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Show GREAT TRIUMVIRATE NOW RULES THE KAISER'S MILITARY MACHINE Into the Hands of Von Hindenburg, Von Mackensen and Ludendorff, Masters of War Proved in the Awful Fire of the Last Two Years, the German Emperor Has Committed the Conduct Con-duct of the War Anecdotes of the Three Chiefs. Berlin. Hindenburg, Mnckenscn, I. in lei ill ibese are the names to conjure wllh in (ierninny today. Into the hands of three masters of war, tiled In the aw till lire of the last two veal's, tin' kaiser has committed Ihe greeted military machine in the world ami all lesser chielliiiiis now how tfoWO before them. There conies u time In titanic struggles strug-gles when dictators become Imperative, Impera-tive, tiront lenders give way to the greatest. A (Irani or a Napoleon of Inexorable In-exorable will curbs the mighty and fuses all the vast forces of u nutlon Into Waited ellori. That Is (jermaiiy's situation today. Knelrclod hy the "Iron baud" of enemies ene-mies the kaiser has sacrlllced even the aetata Von rnlkenlniyn. who himself kiii ceeiled the clever Von Moltke III the early days of the war and for two ,,ears had been head of the great gen fa stair. Now ka In turn must weld place to n more splendid genius. .Jln-deiiburg. .Jln-deiiburg. Illtideiihing Is the great rock on which the formidable armies of 5cr-inuny 5cr-inuny und her nllles center. Liiden-dorlT Liiden-dorlT is his "alter ego," his second self, his understudy, who stands by lib. side watching with eagte eye ready to potlah and round off his chief's plans. Mnckeiiseii Is the thunderbolt, the muster of offensives, the mull clad list with arbtch iiimieiiburg Btrlkea. He la now In charge Of the desperate sltutl-tlou sltutl-tlou around Itoiiinanla, where he Is attempting at-tempting to shock (ieriiiiiny's latent en emy hy such a smashing blow from j ihe smith that th' Roumanian attacks on other sides will weaken. Herman soldiers often call Macken-ien Macken-ien "tho Archangel Michael with ii Ihimlng sword." Teuton ollicers taken prisoner In Kusslu recently told "l'e-troff," "l'e-troff," the fatuous war correspondent of the Uusskoe Slovo, how he made n score of Austrian generals cower he-fore he-fore him und how he burned u message from the kaiser. l'etroff describes two Wlf councils held hy Mm kenscn this summer. The first took pliwo nt Kovel, ID Austrlun generals of high rank being present. "At the opening of the silting," says l'etroff, "IT.nco Leopold of Buvnrlil, I'speclnlly sent hy tho kulsor, bunded to Von Mackensen u letter from the kaiser. Von Mackensen rose to his feet nnd begun to read thu important I toenment. Prince Leopold nlso stood up. Von Mackensen reud In silence, becoming pensive, often frowulng. It was evident that tho letter contained numerous questions, und Unit Prince Leopold knew their order nnd chnr-acter. chnr-acter. Willie von Mnckensen vvns reading Prime Leopold was actually, us It were, counting every expression on the face nt the Carpathian nr- I'hatigel. As ho reud, Von Mackensen sometimes paused to think over tho iptestlon dealt with In the letter, replying re-plying wit) determination and resolution. reso-lution. 'Yes.' At other momenta he uttered a resolute 'No.' Prince Leopold Leo-pold marked those down. No Answer to Kaiser. "HnYltlg Bnlahed reading. Von Mackensen Mack-ensen again became pensive, closed his eyes, and shook his head. Then ho rolled tho letter up and lighted It ut a gas burner used for the pur- Qeneral Von Hindenburg. pane aj lighting cigars, holding the paper In his band until it burnt to aahea. Then he ralaed his area to Prince Leopold, who evidently hud been walling for some statement. But Mackensen remalued silent. " 'You did not answer the Inst question ques-tion of tho emperor,' remarked the prince nt last. " 'I did not,' slowly retorted Mnckensen, Mnck-ensen, frowning. "It seemed thnt the Austiiun generals gen-erals present knew whut the question was. iiecai.se they ull became unxloiis ly attentive und regarded ouch other with iiu ulr of distress. At lust, paun-Ing paun-Ing ut each syllable, the Held uiurshal replied : "'Ilecutise I nm too old ami because I have my reputation us a soldier, I