Behind the Scenes in Warring GermanyFox, Edward Lyell
History
Behind the Scenes in Warring Germany
Fox, Edward Lyell
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
I was looking at a placard written with a pen and fastened to one of the
unpretentious doors, opening into little ante rooms from the great hall,
which read--"Commander in Chief." On the other side of that door was the
sixty-eight-year-old warrior who has become the national hero of
Germany. To name the town where this took place would be a breach of
military etiquette. I am, however, permitted to say that the Field
Marshal has had his headquarters at Posen, Allenstein, Insterburg, and
another place south of Insterburg about one hundred and fifty kilometers
which the officers of General von Eichorn's Tenth Army spoke of as "a
place unnamed." The reason for this secrecy was reflected in "the town."
Plunged in total darkness, save for a few lanterns, it was impossible to
locate from the sky. Russian aviators could not steal over it by night
and drop bombs to kill the man who is so utterly a master of the armies
that the Czar sends against Germany.
There came Captain Cammerer, first adjutant of Hindenburg, a Prussian
officer of artillery, who said that the Field Marshal would soon receive
us. One gleaned that although the Captain appreciated the distinction,
he longed for the battlefield; one heard him talk eagerly of Tannenberg
where he had made some Russian prisoners. "But now my fingers are
covered with corns," and Cammerer smiled in a melancholy way. "I have to
write much." And then the door that bore the sign, "Commander in Chief,"
opened, and the officer bowed us in. Field Marshal von Hindenburg had
risen to meet us.
My first impression was that Von Hindenburg's pictures have done him an
injustice. There is no denying that his photographs create the
impression of a tremendously strong face ruthless almost to the point of
cruelty. But the camera fails utterly to catch the real Hindenburg. His
is a face tremendously strong, with a chin that is like a buttress and a
forehead of the width that means power and there is a firmness to his
little blue eyes; all these things the camera shows. It does not show
the twinkle in these eyes; nor does it show the kindness that lurks in
the wrinkles of his warty weather-beaten skin. It fails utterly to
depict the pleasant smile that his small sharply cut mouth can show.
Sixty-eight years you are thinking in amazement. This man does not look
more than fifty. All his faculties seem at their zenith. His nose is the
nose of the eagle and it impresses you with wonderful alertness. There
is much color in his mustache, a tawny shade, a large curving but rather
peaceful looking mustache that has not the aggressive angle of the
Emperor's. So massive are his shoulders that I thought at first that his
close cropped gray head was perhaps a little small. But it is a
typically round German head of the strong mold that you see in the
pictures of Durer and Holbein.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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