General Von Hindenburg and Grand Duke Nicholas

General Von Hindenburg and Grand Duke Nicholas

BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER

Up to the present time in the great European conflict no sin- gle general of the war has stood forth more prominently in public attention than General von Hindenburg, the so-called "old man of the lakes." The story of his recent drive in eastern Prussia, and his defeats of Renmenkampf, in the battle of Tannenburg, have won the admiration of all disinterested onlookers. In a general way it should be understood that the last thirty years of preparation by the Germans have given them in the east- ern battlefield a tremendous advantage. The east has the longest line of battle fields,extending from Konigsberg in the north, to the Carpathian mountains in the south. For this eastern conflict Germany had built a system of strategic railroads that would enable her in a remarkably short time to concentrate her eastern army on any given point. She could strike the right wing, the left wing, or the center of the Russian army, with her entire force before the Russians could reach with recruits the point of German attack. When the war broke out the Russians had just begun their system of strategic railroads, on their own frontier, so that Rus- sia was not prepared to move her armies from one point to an- other with anything like the rapidity of the Germans. It was not impossible for the Germans to get in a week's fighting before the Russians had time to bring up reinforcements. In this way the Russians have practically needed as many men on each wing, and at the center, as the whole Germany army of the east amounted to. It will be noticed in all these German drives that when the Germans reached a certain distance in Russian territory that their armies have been stopped, and the Russians began again the aggressive. The Russians, therefore, to make any headway, must do one of two things. They must either. put on the front three soldiers for every one of Germany's, or they must first complete a system of railroads on their frontier that will make mobilization as easy and rapid for them as it is for the Germans. There is in this eastern game of war a very interesting pre- lude which reaches back into the early eighties, when Bismarck and Von Moltke were at the helm. In the Kriegschule, at Berlin, Von Moltke and Hindenburg gave courses of instruction to the officers -of the department of war, and sometimes public addresses

542 . IMPROVEMENT ERA were given to which the public was invited. Much of the burden of those talks was along the line of a future war with Russia. In the course of time Von Hindenburg fell into more or less disfavor, and was subjected to military demotion by the kaiser for the reason, it was said, that he was too outspoken in his criticisms. It may be well here to remark that the kaiser has made some very important changes in the system established by the great Von Moltke. He has substituted what is called the general staff, a co- terie of commanders, for the geniuses of war, individual leaders, who had in the past distinguished themselves on the battlefield. In the present war, however, especially in the east, the general staff system did not work well, and Von Hindenburg, who knew fh?t whck country better than anyone else, was summoned to Berlin and given commands, and by his promotion there came a decided setback to the general staff. Von Hindenburg made good. He is a hero today of all heroes in the German nation. Because of his devoted study to the eastern frontier and the strategy that must be used along the great system of lakes and marshes in the north, he has been contemptuously called "the old man of the lakes." Von Hindenburg has also been a devoted follower of the great Bismarck in his political wisdom he had unbounded con- ;

fidence. When Bismarck broke with the young emperor, Von Hindenburg still maintained quietly his loyalty to the wisdom of the great statesman he had so much admired. This may have had something to do with Von Hindenburg's disfavor in the eyes of the emperor. Bismarck had warned the emperor and country in the most solemn manner that they must not break friendship with Russia. The old statesman did not think the policy of a certain class of Germans, in the Balkans, in any way worth the loss of Russia's friendship, and on one occasion in the Reichstag he ex- claimed from the utmost depths of his emotions "I would not :

give the bones of a Pomeranian soldier for all the Balkans." The emperor evidently did not heed the great statesman's warning. Year after year, Russia and Germany drifted apart, and they drifted apart over the contentions that arose between them in the Balkan peninsula, a district of Europe inhabited chiefly by the Slavic race for whom Russia declared herself sponsor. It is interesting to take notice that in this war there is another "old man of the lakes" —Nicholas Nicholavitch. When the war broke out between Russia and Japan, military jealousy at Petro- grad consigned this great general to the western frontier, where it was his ostensible duty to protect the Russians against some im-

aginary attack from the Germans. Nicholas also studied the lakes. What Von Hindenburg was learning about them, this- great Rus- sian general was likewise studying. These two generals, there- fore, know, as no other men in Russia and Germany know, the whole boundary from the Baltic in the north, to the .Carpathians

VON HINDENBURG AND GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS 543

in the south. In the present military movements it is, therefore, "diamond cut diamond." The Germans found that Von Hinden- burg was the one man they could discover to withstand the Grand Duke Nicholas, and the Russians have learned that Nicholas is the only man that can withstand Von Hindenburg. These two at the present are the most interesting characters of all the war. The great contest between the Germans and the Russians does not' find the Russians, this time, carrying on a "scientific retreat," such as the Russians carried on in Manchuria. The recent defeat of the Russians along the Niemen, in east- ern Prussia, was in a large measure due to the boldness with which Nicholas had advanced the right wing of his army in the hope that he might maintain its position without the use of trenches until the coming of spring when a strategic advantage along the Mansurean lakes would tell greatly in favor of the army holding that advantage. Handling an army in the great marshes on- the northwest border line of Russia demands, perhaps, today, the greatest military, skill of the present war. Its disad- vantages and its tremendous risks are seen in -no other battlefield of Europe, and one may almost safely predict that among the pres- ent surprises that will grow out of the present war will be the coming man of Russia, Grand Duke Nicholas, who, today, is as strong", no doubt, in the hearts and confidence of his soldiers as even the old Von Moltke was during the war with France, in 1870. Other great generals will, no doubt, in time make their ap- pearance high up in the scale of military glory, but at present Von Hindenburg and Grand Duke Nicholas occupy the central posi- tion of almost universal admiration.

A great salt refinery from which comes Royal Crystal Table Salt is located fifteen miles due west of Salt Lake City, Utah. Round about the refinery, in circling whiteness, lies a shimmering expanse ot hundreds of acres of salt ponds which constitute one of the scenic attractions of Utah, and are viewed by thousands of tourists annually. The country around tne refinery is as level as a table top. Great ponds are formed by throwing up earthen dykes and into these ponds salt water is pumped to a depth of twelve to fifteen inches. Nature provides sunshine in Utah 300 days out of every year, and after water is' pumped into each of the ponds, the action of the sun is allowed to

take its course, and for several months the water in the ponds is sub- jected to a process of evaporation. The salt is conveyed to the refinery where it goes through a purifying process that removes what im- purities are contained in the crude salt, producing an excellent quality of refined salt. An ordinary season will evaporate about four inches of salt. It is then harvested and piled in pyramids of from 500 to

1,000 tons. The brine is pumped from the Great Salt Lake, com- mencing in March and continued as long as evaporation takes place off, thus leaving Just prior to harvesting the salt, the brine is drawn nothing but the crude salt which has been deposited on the bottom of the harvesting ponds.