LUDENDORFF, ERICH VON, Ger man military leader, born in Prussian Poland, 1865; graduated from the Im perial Military Academy, in 1895, and was soon after attached to the General Staff, in Berlin. He rapidly won pro motion through his zeal for military efficiency. In 1912 he was at the head of a department of the General Staff, with the rank of Colonel. When the war broke out, in 1914, he held the rank of Major-General and was practically head of the German military organiza tion. It was he who recalled Hinden burg from retirement and appointed him to the command of the German armies in East Prussia, after the disastrous initial defeat suffered at the hands of the Russians, shortly after hostilities broke out. From then until the final collapse of the German military organi zation, in 1918, Ludendorff retained his commanding position, nor was he greatly discredited in the minds of the German Imperialists by the final defeat of his armies.
LuDENSCHEID, Prussia, Germany, a town in Westphalia, 33 miles N. E.
of Cologne. It is of considerable im portance as a manufacturing center for hardware, musical instruments, canes, and cotton goods. Pop. about 35,000.
LtiDERITZ BAY, Southwest Africa, on whose shore the settlement of Angra requefia was established by a German trader, Luderitz, in 1883. It became the center of the German Southwest African possessions, the harbor, though poor, be ing the best in the region. Liideritz Bay was one of the first settlements to be lost by the Germans after the outbreak of the war, in 1914. The place was abandoned by the German forces in the second week of August, 1914, after as much of the harbor facilities as possible had been destroyed. Later this point was made the base of a South African army under General Sir Duncan Mac kenzie in its operations against the Ger man forces in the interior.