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Show Hindenburg Figurehead and Ludendorff Brain of Hun 'War Machine Skillful Savagery of German in 1917 Retreat Shamed His Untutored Forebears; Famed , "Defense Line Seemingly Impregnable. By MAJOR J3ENEEAL SIR FREDERICK MAURICE, Chiet of Operations of the British Army. (Copyright, 1919, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.') military efficiency of their feeble Austrian Aus-trian all', with the failure of their generals gen-erals in the west, who had the pick of the German army at their disposal, to make good the promises they had made. Hindenburg Fine Military Dummy. Hindenburg 's square head, his burly figure, his strong character, his contempt con-tempt of the arts of peace and his prowess with the bottle, of which stories sto-ries were in circulation, made him an admirable embodiment of Prussian militarism, mil-itarism, a living exponent of the gospel of might is right, which the German people had adopted with enthusiasm. He provided the kaiser with just the personality needed at great headquarters headquar-ters to keep the war fever in the fatherland' fa-therland' at boiling point. Ludendorff, who did his work at the office desk, and was first and foremost a military thinker, could never make the same appeal ap-peal to the popular imagination as did his chief. The pair, therefore, made an excellent excel-lent combination. The Germans have always been good at such combinations, at providing the strong personality or the royal pcrsohnge with just the right brain. The classic example is that of Blucher and Gneiscnau in the closing years of the Napoleonic wars. Blucher was then the personality, Gueisenau the brain. Both of them came to England for the fetes which followed the peace of 1S15, and it is told of Blucher that he then made a bet in a London draw-ingroom draw-ingroom that he was the only man in the room who could kiss his own head. He won his wager by walking up to Gneiseaau and giving him a smacking kiss on both cheeks. I doubt if Ilin- (Continned on Page Eleven.) FOCH having prepared the way for his decisive thrust by. his series se-ries of preliminary punches, was about to launch the allied armies against the most formidable of all the German defenses. The name Hindenburg Hinden-burg line originated with the British i soldiers, who so entitled a great system of German works which had been discovered dis-covered toward the end of 1916 behind the Somroe battlefield. In the middle of the campaign of that year, Falken-hayn, Falken-hayn, whose plans for the capture of Verdun had failed ignominiously, was removed from his position as chief of the great general staff, and Hindenburg, Hinden-burg, with Ludendorff as his first assistant, as-sistant, was brought over from the Russian front to succeed him at the great headquarters. The pair had not been there very long before it became clear that Hindenburg was little more than a figurehead and Ludendorff was de facto chief of the German war organization. or-ganization. Hindenburg had won the deep gratitude grati-tude of the Berliners by his great victory vic-tory of Tanenburg, won at a time when they were trembling in their shoes at the Russian invasion of East Prussia. We built high hopes upon the Russian steam roller, and during the first months of the war the German public regarded it as being as formidable as we did. They were never easy in their minds until the Russians were driven back, and , when this result w;is achieved they contrasted Hindenburg 's ""performances, with armies composed at first largely of second-rate troops, and the manner in which he restored the LUDENDORFF BRAIN OF 1E1H lH HIRE Hindenburg1 Served Admirably Ad-mirably as a Figurehead of Militarism. (Continued Prom Page One.) dciiburp; WCrc ever so frank as Bluclier, but ll'f relations between him and Lu-demiorf Lu-demiorf were very inueh tliose of their predecessors of U0 years before. Problem Before Germany Grave. j When llindcnburs ;inrt Lndcndorff first arrived at great headquarters, the' German military situation was by no moans rosy. Jiussia was still formidable, formid-able, the Austrian army required a peat deal of support, Eumania was about to enter the field, the Verdun offensive of-fensive had proved to be a disastrous ! failure, the British army had grown to i formidable dimensions, and the Franco-I Franco-I British attacks on the 8omme were ' pressing the Germans hard and eating ; up their reserves. Ludendorff wished '. first to finish off Russia and Uumania, j and in order to do this he had to make the situation in the west safe and be ', able to economize troops there. The ; only way in which he could do this cf-i cf-i fectively was by shortening his front. j c -ouid not give up any ground in '; Belgium without endangering his hold i upon Ostend and Zeebruggc, whieh were j invaluable as bases from which sub-l sub-l marines and destroyers could attack i the British communications across the 1 channel, while the country about I Bruges and Ghent gave him an exeel- lent" jumpiug-off place for aeroplane I raids upon London and the southeast of England. 