His task is to keep Russia from invading Germany. It is obviously a huge undertaking. It is a bigger job than is held by the head of the great corporation in the world. As with all popular figures, writers have romanced about Hindenburg. When the correspondents in Berlin couldn't get out to the front in the early part of this war, they made copy out of the first idea in sight. So they made a Cincinnatus out of Hindenburg. It pleased them to imagine him ill at his home, with the gout, when there came a special telegram from the Emperor ordering him to take charge of the army of East Prussia. They pictured him getting up from a sick bed, limping on a cane to an automobile and saving Germany. When you mention this to Hindenburg, he gets so red in the face that you think the blood vessels are going to burst and when he can speak, he roars, "Do I look like a sick man?"
Graduated from a military academy at sixteen, appointed to the infantry as a lieutenant before 1866, he fought in the war against Austria. He first came to the attention of the eyes of the German army at the Battle of Königgrätz when with fifty of his men he charged an Austrian battery. A grape shot grazed his skull and he fell stunned. Lifting himself up, he saw that his men had gone on and had captured two of the Austrian guns. The other three field pieces were being dragged away by the Austrians. Staggering to his feet, young Von Hindenburg, his face streaming with blood, rallied his men and with a wave of his sword charged after the fleeing Austrians. On their heels for more than a mile, he finally attacked them, although outnumbered three to one, and captured them. For this he was decorated with the Red Eagle Order.
There came the Franco Prussian war. Von Hindenburg was now an Ober-Lieutenant. He came through the battles of Gravelotte and Sedan; he was in the siege of Paris and when LeBourget was stormed, the young officer led a charge--and they gave him the Iron Cross. From that time on his rise was rapid. A captain on the General Staff, then Major, so up through the grades of the Chief of Staff of the Eighth Army Corps to the Commander of the Fourth Army Corps to a General of Infantry, which high office he held until 1911.