inn not going to answer anything.' "All sut quiet and depressed. Prince Leopold grasped Ills throat us If It vvns dnBeull to breathe. One of the generals, utter a pause, asked with what power the Held marshal had been Invested. "'Ueniri'l von Hindenburg and my self,' answered Mackensen, 'nro tho two hands of Rmperor William, nnd i our action Is dictated solely hy the head of the kaiser. We are not limited limit-ed in any oilier way.' "At the COUClUslOQ of Ihe otllclal deliberations de-liberations Mackensen frankly told the Austrian generals It was In their In-leiesis In-leiesis to obey the Herman general staff. "'If you have failed to defend your country from Invasion,' said he, 'you should at least obey those who have already "a veil you.' "When the Austrlnns had loft, Mackensen Mack-ensen remarked Of the Austrian commanders: com-manders: '"In the discussion of plans every one of them Is n Machiavelll, hut when It comes to tie execution they have but straw iiilmls and hands of clay.' "At the second council of wur Mackensen Mack-ensen acted as the complete master. lie frank!) said a number of the higher high-er Austrian gem nils would be ro- t I Wiatiiii- iAlttsttOktu ; Mr- - - 1 43B vB2naw sMbW i I W w' W 1 1 wTK. W w aV 'W a a-hJL . uJa BKiKt5sir) aBBBaBassaaa General Von Mackensen. moved from active service us they were not capable enough. Some of i the Austrlun coninuinders asked If there was any hope of clearing tht! Russians 1 1 nm Austrian territory, us had previously been done. Work in Perfect Accord. " 'llur emperor,' answered Mackcu sen, "Is not carrying mi war merely for military glory. Neither is war being waged for gaining nltftfeB of terntoiy but solely for the defense of our fu-tlici'latul. fu-tlici'latul. You must leave It to us to decide what must und what can be done.' " This would Indicate that Hindoo I burg nnd Mackensen work in perfect per-fect accord at pi-sent. Of Ulndeii-burg, Ulndeii-burg, who became famous early In the wur by winning the two great bottlea III Bust Prussia and twice throwing hack the Uusslan Invaders, more Is known than of aiackenaen und bun- divds of renins have been written about him. He has alwtivs bowu hlmsell quite Independent of the great general staff, Of which he is now the head. lie was ever u man of mystery unit scarcely known outalde military oil- i clea when the wur began. In uriny circles he wits culled "dot vciTUokte Hlntcr il.u Burg" (the ill sane one behind the burg) a sportive play on his inline. It Is even lunteil the supposodl.v omniscient great general gen-eral start' once printed behind his name in the secret army list the blue cross thai denotes Incompetence and Is the precursor of an early relegation to the deepieed reserve. On one point Hindenburg was de cldedly mad. and that was his study of Baal Prussia. In order to be free from military restrict! mi he request d his dismissal, that he might the more con venlently study the topography of Ihe frontier. Often he could ho seen wan derlng hmesoiuely along some by-puth, unsafe hy reason of border smugglers, u towering, masterly, brooding figure. lie devoted yeirs to his beloved study und when h's plans were completed com-pleted he retired to Knrlsbnd, where he wrote u little rid book entitled "Tho t'oiiupse." which wub circulated Mil) among the members of the wur council and his few private friends In this book he wrote . "Our Last Prussian frontier seems strong but Is weak. No urmy can hold it. The naturul boundaries are either from Danaig through Posen to Butt bor, or the plesent Russian fortified line, thut Is from Ktgu to Kracovv. It is for vou to decide." linea then the great general stuff has made known Its decision. On ihe publication of his booklet, Iiimieiiburg came into Ills own. und oven the 1'n-uiurlllu, 1'n-uiurlllu, who hated lilin for his inde pendence, could not stny his further progress. At tho beginning of the wm ho vvns ben ten. ns bo had foreseen, for he had been ordered to hold the line that was untenable. When he had been several sev-eral times seriously defented, he Informed In-formed the general staff tlint he required re-quired no further Instructions, hut would tight In accordance with his own plans. It