VON HINDENBURG, THE RIDDLE.
CRITICAL APPRAISEMENT OF FAMOUS GENERAL.
" NEVER KNOWS DEFEAT."
The latest riddle pi the Great War is the personality of General von Hindenhurg. His meteoric rise to fame as the one German General who succeeded in stemming the progress of the Russian "steam ,1-oller" is still fresh in the minds of all. But subsequent events have caused most to pause and ask whctlier it was justifiable to place him on so high a pedestal. How high the pedestal was may be judged in part by the extraordinary manner in which the German nation itself acclaimed him.
According to a Swedish observer, General von Hindenburg was made honorary doctor of all the faculties in the East Prussian Universities. Music, law, philosophy, medicine, languages, engineering claimed him. He accepted 50 different decrees. The ruined villages in East Prussia were to be built up again and called Hindenburg, Hindenborg, Hinden, and so on. Every town and village was to have its Hindenburgstrasse, and public offices, buildings, and theatres were to be blessed with his name.
The General simply shook his head in despair at his overwhelming popularity, said the Swede. The piles of letters, telegrams, and flowers from all over Germany on his writing-desk got higher every day. He received between 150 and 200 applications from cigar aiijr cigarette dealers and manufacturers asking for his patronage and his photograph to In? reproduced on their boxes. Fifty Hindenburg marches were composed by Germany's best musical professors, and also by humble school teachers in East Prussia.
AN UNFORTUNATE INTERVIEW.
It was unfortunate that, in the hour of his victory, von Hindenhurg should have fallen a victim to a particularly wretched sample of journalistic enterprise. He was "interviewed," and his opinion sought as to the merits of the Russians whom ho had so surprisingly hcaten. What he had to say upon that particular point was so much in disagreement with what had been his actual experiences that it was open to one to accept either one of two conclusions: either the General was wrongly reported (as now. indeed, seems to he the. case'), or he displayed a wanton disregard for the truth unite out of Keeping with his admittedly great attainments.
If it he possible to judge a man by his pictures, then, much as one would be ready to admit thai von Hindenburg could in time of necessity he hard and even cruel to a degree, it would at the same time be possible to grant that such a man could he childishly foolish. Ability is stamped upon every feature. The face is one of power, of bulldog tenacity, and. more than that, of acumen.
As to the military capacities of the man there can he no two opinions. It may be remembered that not so very long ago the military correspondent of the "Times" in Poland said of him: "Von Hindenhurg, to do him justice, i* a hard hitter, and knows the value of time." Then there is the expert on thestaff of the "Daily News," who admitted at the time that:
A NAPOLEONIC MOVE. " Von Hindenburg's incursion into Poland is a hold strategical stroke, (piite as good as some of the best things of the kind that Napoleon ever did, the more so because it took us all by surprise, including the Kaiser and the German General Staff; but we must not attach too much importance to the affair, or regard it as otherwise than an afterthought which came opportunely into the mind of an able General, who forthwith, and without asking for orders, translated his thoughts into actions. What von Hindenhurg is now doing reminds us of some of thos» equally bold strokes of which we read in the history of the campaign of 1870-71, before the German Army had begun to suffer from crystallisation. 1 ' Now that his career has been brought so much into the limelight, it is possible t.' account in some measure for the success that attained ihis dash into Russian Poland and his great victory at the Masurian Lakes. It appears that it was to this region that von Hindenhurg was regularly despatched at the annual manoeuvres, so that when the war broke out he was soon acting in country that he knew as well as the palm of his hand. Those who had the misfortune to he pitted against him in these mock campaigns are reported to have always greeted the news of their lot with the words: "To-day wo shall have a bath." Indeed, it appears to have been a regular thing for them to find themselves at the close of the manoeuvres up to their necks in water somewhere or other in that region of
swamps. lint there is still one greater military virtue to the credit of this man. He is said never to know the meaning of defeat. This power of withstanding the depression of adversity must, have stood him in good stead after that rewrse that met his first mistimed rush on Warsaw. It is a virtue that he will lie called upon to exercise many a time yet. The duel between this maiAcnd tiie sileat and equally enigmatic (irana Duke Xicholas is now being fought out with all the resources that either lender
can bring to hour. What will ho the iiltimnto result none can say. All that h known is that it will he no .natter of a few weeks or even months, ilistory is now presenting us with a .iraeti[■nl oxamulo of that time-worn problom» " What, happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable body?"
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Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 24, 26 March 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)
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930VON HINDENBURG, THE RIDDLE. Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 24, 26 March 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)
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