8 He did not wish to abandon Lille, be-I be-I taaso great pains had been taken to fortify the place, which had become I the northern pivot of the German defensive de-fensive system, while the great manufacturing manu-facturing district surrounding the town aj of the utmost value. Xor did he rah to come away from the Yimy ri'lcc for it covered a great part of I the Lens coal fields and in the hands I of the allies would be a strong barrier I against a German offensive, when he gj was rwd.v to attack in the west. West 5 of Laon the Pr. Gobain massif formed A a pivot for his center, which it was 9 important to hold. Between Tlhciins and Ve'rdun a withdrawal would not shorten his front, and would bring his X enemy dangerouslv near the railway ''j which connected Met, with Sedan Mez-j!j Mez-j!j lores, part of his main lateral line of n communications."' i Vimy-St. Gobain Retreat Ordered. ' In the east he could not yield any t territory without exposing 'Metz to ' ij bombardment and Aisaee and Lorraine ; to invasion. Between the Yimy ridge 'i and the St. Gobain massif, however, his tlj front formed a great arc. into which the French and British had bitten deep tic" . . during the battle of Snmme. Bv eom-"K eom-"K out ot this arc, he would shorten "out, get his troops out of an cm-I'.irrassing cm-I'.irrassing position and would be vieid-"! vieid-"! .rreurh tenilorv which was of no special value to him. Accordingly he determined to construct a chord for the are, and to draw ba,-k to the chord in t"s own tune, bo tiic -Hiiurclii-ur- line was begun. The original sect iou of the Uindcn-burg Uindcn-burg line started just east of Arras, where it connected with the defenses ot the inij- ridge ami ran southeastward southeast-ward to the Canal du Xord eight miles west ot Cambrai, tlinu-e it followed an almost north and south line past the western outskirts of St. Quentin, through La Fere to the St. ijobain niasHit It was this povtk.n of the line winch leaped into fame when Luden-dorft Luden-dorft carried out his withdrawal in the early months of 1917. Jle had realised re-alised that he would probablv be attacked at-tacked again on the western 'front in ihe spring of that year, and had all his plans prepare.! before the allies were ready to begin. Having completed his defenses, he slowly brought back the bulk ol. his troops and material, leaving leav-ing only rearguards in his front, line. He there proceeded to lav waste systematically sys-tematically the country he intended'to abandon. Hun Brutality Part of Plan. Every article of value was removed from the French towns and villages, all the able-bodied inhabitants were deported, de-ported, and most of those who were too young, too old or too feeble to be of service were collected in two or three centers, to be rescued bv the allies when they advanced. The trees were cut down, not even the orchards being spared, the villages were set on fire, the- towns were gutted, explosives being be-ing used for the more solid buildings which fire could not damage sufficiently, suffi-ciently, the wells were fouled, everv road and railway bridge was destroyed, the railway embankments wore blown in, the rails were torn up, and mines were exploded under every cross roads, making craters which effectively barred wheeled traffic. As a last refinement, re-finement, a series of deviiishl.y-cunn.vng booby traps were devised, consisting of wires connected to German helmets, pianos, door handles, the steps of dugouts dug-outs or of houses, which when touched exploded charges and cost us the lives of many of oar men. The systematic and skillful savagery of the modern German created a devastation which shamed the best efforts of his untutored untu-tored forebears. This- was all part of Ludendorff 's scheme of defense. He knew that the time and labor required to restore the communications, to repair the bridges and provide water and shelter for their troops would derange the plans of the allied generals and as a purely military measure the scheme was an unqualified success, for it unquestionably contributed contrib-uted very largely to the failure of General Gen-eral Xivello 's offensive, Nivelle had intended that one of his attacks should be made against the southern part of the front from which the Germans had retired, and he had no time to prepare properly for another to take its place, with the result that his attack on St. Quentin was a complete failure, while Ludendorff, by shortening his front, obtained the reserves necessary to meet and cheek JS'ivelle's main attack on the Aisne. Only the British pare- of Nivelle 's campaign met with any considerable con-siderable measure of success. In the battle of Arras in April, 1017, the Yimy ridge was captured, and a part of the Arras arm of the llindenburg line was rolled up. Hindenburg Line System Begun. Before the battle of Arras had startPd the Germans had b'-.irun to prepare for tjie . possibility of ti e capture of the Viiny riurre ey dijreriner a northern extension ex-tension of the Hindenburs line, which ran from Queant ten miles east of Cambrai Cam-brai and tiienee northward tm-0UL-h Pro-court Pro-court and east of Icns to tire southern dpfenncs of Lii'e. This was the line known to the British army as tile Dro-court-tjucant switch, and broken bv them on September '2, V.'l9. It was a beinnine; of a vast extension of The H inrl.