Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/407

 of the Austrian front. Finally, on Aug. 29 1916, he was made chief of the general staff of the army in succession to Falkenhayn. In this capacity he controlled the whole conduct of the operations in the East and West, with Ludendorff in the position of quartermaster-general as his adviser and executive officer. His achievements and failures during this period belong to the military history of the war, but it may be mentioned here that his identification with Ludendorff was so close in everything he did that the credit or discredit is rightly attached to the younger soldier, who was in the full vigour of his faculties and powers of initiative. The German people, which was unable to personify, as in 1870–71, the spirit of the war and of its patriotic aspirations in an emperor, a crown prince or a chancellor, centred its hopes and its enthusiasms upon Hindenburg, its deliverer from the tremendous Russian menace. Justice and the facts of the case soon compelled it to associate Ludendorff inseparably with the fame of its hero, but Hindenburg remained during the war the national figure-head. A wooden statue of him was erected in the Königsplatz in Berlin, and patriotic persons of all classes paid sums of money towards war charities for the privilege of driving a nail into this effigy.

Hindenburg entirely associated himself with Ludendorff in urging upon the German Government, in Sept. and Oct. 1918, the necessity of seeking an armistice. When the Armistice had been arranged the urgent question arose of leading the partially disorganized German armies of the West home and disbanding them. It was to the unequalled prestige and authority of Hindenburg that the provisional Republican Government, the Commission of the six Delegates of the People, looked to cope with this gigantic task. And it must be acknowledged that the magnanimity and the patriotic devotion of the man were even more strikingly displayed in this emergency than in his greatest military achievements. He addressed to the army an appeal in which he announced that an Armistice on very hard terms had been signed. He paid a tribute to the services of the army which had kept the enemy far from Germany’s frontiers and thus saved the country from the horrors and devastation of war. He maintained that they “issued from the struggle proud and with heads erect.” And he concluded:—

“The terms of the Armistice oblige us to execute a rapid march home in present circumstances a difficult task which demands self-control and the most faithful fulfilment of duty by every single one of you, a hard test for the spirit and the internal cohesion of the Army. In battle your Field-Marshal-General never left you in the lurch. And I rely upon you now as before.”

In other aspects these post-war services of Hindenburg had certain grave and prejudicial effects. The role which was assigned to him and to other soldiers (Ludendorff being carefully excluded as too dangerous a political schemer) demonstrated that the German Republic was at first unable to dispense with the services of royalist officers, just as it was unable for a long time to replace royalist officials by republicans. The Kapp coup d’état of March 1920 was facilitated by the fact that many of these officers and officials were in a position to make their influence felt against the republic. There was at one time, in 1920, some talk of putting up Hindenburg as a candidate for the presidency of the Reich, if it had then become vacant. During the first half of 1919 Hindenburg held the chief command of the forces for defending the Eastern frontier (Grenzschutz Ost), which had headquarters at Kolberg on the Baltic. He retired from active service on July 3 1919, and subsequently lived at Hanover as a private citizen. Unlike Ludendorff, he kept himself clear of the political conflicts of the day. A chivalrous, almost a quixotic action, was his offer, on the morrow of his retirement, to place himself at the disposal of the Allied and Associated Powers as a substitute for the ex-Emperor, if it had been decided by the Allies that William II. should actually be prosecuted. In 1920 he published his recollections under the title of Aus meinem Leben. MINES, WALKER DOWNER (1870–), American railway official, was born at Russelville, Ky., Feb. 2 1870. He was educated at Ogden College (B.S. 1888) and the university of Virginia (B.L. 1893). From 1893 to 1904 he was with the Louisville & Nashville railway as assistant attorney, assistant chief attorney and, after 1901, as first vice-president. He practised law in Louisville, Ky., 1904–6 and in New York City 1906–16. In 1906 he became general counsel for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway, serving in this capacity for 12 years. He was also chairman of the executive committee after 1908 and chairman of the board of directors from 1916. In Feb. 1918, when the U.S. Government assumed control of the railways as a war measure, he was appointed assistant director-general, and in Jan. of the following year succeeded William G. McAdoo as director-general. He resigned the directorship in May 1920, intending to resume the practice of law in New York City, but was appointed by President Wilson to act as arbitrator in the distribution of German inland shipping under the Peace Treaty. He was specially versed in questions of interstate commerce and wrote many articles on federal regulation of railways. HINTZE, PAUL VON (1864–), German admiral and diplomatist, was born at Schwedt-on-the-Oder Feb. 13 1864. He entered the navy and was from 1903–6 naval attache for the Scandinavian states with his headquarters in St. Petersburg. He was supposed to have won the confidence of the Tsar Nicholas II. and was appointed in 1908 military plenipotentiary at the Russian Court. There is evidence, however, that the Tsar had become suspicious of his activities, and that he had, perhaps through his agents, been somewhat too observant in the interests of Germany. His adventures as a diplomatist during the World War awakened popular interest. He was recalled from his post in Mexico at the end of 1914 in order to be sent to Pekin, a journey which he managed to effect in spite of the vigilance of the naval forces of the Allied Powers. Transferred to Christiania in 1915 he again succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the Allies and in reaching his new post. From July 9 to Oct. 3 1918 he was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in succession to Kühlmann and was privy to the exchange of views between the Higher Command and the Chancellor in Aug. and again at the end of Sept. which led to the German demand for an armistice. Tirpitz, who entertained a high opinion of him, expressed in his book Erinnerungen (1919) the opinion that war with Russia might have been averted in 1914 if the Emperor had sent Hintze on a special mission to the Tsar. HITCHCOCK, GEORGE (1850–1913), American painter (see ), died on the Island of Marken, Holland, Aug. 2 1913. HITCHCOCK, GILBERT MONELL (1859–), American politician, was born at Omaha, Neb., Sept. 18 1859. His father, Phineas W. Hitchcock, was U.S. senator from Nebraska 1871–77. He was educated at Omaha, Baden-Baden (Germany), and the law school of the university of Michigan (LL.B. 1881). He was admitted to the bar in 1881 and practised law in Omaha for four years. In 1885 he founded the Omaha Evening World and four years later bought the Omaha Morning Herald, combining the two papers into the World-Herald. He was representative in Congress 1903–5 and 1907–11. He was elected U.S. senator for the term 1911–7 and reelected to serve through 1923. Soon after the outbreak of the World War in 1914 he introduced an unsuccessful bill to prevent war loans to the warring countries as well as the buying and selling of their securities. The same year he introduced another unsuccessful bill to embargo the shipment of ammunition and arms for use against countries with which America was at peace. After the sinking of the “Lusitania” in 1915 he believed that action on the part of America should be limited to a demand for reparation. In 1917, however, he urged support of the resolution for a declaration of war against Germany and in 1918 became chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. When the President submitted to the Senate the Treaty of Versailles, Senator Hitchcock not only led the administration forces by virtue of his office, but also gave strong support to the League of Nations, arguing that it threatened neither the Monroe Doctrine nor U.S. sovereignty. HOCKING, SILAS KITTO (1850–), English novelist, was born at St. Stephen’s, Corn., March 24 1850 and educated at the local grammar school. He was ordained as a Free Church minister in 1870 but resigned his pastorate in 1896. Both he and his younger brother, (b. Nov. 7 1860), who had a