Las Vegas optic., 1914-12-17
Won HINDENBURG
Once CRANK;
NOW HERO
GERMAN FIELD MARSHAL, BE-
LOVED BY ARMY, ONCE WAS
LAUGHED AT
(From the New York worIdl

kTTOH Lnc NcW IOTk WOFlQ)
If ever there came a great, swift,
dramatic change in a mans career it
is that which the bfg war has wrought
in the life of Marshal Won Hindenburg,
chief of the kaiser's army of the east.
Since the sounding of the first guns at
biege only few months ago Marshal
Ito give him all the name he owns
0berst Won Hindenburg und Beneck-
endorff has become a national idol, a
looming, Rodin-like figure of great
ness on Titanic battlefields. Last July
in Germany he figured as a national
joke-"von Hindenburg of the Lakes .
they used to call him in the barracks
and in the cafes rs well, with tip of
their fingers to their foreheads to in
dicate that Won Hindenburg and his
lakes constituted a first class case
of water on the brain. Now in the
barracks and cafes when they speak Of
won Hindenburg Of the Lakes" they
doff their hats and follow it up at the
top of their lungs with rendering Gf
Die Wacht am Rhein" His emperor
has given him the highest military
title in the service. Universities have
somthered him with honorary degrees.
Busts displaying the rugged, warty
features of the great old German are
stuck in every available niche in
every public place in Germany. When
the kids play soldiers they fight it out
to see which of them shall stalk at
the head of the chubby legged ranks
as Marshal Won Hindenburg. One
day recently German newspaper
mentioned soheitously that Marshal
Won Hindenburg was suffering with
gallstones, and not many days later a
military train drew up in the vicinity
OF LODI that had in it a freight car
packed to the roof with gladstone r<xa-
edies- family, patent and proprietary
sent by a thousand and more anxious
and devoted countrymen and women.
The explanation or the joke in the
sobriquet won Hindenburg of the
Lakes is in order. The Germans US
ed to laugh heartily over it and wag
their heads and say-well, what would
be the equivalent in English of saying
that Won Hindenburg was "a grand
cid crank. For be it understood the
while they laughed at the rugged,
grizzled general, military men and
populace alike always loved him
loved him for his bombast and good
fellowship, for his cantankerous de-
fiance with his obsession of the
Takes" of the more elegant gentlemen
Of the general staff, for his roaring
protests that came from time to time
against his retirement from the army
when he felt that he was still full of
vigor and usefulness and keently scent
ing the coming of the tremendous
conflict that is now waging.
For many years the Mazurian lakes
OF east Prussia formed a cause for hot
debate among German military men.
The Mazurian Lakes are a vast chain,
with bodies of water ranging from
the size Of Lake George to that of
Rockland Lake and with marshes in
tervening. They lie just on the other
side of the Russian border, with the
Baltic sea little beyond. The debate
was whether in the event Of an inva-
sion by Russia this territory could be
defended. Won Hindenburg always in
sisted that it could. And for long
time years ago there were those who
sided with him. But one by one these
u + F