superiors. During the 1909 war games, his
forces “defeated” troops commanded by the
thin-skinned Kaiser Wilhelm II, something the
latter took as a personal insult. Upon further
reflection, Hindenburg concluded that this
slight effectively ended his military career,
and in January 1911 he retired to be a private
citizen.
The onset of World War I ended Hinden-
burg’s lifelong obscurity when he was sum-
marily recalled from retirement. In August
1914, East Prussia was being invaded by two
large Russian armies, and he hastily assumed
command of German forces opposing them.
He was seconded by a brilliant and rash staff
officer, Erich von Ludendorff. Their two
minds, so divergent yet so complementary,
worked in tandem to forge a powerful strate-
gic combination. In short order they smashed
the invaders at the Battles of Tannenburg and
the Masurian Lakes (August–September
1914), and Hindenburg received a promotion
to field marshal. He thus became the most
popular man in Germany and remained highly
esteemed for the rest of the war. In the spring
of 1915 a succession of new victories drove
Russian armies almost completely out of
Poland, and Hindenburg requested additional
troops to attack and knock the czarist state
out of the war. But at this critical juncture,
German war planning became ensnared by
conflicting strategic priorities. The chief of
staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, insisted on win-
ning the war in the West, and he co-opted sev-
eral of Hindenburg’s divisions to fight in the
senseless slaughter at Verdun. After that ef-
fort failed, British forces counterattacked
along the Somme while Russia mounted a
new offensive in Galicia, and it became clear
that German military leadership had not sur-
mounted the strategic dilemma of a two-front
war. Therefore, in August 1916 Falkenhayn
stepped down and Hindenburg was appointed
chief of staff. Assisted by Ludendorff, Hinden-
burg resolved to end the war in the east be-
fore finishing it off in the west.
Given his astronomical popularity, and the
reluctance of the kaiser or the chancellor to
question him, Hindenburg ruled Germany like
a virtual dictator. Accordingly, he ordered de-
fensive positions held in the west for the
meantime. This entailed constructing a huge
series of fortifications that the British chris-
tened the “Hindenburg Line” and that helped
bloodily defeat several Allied offensives. He
also waged unrelenting war against Russia,
now teetering on the brink of collapse, which
finally occurred following the Bolshevik Rev-
olution of October 1917. Russia’s fall now
freed half a million German troops for service
on the Western Front. But Hindenburg’s most
fateful decision came at sea. Convinced that a
six-month naval blockade by U-boats would
bring England to its knees, in January 1917 he
authorized the resumption of unrestricted
submarine warfare against neutral powers.
Thenceforth, any vessel plying the ocean was
subject to attack—even those of the United
States. Hindenburg realized from the onset
that this virtually ensured American entry
into the war at the behest of England, but it
was a calculated risk. The United States did,
in fact, declare war in April 1917. Hindenburg
and Ludendorff, however, were smug in their
conviction that Germany would defeat the Al-
lies long before America mobilized its military
resources. Victory was thus predicated upon
a race against time. It proved a grave miscal-
culation and, consequently, both men bear re-
sponsibility for what transpired next.
In the spring of 1918 German forces, rein-
forced and specially trained in storm trooper
tactics, launched an all-out offensive against
the British and French armies. This was a
desperate gambit to win the war in a single
blow. Initial phases of the plan worked bril-
liantly and sent Allied forces reeling back for
miles. By April German soldiers again stood
at the Marne River, the point of their farthest
advance in 1914. But history then repeated it-
self. British and French forces, though bat-
tered, never broke, and they slowed and
eventually stopped Ludendorff’s offensive by
June. Germany thus assumed a defensive
posture, just as millions of American sol-
diers, enthusiastic but inexperienced, landedHINDENBURG, PAULLUDWIGVON