Good Old Kultur

In 1915 he conquered Galicia for Austria, overran Serbia. In 1916 he occupied Rumania. In 1917 he smashed the Russian armies, opened the way to the Black Sea. Only the collapse of the Western Front and the Armistice stopped him. Though a Feldmarschall, he never wore a general's uniform and pickelhaube (spiked helmet) but always the broad black fur cap of the Death's Head Hussars, whose colonel-in-chief he was. He never, even for the sake of camouflage, rode anything but the whitest of horses. Unlike Ludendorff, who now is going crazy, he never proclaimed himself a God-inspired military genius, or even took personal credit for his armies' triumphs. Almost feminine in grace, he of all the German generals never failed to kiss the hand of his close friend and chief, Kaiser Wilhelm II. He was and is the prime personification of Prussian Kultur as it conceived itself to be -- Feld marschall August von Mackensen.

Last week he was 80 years old. The National League of Former Army Officers gave him what approximated a state banquet in Berlin. Doors and windows were left open so that the public might gaze once more upon some of the oldtime heraldry of Imperial Germany. The hall blazed with medals and the bright colors of bygone dress uniforms -- the blue and red of the infantry, the blue and gold of the navy, the white, green, black, blue, yellow and pink of the cavalry. Feldmar-schall Mackensen, "Faithfullest of the Faithful," entered the hall amid a thunder of hocks, his dry, jockeylike figure erect as ever despite its years. The long-necked, chinless figure escorting him was. of course, the boy--now a middle-aged man--whom he had tutored and drilled so long, Fredrich Wilhelm Hohenzollern, who was to have been a Kaiser. With them also came the other onetime princes--Eitel Friedrich, like a bully top-sergeant; Oscar, the simple farmer; August Wilhelm, the dreamy painter. There was a lull as they reached their places, then a renewed storm of hocking as Admiral von Schroeder called the toast for "His Majesty our Exalted War Lord."

The next high moment of the evening came when Feldmarschall Mackensen, his white mustache fluttering with his earnestness, addressed the assembly crisply as follows:

"We do not belong to those ungrateful ones who forget what the Kaiser has done for the Army and for the Fatherland's prestige. . . . He was our best comrade. ... I owe my successes to the grace of my Emperor who appointed me.

"The World War is not yet ended. . . . I hope a new German Army will carry on the old Prussian spirit and virtue. I pray to witness the beginning of the Fatherland's resurrection. . . ."

The patriotic-imperialistic demonstrations switched to gay reunion of fellow officers as the wines ran rich and red and military bands started to play the half barbaric, half mystic Prussian Army marches. The crowds in the streets outside the hall waited up late to watch their old-time heroes depart. Among those not present, because of his present status as chief officer of the German Republic, was the high commander of all the Imperial German Armies, General Paul von Hindenburg. But next day, tacitly applauding the evening's celebration of good old Kultur, 82-year-old President Hindenburg had his 50-year-old friend and comrade General Mackensen privately, intimately for lunch.

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