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._"