The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1917. GERMANY’S LATEST HOPE—LUDENDORFF

New Zealand Tablet, 1 February 1917, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1917. GERMANY’S LATEST HOPE—LUDENDORFF

«ECENT cables have referred significantly to certain conferences of the four great ones of Germany’-the expression being now used to denote the Kaiser, BethmannHollweg, Hindenburg, and Ludendorff ; and in respect to actual influence upon military operations, it is not too much to say that the greatest of these is Ludendorff. As is generally known, it is Ludendorff who has really been responsible for all the great strategical movements of Hindenburg upon the eastern front, but it is only lately that Hindenburg’s right hand man has come openly into the limelight. His name was little known at the beginning of the war: all Germany rings with it now. Ludendorff is first quartermaster-general to-daya rank so new that there is nothing to define his precise place in the military hierarchy—and the people of the fatherland are looking to this hitherto obscure soldier to - snatch that victory for which Germany so anxiously and desperately hopes. For the time being, the Kaiser is in a state of almost total eclipse,' and William 11. has been practically eliminated as a factor of particular importance in the destinies of the German Empire. With the eclipse of his father, the Crown Prince is also overshadowed. His fate has been hidden from the multitude by bestowals of decorations for valor at Verdun. The Crown Prince retains his command, but his glory is .purely official. The great general staff at Berlin is taking orders from General Ludendorff. So, at least, runs the tale in the London papers. » What manner of man is this new star on the German military horizon ? A coolness never ruffled, a courtesy as unfailing as it is becoming— are the personal impressions of the Rome Tribuna in its analysis of General von Ludendorff. To which the Manchester Guardian adds that he is reticent, discreet, yet ‘ a man of the world.’ He has been associated with Hindenburg from the first, although the two men are of a different nature altogether. Hindenburg is gruff, quarrelsome, intolerant of all opinions but his own. Ludendorff is suave, deferential, a good listener, albeit obstinate. Hinde'nburg will resent a suggestion, yet adopt it if it be good. Ludendorff will show an intelligent curiosity, manifest affability, seem convinced, but cling to his. own idea.. The pair are opposites in temperament. That explains to ' more than one European daily why they have been .brethren in arms for years. _ Not so long ago, Ludendorff shared the

obscurity as well as the : disgrace of his chief. For example, when the great war broke forth, as th q Gaulois narrates,' a visitor to the cafe des Tilleuls at Hanover might see a solitary old man there in a corner, poring j.v i i, ~ ■ , , ’ K ° over the newspapers, bulbous of nose, bleary of ©ye, dry in aspect, disagreeable in manner.: That was Hindenburg. In due time • a well-dressed, distin-guished-looking military man dropped in and sat down at the table over which the solitary veteran reigned. The newcomer was Ludendorff. The two played cards or chess, pausing between games to curse the infatuation of the general staff at Berlin with strategical combinations. Before they parted, the older man slapped the younger on the back, crying: ‘ Ludendorff, you are a genius!’ And that is the universal impression in Germany to-day. * , ' The only weakness which Hindenburg discovers in his protege is that Ludendorff is too soft.’ For example, Hindenburg was shocked to find his brilliant lieutenant on one occasion entertaining the staff with a reading of Heine’s beautiful poem, ‘The Lorelei.’ Heine is one of the favorites of Ludendorff. ‘ Poetry!’ gasped Hindenburg, emerging unexpectedly from his den and seizing the volume from the hand of his chief of staff. ‘ I am amazed. I have not read a line of poetry for forty years. That is why I am no milksop !’ He bore the volume to the fire and hurled it upon the flames. ‘ General,’ he said, turning grimly to Ludendorff, the next time you read aloud, try Clausewitz.’ Hindenburg lost favor with the Crown Prince by referring to his Highness as ‘ that charming young lady’; but Ludendorff restored the balance by observing that France was once saved from the English by a charming young lady. Hindenburg had his own grim jest when at manoeuvres Ludendorff sent for orders after some hours in the Masurian lakes, where he was standing up to his waist in water. ‘ Tell him,’ said Hindenburg, ‘to read. Heine.’ When, after a fierce engagement with the Russians later in this very district, Ludendorff bestirred himself to rescue whole regiments of the enemy from a watery grave, Hindenburg demanded: ‘Why didn’t you let the swine drown?’ ‘Oh,’ retorted Ludendorff, ‘ we needed their boots.’ The tact of Ludendorff, so the French papers tell us, saved the Masurian Lakes when Hindenburg had failed to persuade the general staff to block the project for their drainage. Hindenburg merely stormed and fumed, failing to convince. He had given up the fight and was on the eve of return to that tavern at Hanover when he thought of Ludendorff. There was just time to catch a train for Danzig, where the luckless man was pining in some obscure disgrace due, it is said, to connivance with the schemes of the Crown Prince to evade house arrest. The influence of the heir to the throne procured the necessary leave and the grim Hindenburg bore back to Berlin the one man whose reputation as a student of the art of war could not be ignored even by a Falkenhayn. The members of the general staff listened with amazement, so the tale runs, to one who, without a note or a memorandum to guide him, covered maps with pins, foretold the probable conceptions of the enemy, and outlined all the tactical factors in a campaign involving Russia. * The military experts of the French dailies* have been busily discussing the idea for which Ludendorff stands. He is the rebel of the general staff, the heretic it excommunicated. He loathes decisions which are the result of a conference among experts. Germany went into the war upon the von Moltke theory. A resultant of a number of opinions took the place of the will of a chief. In the words of the distinguished Colonel Vachee; ‘The orders are indeed given in the name of a leader who assumes responsibility for them ; but the soldiers know that he is not their author and that he has adopted without enthusiasm a collective creation.’ This is the von Moltke theory of the art of war which, according to Ludendorff, has brought upon Germany whatever disasters she has suffered.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff, having travelled together \ the whole length of,the western' front, i have,; it' is said, come to ■•a determination to Jet 5 France \ alone. ' This is r ; ; interpreted To mean no more knockings at Verdun gates, no more rushes towards Calais. Indeed, the " Manchester Guardian understands that Ludendorff and •; -v his school are saying that Germany should riot have - gone into France at all. She should have entrenched "S in the west, with no thought of invading the republic. England would have kept out. v France would not be‘ fighting with all her energy. Russia would be wiped out by this time. The followers of von BethmannHollweg take the same view. They want a strategy that pushes east and in the Balkans. They favor a submarine war in strict accord with the pledges given the United States. These facts give us a rough clue to what is coming. Should the submarine war be waged again with the ruthlessness desired by von Tirpitz, should France be pushed again in the stern fashion of the advance to the Marne, the world must , infer that the Prussian linker has come back to power, ■ and that the influence of the rising tactician has begun to wane. But so far, Ludendorff is the great discovery of the war on the German side and all the credit for it belongs to Hindenburg.