-iH'ur system earried out throughout If1 1 7 . dur-ir.s.' dur-ir.s.' the whole of which year the Germans were on the defensive. M and Metz became the-main pivots of this extended system. The term line as applied to it is a misnomer, for nowhere did it consist con-sist of a single line of trenches. It was composed of a whole series of trench lines enclosing a heavily fortified area, many miles in depth. Tile Germans' to mark thfir sense of its importance named its various sections after the heroes of German mythology. Tiic Procourt switch they called the W'o-tan W'o-tan position, the section covering Cam-hrai Cam-hrai and St. Quentin the Piem'ried position, posi-tion, that south of St. Quentin the Al-berich Al-berich position, and the southernmost position which ran cast of the Ar";onne and across the Meuse was called the Kriemhilde position. Defense Scheme Most Elaborate. Thus a ;?reat barrier w;as built up from north to south covering Douai. Oambra! and St. Quentin and protecting the railway rail-way connecting Metz with Sedan and Mezieres. Of the various sections of this barrier the Siegfried system in front of Cambrai and St. Quentin. which was begun be-gun first, was tile most elaborate; the Kriemhilde section had not the same deptii or artificial strength, partly because be-cause tile ground on the Meuse-Argonne front was naturally very defensible and the approaches to the Kriemhilde line were more difficult than those leading to other sections and partly because the original German trenches between the Meuse and the Argonne were never penetrated pene-trated by allied troops from the first days of trench warfare until they were stormed bv the first American armv on September 21i ijjs. The principles on which these lines were elaborated were worked out by the Germans as the result of a close study of their experiences in the first battle of the Somme. If that battle cost us dear, it and the battle of Verdun destroyed de-stroyed the flower of the German army and it beeamev evident to the German leaders that a few more such struggles would exhaust their military strength. By the summer of 1916 the work of .Lloyd George at the British ministry of munitions muni-tions and of M. Albert Thomas at the French ministry had begun to take effect. ef-fect. For the first time in the war the allies on the western front were superior su-perior to the Germans in gun power and in the number of shells at the service of the guns. The bombardment preliminary to the infantry attack by the British in the Somme battle lasted seven days and was heard in the suburbs of London, 150 miles away. Every Device Helps System. Tho Germans realized that at this period of the war bombardment had become be-come the principal means of attack by the allies and that their strongest trenches would crumble to pieces it exposed ex-posed to the full blast of the tornado of shell which could be hurled against them. The accuracy of the fire of artillery artil-lery depends upon observation. The guns must have eyes, particularly the medium and heavy guns which fire from a long distance behind the front lines. Even the best observation from aeroplanes will not replace, in a ereat artillery attack, the eyes of an observer on the ground connected by telephone with the guns. The Germans 'hereiore designed the Hindenburg Hin-denburg Inn s so that observation of them Irom toe ground should be as difficult as possible. 'Vlic-never it was possible to do so they were constructed along the : back s'oP..s 0f ridges, not along the top or on the iront slopes, where thev would easily be seen. In order to keen the observers and the guns at a distance and to disorganize ; the attacking infantry. strong outpost positions wore built, often as much as three or four miles m front of the main positions. Tho troons in those outpost positions were intended to fall back be- I fore a heavy attack after delaying it as muich as possible by machine-gun and rifle fire, and with this method of defense de-fense it would ,,ot be necessarv to keep large .numbers of troops in the very front lines, which would be exposed to the y.-orst of tho bombardment. This was. in fai-t, an early version of the svstem of defense which Gouraud applied so brilliantly bril-liantly when he defeated the great German Ger-man attack of July 1.". mis. In the Siegfried Sieg-fried section the system was given great depth so that H the attackers succeeded in storming the first lines, it would be necessary for them to pause until the guns had been moved forward and the stocks of shells brought up for a renewed re-newed bombardment of the rear lines. Between Cambrai and St. Quentin the Sieglned system from the outpost positions posi-tions near F.pehy to tho rearmost line near Beaurevoit was as much as ten miles deep. Dense Belt of Wire Erected. The most elaborate wire entanglements were provided in front of each line of trenches. They were arranged in geometrical geomet-rical patterns so that the angles could be swept by machine gun fire, and there