GERMAN SOLDIER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21937, 22 October 1934, Page 10

GERMAN SOLDIER

DEATH OF VON KLUCK M y : -V: PART IN THE GREAT WAR . BERLIN. Oct. 19 The death is announced of Field. Marshal von Kluck, who was commander of the German First Army in 1914. General von Kluck seemed to the British public at the opening .of tho Great War the commander • of- all the.? German armies, because his army fell: on the British forces at Mons and was the driving force in the retreat to the Marne. Actually, he commanded only the Ist Army, which constituted the right wing of the German forces! Stur dents of military history iind much of interest in von Kluck's conduct in tha early operations in Belgium and France. Tribute is paid to him for his magnificent feat in moving hi» army of 200,000 men in swift columns through Aix-la-Chapelle in a few hours. It was an epic in organisation, as was the manner in which he maintained numerous divisions on single roads. There is a difference of opinion' a& tn whether von Kluck was correct in assuming hi* army was to be a smashing force or whether von Bulow, the army group commander, had the sounder view in' regarding the Ist Army merely as a flank protector. The fact remains that after the British bad escaped the trap of Maubeuge and had later disengaged from the Germans, von Kluck marched south-west to Amiens, leafing a gap l between himself and von Bulow. It was while he was marching south-east to re-establish contact that the Battl« of the Marne was foughit and von Kluck'f troops were caught in the rear by Mauooury's French a.rmy, which came out of Paris in taxirabs aid buses. The w T ar knew very little else of von Kluck, for he was wounded in March, 1915. and was retired in the following year. His book, "The March on Paris,'' is regarded'as his apologia, but is well worth studv.