HINDENBURG, PAITL VON BEN ECKENDORF 'UND VON, a German field marshal and Chief of the German General Staff from 1916 to 1919. Born in 1847, he first won distinction in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Later he rose to the rank of General and for a time was a member of the General Staff. When the war of 1914 broke out he was residing as a retired army officer at Hanover. The ill-success of the Ger mans in the fighting against the Rus sians in East Prussia caused the Kaiser to call Hindenburg from his retirement and to give him command of the German arms in East Prussia, a region which had been the General's special study. He had scarcely been in command ten days when he inflicted a serious defeat upon the Russians at the battle of Tannen berg on Aug. 31, 1914, which caused them to evacuate all the German terri tory they had won. The following February by his quick concentrations and clever use of railroad facilities he won the decisive victory of the Mazurian Lakes which compelled the Russians to abandon the offensive in this section.
Later in the year Hindenburg played a large part in the victorious movements of the German armies which compelled the Russians to yield Galicia, Poland, Courland, and Esthonia to their rivals. Following the failure of the German Staff before Verdun, the Kaiser sum moiled Hindenburg to the chief com mand of all the German armies. He celebrated his accession to supreme com mand by planning the campaign against Rumania by which that country was completely occupied in less than four months after it had declared war. For a time during 1917 and 1918 he was no less successful in his operations against the Allies in the West, but the large re-enforcements of the Americans and the gradually decreasing morale of his own troops brought eventual defeat and revolution. Unlike many of his asso ciates he did not go into exile but re mained at his post until after the armis tice was signed and the retirement of the German army behind the Rhine.