The lively Hoffman, a wonderful strategist, adds, "We have absolute confidence in our superiority to the Russians. We have to win and therefore we will win. It is very simple."
And the silent Lieutenant General Ludendorff, a hero of Liége, says shortly, "We will manage it."
When the dinner is over and it is drawing near to eleven o'clock, you get ready to go, for you have heard that around midnight Von Hindenburg generally has "something to do." It is said that he works hardest at that hour. And as you leave the quiet house, it dawns upon you that the little threads of wires leading out from the windows connect with different army corps headquarters and that somewhere to the east under the Russian night gigantic armies are advancing and that the officers with whom you have been talking so peacefully, are the leaders of these armies and that the thing they are making is called The History of the World.
I have seen the likeness of Hindenburg a thousand times. In Houthem, which is a little shell torn village where the Bavarians come to from the firing line in front of Ypres and get a few days' rest, I saw Von Hindenburg's photograph pasted on the window of the canteen. I have seen it in every big city in Germany; I dare say, it is in most houses. I was in the Winter Garden one night when a Berlin crowd went mad over an impersonation of the Field Marshal by one of the actors. The crowd thumped its beer steins on the backs of chairs and got up and cheered.
An American "movie man" finally induced Von Hindenburg to stand before a camera. He did it in a way that made you think of the old J. P. Morgan who wanted to smash every camera he saw. For only a few seconds did Hindenburg walk in front of the movie machine but when that picture was shown in a Berlin theater the audience broke into wild applause. Von Hindenburg is the big man in Germany to-day. As a popular idol he rivals the Kaiser. The Germans have a new war poem that you hear recited in the music halls. It tells of different German generals, heroes of the war, and it ends "but there is only one Hindenburg."
Idol of the people, colossus of the battlefield, Von Hindenburg goes quietly about his work, unconcerned with any of the popular clamor. It is said that one of his staff officers was in great indignation because a high order of war had been conferred upon a general who had not done any actual fighting or big battle-direction in the West. The loyal officer mentioned this to Hindenburg and the old warrior said, "I don't care how many orders they give out, so long as they let me alone out here."