was then that he began to clear the province, and finally, by the crushing defeat nt the Masurian lakes he smashed Kussla's military actlvllv for nt least twelve mouths. Gets Crown Prince's Supplies. He has. never bowed the knee to the I 'iiitin illlii. According to the calculations calcula-tions of the general staff, the (ieruian troops were to hibernate In the large cities of Itussla, but their winter ipiar ters pfOVed to la- the frozen fields. No provision for skin coats had been i le, and, In spite of the heavy deliveries de-liveries thnt were being sent to the Uamarllla generals on the western front, Hindenburg obtained no satis factory answer to his repeated requisitions. requi-sitions. He went In person to Berlin, and In the store depot he found u large con slgnment, which he ordered to lie railed to his supply headquarters which were then nt Thorn. The horrified horri-fied ofllclal Informed him Hint the skins were for the uriny of the crown prince, and therefore could not he taken away. Illnilenbiirg swore u volume of oaths, and in the end obtained ob-tained them. Some of the groat Character traits of Hindenburg nro tils piety, his love for the fatherland and Ids faithfulness faithful-ness to the kaiser. When ho was a young lieutenant he used to carry the New Testament In his breast pocket. This saved his life during the I''ranco- Qerman war. A bullet ttruck the book but did not penetrate all the pages. It Is a well known fact that In the church of (iluuvvltz Illinletihurg prayed aloud for victory. Ilindeiiburg's private pri-vate life Is absolutely dean. He never nev-er played cards or drank excessively ami he hardly ever smoked. Hindenburg never peake of fate or luck. He does not talk about genius, hut lie believes that Cod helped him. "God helped me to gain a victory, and the kaiser guve me the soldiers, he made me loiiimauder, he trusted me. Bo grateful to Uod und the kaiser, do not thank me," is what he told the people of Bust Prussia when they came to thank and praise liini us their deliverer. As professor of the "Krlegs Aku-deinle" Aku-deinle" (sent there by the order of the general staff) Hindenburg found the Deal occasion to edocata the young Offload In the most Important suh-i suh-i Ject "applied military tactics. Frederick Fred-erick the Qreat Invented for the bene-llt bene-llt of his army ollicers the "Krlegs Spiel" (war game) and Hindenburg followed In the footsteps of the Prussian Prus-sian king hy Improving this war game. Cut Imposing Figure. When Hindenburg was studying in the "Krlegs-Akadomle" (187:1-70), he became a pupil of Prof. Pochhammer, who tells us thut Hindenburg cut an imposing llgure. He culled this soldier, over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, shoul-ders, short-cropped hair, und big mustache, mus-tache, broad forehead, "the living per-Bonification per-Bonification of the war god." When Professor Pochhaiuiner In his lectures became tedious und tiresome Illnilen-denburg Illnilen-denburg used to take out his maps, pencils and compass and commence j to work on a plan for an Imaginary battle, without paying any attention i to the professor. In 18T0 Im fought against the French : in the bottlea of st. Prtrat and Sedan and was decorated with the order of 1 ,i... ii. ..I ISwu out itie Iron Cross In 1111 he retired from active serv. be until the wur of IIU! broke out, when he again returned to the nrniy and wus appointed commander in the Fast. of Ludendorff even Hermans today know little. Hut high urmy ollicers say he deserves a huge shnre of llin ibiiburg's fame, lie has been llin donburg's chief of staff since August, 1914, and has worked out the splendid hits of strategy which time and again have baffled the Buaaian hordes. Now that Hindenburg him become chief of the grout general staff and only second to the kalsi r, Ludendorfl bis been made quartermaster geuciiil, His name Is sinned to the brief dally Official bulletins In which the general ! stall chronicles the progress of tho ! war. And his Is the first name Unit mis been appended to them. Ho Is the friend, adviser und con- I staut companion Of Hindenburg. and tluy are said to work together like two parts of a smooth running mn- chlne. |