs have been for some 600 years among the most respected of the lesser Prussian nobility. By chance, the President's great-grandfather received from his great-uncle (a von Hindenburg) certain landed estates, willed him only on condition that he add the comparatively "nouveau" title of "von Hindenburg" to his own illustrious one. His son, a Prussian officer as a matter of course, married the daughter of an army surgeon. To them was born Paul, a deep-chested healthy infant, who inhaled the atmosphere of Prussian militarism with his first breath (1847).

When he cried, his nursery maid, a former sutler, used to bellow at him: "Silence in the company!" When he went out to play, the family gardener fired the young Paul's imagination with tales of how he had served as a drummer-boy under Frederick the Great. At the age of "eighteen-and-a-half" Paul had won his way through military school to lieutenantship in the Austro-Prussian War. Said he, years afterward, "I made no choice of a profession. To fight was 'the only thing to do,' 'eine Selbstverstandlichkeit'."

"Blut und Schlamm." His joy at his first taste of warfare was quickly conveyed to his family by letter: "I gratified my longings on the battlefield -smelt powder, heard whistling around me projectiles of all kinds -shells, shrapnel, canister, rifle-bullets; I was slightly wounded, thus becoming an interesting person; and I captured five cannon."

None the less, his promotion was slow. He was 47 before he became a colonel (1894) but he had plodded valiantly through Bismarck's Blut und Schlamm (blood and mud). Moreover he had become a valued if not a great tactician and had served as a professor at the War Academy. In 1896 his reward came. He was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the VIII Army Corps, and in 1904 was transferred to command the IV Army Corps -the summit of a German General's hopes in time of peace.

In 1911 he was 64. His friends explained that he retired then, "in good time, to make room for the younger men." His enemies hinted that the temperamental Wilhelm II had evinced displeasure at the way in which he maneuvered his corps. He retired "to my cottage at Hanover" and commenced to write "for my family alone" the memoirs of what he considered a long life.

General-Feldmarschal. On the morning of Aug. 22, 1914, "Old Paul von Hindenburg" awoke at his "cottage" in a somewhat saddened mood: "Of course I had tendered my services immediately after the War broke out; but since then I had heard nothing. The uncertainty of waiting seemed endless. I had given up all hope of being reinstated in the army. Then suddenly came a despatch informing me that His Majesty had given me the command of the Eastern Army. I had time only to get together the most necessary articles of clothing and have my old uniform put in condition for service."

As dusk fell, a special train roared into Hanover, equipped as General Staff Headquarters, and bore Generaloberst (Colonel-General) von Hindenburg away. Seven days later, the world rang with the news that HINDENBURG had driven the Russian Narew Army of five army corps and three cavalry divisions back across its own frontier. Within six months, HINDENBURG had taken 500,000 prisoners -half a million-a number unparalleled, staggering. The old man became GENERAL-FELDMARSCHAL von HINDENBURG. Behind that gigantic cloak moved a neurasthenic, a genius, a man too eccentric and of too insignificant family to be given so august a title by Wilhelm II-Ludendorff.

In time Wilhelm II petulantly regretted his wisdom: "When I, the Emperor, march through the Brandenburg Gate at the head of my troops, am I to be greeted with this eternal shout of 'HINDENBURG'?"

It was too late then to hush the clamor. Too late to undermine the prestige of a name so colossal.

Hindenburg. Defeat only strengthened him. While the Kaiser fled to Holland, he steadfastly remained with his troops and did all he could to make easy their retreat: "In battle your General-Feldmarschal never failed you! He relies upon you now, as before! Retreat bravely!"

With such published orders (no matter who penned them) the steadfast old man displayed the one characteristic which he indisputably possesses: Loyalty.

When the retreat was finished and he had retired "for good and all now," he quixotically offered to place himself at the disposal of the Allies for trial, if they would accept him as a substitute for his Emperor. . . .

A great gesture, certainly. To Wilhelm II he sent word of this offer, and signed the letter as he had always done: "Mit untertaenigem Handkuss" [Obediently I kiss your hand]. . . .

That "kiss," perhaps as much as anything else, made it necessary for the twice retired "Old Paul von Hindenburg" to emerge once more -PRESIDENT.