PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE IX: “THE LAST HUSSAR”
FIELD MARSHAL AUGUST VON MACKENSEN
He was born Anton Ludwig Friedrich August Mackensen on December 6, 1849 in Hans Leipnitz in the Prussian province of Saxony. To many military historians, he was considered one of the most successful commanders of the First World War.
At the age of fifteen, Mackensen was sent to a Realgymnasium in Halle. His father was an administrator of agricultural enterprises, and he hoped that his eldest son would follow in his footsteps.
Instead, Mackensen joined the Prussian Leib-Husaren-Regiment Number 2 as a one-year volunteer in 1869. He fought in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and was promoted to second lieutenant. He also won the Iron Cross, Second Class for leading a charge while on reconnaissance patrol north of Orleans. Mackensen soon left the service after the war to study at Halle University… but returned to the army within two years.
Appointed to the German General Staff in 1891, Mackensen did so bypassing the usual three-year preparation in the War Academy. He was admired by his first chief, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, and he soon became adjutant to the next Chief of Staff Alfred von Schlieffen.
Mackensen also attracted the attention of young Kaiser Wilhelm II. On June 17, 1893, Mackensen was given command of Leib-Husaren-Regiment Number 1, to which he became a la suite when he left its command in early 1898. He wore the distinctive death’s head uniform thereafter.
The Kaiser soon made Mackensen his adjutant, making him the first commoner to hold the post. For the next three and a half years, he shadowed the Kaiser, meeting the high society of Germany, the rest of Europe, and even the Middle East. He was ennobled on the Kaiser’s 40th birthday (January 27, 1899), becoming August von Mackensen.
From 1901 to 1903 he commanded the Leib-Husaren-Brigade. Later, he headed the 36th Division in Danzig from 1903 to 1908. When von Schlieffen retired in 1906, von Mackensen was considered a possible successor as Chief of Staff, but the post went to Helmut von Moltke the Younger.
In 1908, von Mackensen was given command of the XVII Army Corps based in Danzig. The Crown Prince was placed under his command, and the Kaiser asked von Mackensen to keep an eye on the young man, to teach him to ride property.
Nearly 65 years old when the Great War began, Mackensen and his XVII Army Corps became part of the German Eighth Army in East Prussia under General Maximilian von Prittwitz (then General Paul von Hindenburg three weeks later). On August 19, 1914, his corps met the advancing Russian First Army on the Rominte River. He led his troops in the battles of Gumbinnen, Tannenberg, and the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes… eventually driving the Russians out from most of East Prussia.
On November 2, 1914, von Mackensen took over the German Ninth Army from von Hindenburg who became Oberbefehlshaber Ost (Supreme Commander of the East). For his successful fights around Lodz and Warsaw, August von Mackensen was awarded the Pour le Merite on November 27, 1914.
By the spring of 1915, the Russians had conquered all of Galicia (the slice of partitioned Poland ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire) and were pushing towards the Kingdom of Hungary. The Austrians desperately called on its Teutonic ally to help drive out the invading Cossacks.
A new German-Austrian army was assembled under the command of August von Mackensen. Then, ably assisted by his chief of staff, Hans von Seeckt, von Mackensen achieved the great German breakthrough in the Gorlice-Tarnów area, retaking the fortresses of Przemysl and Lemberg. For this, he was promoted to field marshal on June 22, 1915.
Three weeks earlier, von Mackensen was awarded oak leaves to his Blue Max. He was also awarded the Order of the Black Eagle, Prussia’s highest ranking order of knighthood. Von Mackensen also won the Kingdom of Bavaria’s highest military honor, the Grand Cross of the Military Order of Max Joseph. By the autumn of 1915, the Russians evacuated from the whole of Poland.
In October 1915, von Mackensen travelled to the Serbian Front to take command of Army Group Mackensen, which consisted of German, Austrian, and Bulgarian troops. He pushed the Serbian Army out of the Balkans, but was unable to destroy it or prevent its escape. Nevertheless, he returned to Vienna in triumph, and the old Emperor Franz Josef awarded him with the jeweled Military Merit Cross First Class with diamonds.
In late 1916, von Mackensen fought in Romania with an army of Bulgarians, Ottoman Turks, Austrians, Hungarians, and Germans. Bucharest (the Romanian capital) fell on his 67th birthday, and the field marshal rode in on a white horse and moved into the royal palace. He remained in Romania until the end of the war as military governor and de facto ruler. After the armistice in November 1918, von Mackensen was interned for a year.
He retired from the army in 1920 and was later made a Prussian state councilor in 1933 by Herman Goering. Von Mackensen, a nationalist, political right winger, and committed monarchist, frequently appeared in public wearing his old Life Hussars uniform. His relationship with the Nazis remained ambiguous throughout the period of the Third Reich.
According to a radio news report dated April 15, 1945, filed by Larry LeSueur for World News Today, von Mackensen was briefly captured by the British Second Army at his home during the closing weeks of World War II. Upon the arrival of the British, rather than making an expected war-like statement, the old soldier merely made the request that allied soldiers should not “steal his chickens!”
He died at age 95 on November 8, 1945… having known during his long life, the Kingdom of Prussia, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German Empire, the Great War, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, its defeat, and the occupation of his country by the Allies.