were often as many as eight or nine belts of barbed wire in front of the trenches: Standing after the great battle had been won and the Siegfried system had been pierced on the ridges east of the St. Quentin canal, in tho heart of the system, sys-tem, one looked over miles of dense entanglements en-tanglements running in every direction and was filled with amazement that it should have been possible for flesh and blood to storm rt way through such obstacles. ob-stacles. Heavily concreted shelters for the infantry and machine gunners were provided in the firing trenches, while further back great underground barracks were constructed at a depth to make them proof against the heaviest bombardment. bom-bardment. When we first broke -into the Hindenburg Hinden-burg line with Byng's tank attack of November, No-vember, 1017. we found that the Germans Ger-mans had hollowed out the ground under un-der many of the villages, piling the chalk into the buildings, so that it would not attract attention and would add to the immunity of the dugout from bombardment. bombard-ment. These dugouts were fitted on a lavish scale, so as to provide for the comfort of the occupants. They were furnished with numerous stairways, so that the men in them could conic out quickly when the bombardment was over, were often boarded in and furnished fur-nished with electric light, while water and sleeping bunks were provided. Through the middle of the Siegfried svstem svs-tem ran two canals, (he Canal du IX'ord and the St. Quentin canal, which, near Cambrai, becomes the navigable Scheldt. Canals Used in1 Scheme of Line. Both of these canals, which ran in places through deep cuttings, were used by the enemy, who dug deep into the banks. to provide shelter for his men. Between Bellicourt and Yendliuile the St. Quentin canal ran underground for a distance of 6000 yards, and this tunnel, when blocked up, provided the Germans with a ready-made underground barracks, bar-racks, which was fitted out for oeeu-natioil. oeeu-natioil. and connected bv n onieenosi shafts xW tho IreiK'lies above. Along-the Along-the top of tho canal, which constituted a very serious natui-al obstacle, nunibers of curi'TOted machine gun eniplncemeius were built, so that the whole length of the uanal where it ran above yi'ound" could be swept by crossfire. isuch were tlie defences upon which the Germans, not without justification, pinned their faith, defences which they held to be absolutely impregnable, but were stormed in the pre; it battle by British and American infantry, who in so do-in do-in broke the morale of the German troops, tlie resolution of the German leaders lead-ers and the heart of the German people. peo-ple. The allied defences have often been contrasted unfavorably with the.se elaborate elabor-ate anil in I rica to German trench systems, sys-tems, but the conditions on the two sides were very different. In the f irt place, from the becinnimr of 1915 unul the end of 1917 ' the allies were, with the exceptions of the German gas attack at-tack at Ypres and the battle of Verdun, almost always attacking, de votinp all their energies to the attempt to break through the trenrh barrier, and trie vast preparations ronuircd for the battles which were fou.uht during that poriod, ief t little labor over for tho elaboration of defences. Labor Plentiful for the Germans. In the second place, the Germans were much more favorably plneed than tho allies al-lies as regards labor. They had Russian prisoners of war in great numbers :uid the fni't that the Hague convention forbade for-bade tlie employment of prisoners of war upon military work counted as nothing with them. They were able also to employ em-ploy forced labor from ti.e populations of Feltnum and the oci-upied districts of northern Irnn'-e, and with these two sources of supply they could carry out the most extensive works without calling upon the army fnr more men than was necessary for planninu' and supt-rvMinri. Tlie construct i"n of these great defensive systems therefore did not involve tlie withdrawal of any sold icaJTrom the fiuht-inu fiuht-inu front and did nor'' interfere with t hj rest and training of the troops in wa r. The all it on the other hand, ould only provid.- labor for ihe ci uis i ru inn of rf;u' lines of defen-e at the exven-j exven-j of their armies or of tlie fa'-'ones in tlv home-if.tid w'nir-h p:ov;.h'I for t!i-reat t!i-reat and e , r-irrowiyg demands of the, a I'm ies a ivl fl.'-Hs. and had in meet t lie i urgent . II fi-r tcori; aud more ,iii:.,s. of Ilo"1 war the ' : t : : r. t i infa::trv:' an ! due b tier ar..l w-m ,-:.'d lia rder ot b:.s tn M'h".-i tiian did !-'.: Fh-;:ish infantrv-m:vi infantrv-m:vi or h's i'r.Tr h e. en ta . but 1:.;?' :iv!v-:rv wn-:!d ; ha- - s fi-ed fn7 oi;,s;r:;.'t'.f:i of tho H::Hb--;":i- disi'-i'm'n.'' o' t e Grman t rn. e .J' ,;'.( y.' I ;: '.! V. v';:.- h h.-1 :-. s: -by to ' h-s i.e-mhiahV. )hi''T:'i ::i 'h- a : ?k V,f ! .T-::y In. in the se nud lr f 1: - ! v." -i- ,1 . , ,T v.,;i'-,- t,,i:' 1 j Tank Replaces Old Offensive. I i Th.o.-. s- s:. ! id. I : r.v- said. ' I d 'f.-r' "f-'Vs "u'.!.-' u r' "h- ' d v. " t : ('; m.i i i ! i i :-- ; ; , , , t : .. |