He eats simply and he works hard. Dinner at Von Hindenburg's headquarters consists of soup and one course around an undecorated table with ten officers. He likes a good wine; when he is drinking a toast he takes his glass of champagne at one gulp to the despair of some of his younger officers. The dinner hour showed him to be very lively. He likes stories where the wit is keen; also he is not a Puritan. He avoids talking military matters and seems at dinner to have thrown off all responsibilities. This light inconsequential converse sounds almost incongruous when you can hear the ta ta of the horns of military automobiles outside. Indeed it is with difficulty that Von Hindenburg can be induced to say anything about the war. His very able assistants, the silent Ludendorff, Chief of Generality, and the lively gesturing brilliant Hoffman, also avoid talking shop. After he has agreed with you that the French are fighting bravely, better than one expected them to, and that everybody in Germany is sorry for them; after he has urged with exaggerated seriousness that the Austrian officers are efficient; after he has uttered his contempt of Belgium and echoed the curse of the German nation for England, he will discuss the Russians.
"The Russians are good soldiers," he says. "They are well disciplined. But there is a difference between their discipline and ours. The discipline of the German army is the result of education and moral. In the Russian army it is the dumb obedience of an animal. The Russian soldier stands because he is told to; but he stands like one transfixed. Napoleon was right when he said 'it does not do to kill a Russian; he must also be thrown down.' The Russians have learned a good deal since the Japanese war. They are very strong in fortifying their positions on the battlefield and understand excellently how to dig trenches and holes. As soon as they have chosen their position they disappear under the ground like moles. Our soldiers had to learn how to do that too. Our soldiers did not like it. They like to fight in the open, to storm and have it over with. But I had to make them wait in position until I was ready. We are not afraid of the Russian superiority of numbers. Russia is vast, but not as dangerous as it looks. The modern war is not decided by numbers. In East Prussia we have broken two Russian invasions. Each time they are outnumbered as three to one. An army is not a horde of uniformed men. An army must have good guns, ammunition, and brains."