Hindenburg looked questions at me, but I thought I would let my young friend do the talking and act as master of ceremonies. He handed Hindenburg my letter, and introduced me as "Herr 'von' Beaufort, who has just arrived from Rome." (I had left Rome nearly three months before!) The General read his nephew's letter and then shook hands with me, assuring me of the pleasure it gave him to meet me. Of course, I was glad that he was glad, and expressed reciprocity of sentiments. I looked at him—well, for lack of a better word, I will say, with affection; you know the kind of childlike, simple admiration which expresses so much. I tried to look at him as a certain little girl would have done, who wrote: "You are like my governess: she, too, knows everything." I felt sure that that attitude was a better one than to pretend that I was overawed. That sort of homage he must receive every day. Besides, as soon as I realized that he knew nothing of the telephone message from and to Allenstein, my old self-assurance had returned.
Now for my impressions of Germany's—and, as some people try to make us believe, the world's—greatest military genius. They might be summed up in two words: "Strength and cruelty." Hindenburg stands over six feet high. His whole personality radiates strength, brute, animal strength. He was, when I met him, sixty-nine years of age, but looked very much younger. His hair and moustache were still pepper and salt color. His face and forehead are deeply furrowed, which adds to his forbidding appearance. His nose and chin are prominent, but the most striking feature of the man's whole appearance are his eyes. They are steel-blue and very small, much too small for his head, which, in turn, is much too small compared with his large body. But what the eyes lacked in size they fully made up for in intensity and penetrating powers. Until I met Hindenburg I always thought that the eyes of the Mexican rebel Villa were the worst and most cruel I had ever seen. They are mild compared with those of Hindenburg. Never in all my life have I seen such hard, cruel, nay, such utterly brutal eyes as those of Hindenburg. The moment I looked at him I believed every story of refined (and unrefined) cruelty I had ever heard about him.
He has the disagreeable habit of looking at you as if he did not believe a word you said. Frequently in conversation he closes his eyes, but even then it seemed as if their steel-like sharpness pierced his eyelids. Instead of deep circles, such as, for instance, I have noticed on the Kaiser, he has big fat cushions of flesh under his eyes, which accentuate their smallness. When he closes his eyes, these cushions almost touch his bushy eyebrows and give his face a somewhat prehistoric appearance. His hair, about an inch long I should judge, was brushed straight up—what the French call en brosse. The general contour of his head seemed that of a square, rounded off at the corners.
Speaking about the stories of cruelty, one or two of them may bear re-telling.
When during the heavy fighting, early in 1915, General Rennenkampf was forced to evacuate Insterburg somewhat hastily, he was unable to find transport for about fifty thousand loaves of bread. Not feeling inclined to make a present of them to the Germans, he ordered paraffin to be poured over them. When the Germans found that bread and discovered its condition, Hindenburg is reported to have been frantic with rage. The next day, after he had calmed down, he said to one of his aides: "Well, it seems to be a matter of taste. If the Russians like their bread that way, very well. Give it to the Russian prisoners."
You may feel certain that his orders were scrupulously carried out.
Another incident which they are very fond of relating in Germany is more amusing, though it also plays on their idol's cruelty.
It is a fact that both officers and men are deadly afraid of him. It is said that the great General has a special predilection for bringing the tip of his riding boots into contact with certain parts of the human anatomy. A private would far rather face day and night the Russian guns than be orderly to Hindenburg.