“WITH PURE HEARTS”

Evening Star, Issue 19665, 19 September 1927, Page 6

“WITH PURE HEARTS”

GERMANY AND THE WAR RESPONSIBILITY REPUDIATED SPEECH BY PRESIDENT 111NDENBURG. ?r©M Association—By Telegraph—Copyright BERLIN, September 18. (Received September 13, at 1.20 p.m.) President Hindcnburgh celebrated bis eightieth birthday by unveiling a typically massive war memorial on tho site of tho battle of Tannonberg, where thirteen years ago he stemmed the Russian avalanche. Th his speech the President said: “On this spot 1 solemnly repudiate German responsibility for tho Great War. Neither envy, hate, nor Inst drove us to unshcatlr tho sword, but tho preservation of our existence from a host of enemies. We entered the war with pure hearts and waged it with clean hands.”[Tho Battle of Tannonberg. or the Masurian Lakes, August 25-31, 13M, ended tho Russians’ invasion of East Prussia in the first weeks of the war. Tho Germans took 30,000 prisoners anl captured hundreds of prisoners. The credit for the decisive victory was long given to Hinclcnburg, who had studied tho district in earlier manoeuvres; then it was suggested that Ludendorff had a larger share in it. Tho latest evidence seems to show that the strategic success was the result of measures taken before tho great pair arrived; while the tactical success was the result of the action of General Von Francois, then commanding the First Corps, and was achieved by disobedience, repeated more than once, to the orders issued by Lndcndorfl.J