The Hindenburg Saga By G. P. GOOCH THE debunking of

Hindenburg, if an inelegant but expressive Americanism be allowed, is proceeding apace. For twenty

years he stood in the centre of the stage—first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen, as our trans- Atlantic cousins say of Washington. Hero of Tannenberg, Commander-in-Chief of the German armies, President of the Republic, father of his country, his monumental figure seemed the one fixed point in a world of confusion and despair. The symbol of Prussia's soldierly virtues, the greatest German since Bismarck, the stainless patriot standing above internal feuds, he embodied the nation's will to live. Now he is gone.

leaving a ruthless dictatorship behind him, we view him with different eyes. The brilliant colours fade away and history asserts her claims.

Such an astonishing career was bound to attract Emil Ludwig, with his eye for dramatic situations, his interest in personality, and his skill with the artist's brush. His latest portrait is one of his best. Here for the first time English readers will find a detailed account of the romantic beginnings

at Ka niggratz and Versailles, the decades of honourable but undistinguished service in the army, the crowded years of Armageddon, the temporary retirement and the sensational return.

The outbreak of war found Hindenburg, at the age of 67, living in obscurity at Hanover. His son had gone to the front, and the old war-horse fretted in his stable. The situation

was so intolerable that he addressed a piteous appeal to a friend in the War Office. " Do not forget me if a commanding officer is needed anywhere. I am robust in body and mind. You can guess my feelings when I saw men of my own age going to the front while I have to sit at home twiddling my thumbs. I am ashamed to show my face in the street."

A few days later Prittwitz, the Commander in East Prussia, ordered a retirement in face of the advancing Russian hordes.

He was promptly dismissed, and Ludendorff, who had sprung into fame by his dashing attack on Liege, was selected to retrieve the situation. In accordance with German practice a dignified figure-head was required to assume the nominal command, as the Crown Prince and other royalties were placed . in titular control of army groups in the west. Ludendorff's fiery temperament suggested the desirability of a steady

partner, and Hindenburg, who was known for his imperturb- ability and had not an enemy in the world, was chosen for the task. A few hours later the two men were sitting in the special train that bore them towards the Eastern Front. Immediately after their arrival a victory as decisive as Cannae and Waterloo drove the Russians out of East Prussia, and diverted attention from the battle of the Marne.

Who won the battle of Tannenberg ? Ludendorff and Hoffmann, replies history. Yet without inquiry or hesitation the German people fastened the laurels of victory on the brow of the Commander-in-Chief, whose name, hitherto unknown even to his countrymen, echoed across the world. - The nation had found a leader, an oracle, a very present help in time of trouble. When Moltke collapsed under the shock of the Marne, and Falkenhayn broke himself against the ramparts of -Verdun, the cry for Hindenburg became irresistible. For the latter half of the struggle, with Ludendorff at his side, he controlled the armies, the strategy and the policy of the Central Powers.

Dr. Ludwig's picture of the old Field-Marshal perched on his pinnacle of fame is not unattractive. Modest, kindly and courteous by nature, his very presence radiated confidence and hope. Never overworked—for Ludendorff made the Hindenburg. By Emil Ludwig. Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul. (Heinemann.. 12s. 6d.) plans which his superior approved—he ate well, slept well, received visitors, wrote letters, and kept up the spirits of the nation. While the Chief of the Staff made no attempt to conceal his anxieties and hurried back to work after meals, the Commander-in-Chief sat on at table telling stories of the hunting-field and his early campaigns, as if he had not a care in the world. Like Kitchener, he owed a great debt to his commanding stature, and still more to his massive head, which seemed to be carved out of granite. With Hindenburg in command, no German could believe in the possibility of defeat. The legend of his military prowess and the demon- strable reality of his steady nerves acted like a perpetual tonic. If it be argued that there was something morally undignified in accepting the incense which he had done so little to deserve, we must reflect that, if Tannenberg had gone the other way, he would have shouldered responsibility for defeat.

The Field-Marshal would have been more than human had he not, in some measure, come to accept the popular estimate of his abilities. He described himself as of an unpolitical nature ; but the dictatorship thrust upon him by his country- men compelled him to take political decisions, and his self- confidence waxed with his fame. The Kaiser, though jealous of his popularity, was powerless. Bethmann vanished at his frown in 1917, and Kuhlmann a year later. The unlimited submarine campaign which brought America into- the War was adopted at his demand. All talk of a negotiated Peace was silenced by assurances of victory, reiterated long after it had eluded his grasp. Thus the hero of Tannenberg bears his share of responsibility for the humiliations of Versailles.

When the crash came at last Ludendorff lost his nerve and the Kaiser fled to Holland. The old Field-Marshal, imperturbable in victory and defeat, stood like a rock in the surging flood. As his biographer remarks,. it was the moral climax of his career. Though he had no loye for his neurotic master, the deposition of William II moved him to tears ; and Dr. Ludwig is surely right in believing that, had the defeated monarch sought a glorious death in battle, Hinden- burg would have ridden contentedly at his side.

To most English readers the final act of the drama will prove the most thrilling, for the roar of the German revolution is in our ears. The death of his wife left the old soldier a very lonely man, and when an impressive champion was needed by the parties of the Right to stand for the Presidency in 1925 on the death of Ebert, he readily responded to the call. Defeating Marx, the Catholic ex-Chancellor, by a narrow majority, he quickly settled into the unfamiliar routine. The nation was on the up grade, and the President, still vigorous in mind and body, enjoyed his Indian summer. It was only towards the end of his septennatc that dark clouds rolled up in the sky.

He was re-elected in 1932 by the oratorical efforts of Bruning and the votes of Centre and Left. But Hitler was not far behind, the Democratic parties were divided, and the _Junkers were up in arms against schemes of land settlement in East Prussia. A month after his triumph, without con- sulting the Reichstag or the party leaders, he curtly dis- missed Bruning, called the unpopular reactionary Papen to the helm, and opened the floodgates of revolution. Dr. Ludwig declares that he had become harsher and more auto- cratic with advancing years, and his treatment of the Chan- cellor who had served the Fatherland with rare devotion is . an ineffaceable stain. How Papen failed ; how Schleicher, . the restless schemer, rose and fell ; how the selfish intrigues of the Junkers brought Hitler to power at the very moment that his popularity was waning, must be read in these exciting pages, from which the old President emerges with sadly bedraggled plumes.

What is left of the once almighty war-god when the critic has done his work ? A great patriot, a great gentleman, not a great soldier, certainly not a great man. We derive a similar impression from the still more recent biography by Dr. Rudolf Olden, which equally deserves the honour of translation. Had he died at the close of his first term, his character would have been judged almost equal to his fame. In his second term, for the first time in his life he failed to play the game. His biographer rings down the curtain as the old man sits at his desk in Neudeck, pausing long before he signs the telegram of congratulation to Hitler on the massacre of June 80th, which included several of his friends. After his supreme humiliation it was indeed time to go. A month later he was dead.