Erich 1865-1937 Ludendorff

LUDENDORFF, ERICH (1865-1937), German soldier, was born at Kruszevnia, in the province of Posen, April 9, 1865. When 18 years old, he entered the Prussian army. In 1894 he joined the general staff, and, except for an interval of two years as company commander, remained on it from 1894 to 1913, under Count Schlieffen and the younger General von Moltke. As chief of the Aufmarschabteilung since 1908 he played a prominent part in the mobilization preparations. The last great increase in the strength of the army in 1913 was largely due to his initiative and energy. During the year preceding the outbreak of the World War he commanded first the 39th Fusilier Regiment at Dusseldorf, and afterwards an infantry brigade at Strasbourg.

At the outbreak of the World War Ludendorff was quarter master general of the II. Army. His voluntary assumption in the beginning of August of a decisive role at the capture of the fortress of Liege gave him his first great opportunity. He took over the command of the 14th brigade of infantry, in the place of General von Wussow who was killed, and, breaking through the ring of fortifications at its head, seized the interior of the town. He was rewarded on Aug. 2 2 by being made chief of staff to Hinden burg in the VIII. Army which was fighting in East Prussia.

Campaigns in East Prussia.

The battle of Tannenberg revealed his powers of generalship, for he there demonstrated the justice of the theory of annihilation. The victory of Tannen berg over the Russian army of the Narew was more than another Cannae. For in this case there was not, as in former days, merely one enemy to be dealt with. On the contrary, the attempt was made to envelop the greatly superior main body of Russians in the presence of a second enemy force threatening the rear. And the attempt proved successful. In the subsequent operations which led to the first battle on the Masurian lakes and to the heavy defeat of the Russian army of the Niemen, the enemy's right wing was supported on the lake, and so only an envelopment of the southern wing was possible. The operations, therefore, took the form of an attack on the enemy's front and on his exposed flank.

The strategic success lay in the liberation of East Prussia from the enemy. The German Army of the East became available for the immediate support of the Austro-Hungarian ally, by this time in dire straits. This support was rendered in the brilliant October campaign of the newly-formed IX. German army directed through Southern Poland upon the Vistula. Its purpose—to

facilitate the Austrian efforts in Galicia by drawing off upon the IX. Army the strongest possible body of Russian troops—was attained in a degree entailing grave danger to the outnumbered Germans themselves. The menace of envelopment by a vastly superior enemy, pouring up from the direction of Warsaw, was parried and beaten off by Ludendorff by means of an exceedingly gallant defensive action, carried out during withdrawal. In November after a rapid regrouping of the main German forces, an advance was made from the Wreschen-Thorn line against the right flank of the main body of the Russians, lying in West Poland. In the absence of sufficient strength a simultaneous frontal attack was impossible. But even so, the success achieved in the battle of Lodi was great. The Russians were definitely relegated to the defensive—and, in the pursuit which followed, were flung back behind the Bzura and the Rawka.

During the fighting in Masuria in Feb. 1915 Ludendorff achieved the destruction of another Russian army in the region of the Upper Bobr. This was followed by a period of relative in activity on the German eastern front lasting for several months. Not before the middle of July 1915 did the army group of Hin denburg resume the war of movement. By an attack directed upon and beyond the Lower Narew it relieved, by means of a converging offensive, the army group of Mackensen which had advanced from Galicia into Southern Poland between the Vistula and the Bug. In the ensuing operations the Russian army was driven out of the Vistula positions and out of the whole of Poland towards the East. After a brief resistance the fortresses of Warsaw, Nowogeorgiewsk (Modlin) and Kovno fell. But no decis ive issue was reached, because General von Falkenhayn, chief of the German general staff, rejected the proposal of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, which was to advance with the German left wing in a northerly direction through Kovno and Vilna upon Minsk, thereby cutting the Russian railway communications, to the north of Polesia. Had the operations been conducted in accordance with the views of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the Russian army might have been dealt a mortal blow in the summer of 1915. Later, in September, the attempt was made on the German left wing, but with inadequate forces, to embarrass the retreat of the section of the Russian army withdrawing northwards from Polesia past Vilna ; but the moment for success on a grand scale had gone.