FAMOUS GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 December 1939, Page 6

FAMOUS GENERAL

FIELD-MARSHAL VON MACKENSEN NINETIETH BIRTHDAY. Field-Marshal August von Mackensen. whom Herr Adolf Hitler visited on his ninetieth birthday, was reputedly one of Germany’s cleverest military leaders. He was born in Saxony and entered the Army as a volunteer in October, 1869. He took part in the Franco-German war of 1870-71 and emerged from it as a lieutenant. In 1903 he became commander of the Thirty-sixth Division at Danzig, and five years later commander of the Seventeenth Army Corps at Danzig. With this corps he took part in the battles in East Prussia at the beginning of the Great War. and made his debut as an independent, leader in the German May offensive of 1915 against Russia. With his Chief of Staff, General von Secckt, he planned the breakthrough near Gori ice and Tarnow, and alter reaching the San River executed his famous turn to the north by which the Russians were driven out of Poland. The Germans thus by one of the ironies of history contributed to the liberation of Poland from the Russian yoke. He was created a field-marshal in June. 1915. and later served in the Balkans. After the Armistice he went to Budapest, where he was arrested by the French on December 16. 1918. and interned in the castle of Foth. Later he was transferred to Salonika, where lie was kept a prisoner till November. 1919. Just before his seventieth birthday he was allowed to return to Germany.