The Emperor went to Moltke, then his Chief of Staff. The Emperor said that the German troops in East Prussia were not being handled properly. He demanded another general. Moltke named one man after another and the Emperor shook his head. Moltke was at the end of his list. "Is there no one else you can recommend?" asked the Emperor.
"There is one man, Your Majesty, but, knowing your feelings in the matter, I have purposely refrained from mentioning his name."
"It is not to be thought of," declared the Emperor.
But the Emperor went away to think it over. Like a vast tidal wave the Russians were breaking over his beloved East Prussia. The Emperor turned it over in his mind. There could be no delay. He sent a laconic message to Moltke. "Appoint Von Hindenburg."
So they took Cincinnatus away from the plow.
"I was not sick in bed," says Von Hindenburg in telling about the summons. "I was just sitting at the table having coffee when this important telegram came. Ludendorff my Chief of Generality had been summoned from Belgium and he came by special train."
And then began the ride to the East Prussian front traveling all the night in one of the high powered army automobiles discussing as he went the position of the troops. Von Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived at the place that had been chosen as headquarters and he took command of the Army of the East. You know what happened, you know how the Russian invasion poured in across East Prussia, past the Masurian lakes in a semi-circle from Tilsit southwards.
You know that Hindenburg elected to give battle on a field that was four times as large as Sedan. Back of the German line Hindenburg and his staff were watching the big maps. Like a great pair of tongs his soldiers were closing in from north and south. When they had surrounded the Russians, Von Hindenburg would order the battle begun, not before. Field telephones buzzed, the telegraph clicked, the staff officers were ever changing the positions on the big maps, the black lines, signifying the German soldiers were ever drawing closer together. Soon the Russians would be surrounded. And then an aeroplane with black iron crosses painted under its wings dropped down out of the clouds and landed in front of Hindenburg's headquarters. And its observer dashed up to report, "The enemy is surrounded!"