HINCKLEY 



3997 



HINDENBURG LINE 



Hinckley. Market town and 

 urban district of Leicestershire. It 

 is on the L. & N.W. Rly., 14 m. 

 S.W. of Leicester. The chief 

 building is the restored Gothic 

 church of S. Mary. There is a free 

 library and a grammar school. The 

 industries are mainly the manu- 

 facture of hosiery, boots and shoes, 

 and bricks. Watling Street runs 

 near here, and the place was. 

 once a Roman station, many Ro- 

 man remains having been found 

 near. In medieval times there was 

 a castle here. Pop. 12,800. 



Hincks, EDWARD (1792-1866). 

 British Orientalist. Born at Cork, 

 Ireland, Aug. 19, 1792, he gradu- 

 ated at Trinity College, Dublin, 

 and became Protestant rector of 

 Killyleagh, co. Down, 1825. He 

 made solid contributions to the 

 decipherment of cuneiform script 

 and Egyptian hieroglyphics. His 

 First and Second Kinds of Per- 

 sepolitan Writing, which deter- 

 mined the ancient Persian vowel 

 system, appeared in 1846 simul- 

 taneously with Rawlinson's solu- 

 tion, achieved independently at 

 Bagdad. He died at Killyleagh, 

 Dec. 3, 1866. 



Hindenburg. German battle 

 cruiser. Built at Wilhelmshaven in 

 1915, she was engaged in the Great 

 War. She was 610 ft. long, 96 ft. in 

 beam, displaced 28,000 tons, and 

 had engines of 100,000 horse-power, 

 giving a speed of 28 knots. Her 

 armoured belt was 7 ins. thick, and 

 she had a 2 J-in. protective deck. 

 She carried eight 12-in. and twelve 

 5'9-in. gurls. Other ships of her 

 type were the Bismarck and the 

 Lutzdw; the latter being sunk at 

 Jutland. The Seydlitz heavily 

 damaged at Jutland and the 

 Derfflinger resembled her closely. 

 The Hindenburg was one of the 

 ships handed over to the British, 

 Nov. 21, 1918. See Der Krieg zur 

 See, 1914-18, by Commander 0. 

 Groos, the first vol. of the official 

 German history of the war at 

 sea, 1920. 



Hindenburg, PAUL VON (b. 

 1847). German soldier. A member 

 of a Prussian Junker family, he was 

 born Oct. 1, 1847, at Posen. Edu- 

 cated at the Military College, he 

 joined the Prussian armv in 1865, 



Paul von Hinden- 

 burg, 

 German soldier 



and served throughout the Austro- 

 Prussian War of 1866 and the 

 Franco Prussian War of 1870-71, 

 being present 

 at the battles 

 of St. Privat 

 and Sedan and 

 the si eige' of 

 Paris. Later he 

 was on the staff 

 of the 1st Army 

 Corps at 

 Kon igsberg, 

 and devoted 

 himself to ^the 

 study of the 

 military problems .presented by 

 the district of. the Mazurian Lakes 

 (Mazurenland). 



When a syndicate proposed to 

 reclaim its marshy regions, Hinden- 

 burg, supported by William II, 

 successfully opposed the scheme. 

 Rising in rank till he became 

 general of infantry and commander 

 of an army corps, he retired from 

 the army in 1911, and was living 

 at Hanover when the Great War 

 broke out. On the Russian in- 

 vasion of East Prussia in Aug., 

 1914, he was appointed to the 

 command of the German forces in 

 that province, and on August 23 

 established his headquarters at 

 Marienburg. Before the month 

 closed he defeated the Russians 

 disastrously in the battle of Tan- 

 nenberg, largely owing to his 

 special knowledge of the terrain. 

 He pursued the Russians to the 

 Niemen, but was compelled to re- 

 tire into East Prussia. 

 ' On Sept. 25 Hindenburg was 

 put in chief command of the Austro- 

 German forces which invaded 

 Poland and made the first attack 

 on Warsaw in the following Oct., 

 but without success. In his second 

 attack on Warsaw he defeated the 

 Russians at Kutno on Nov. 15-16, 

 and for this victory was made a 

 field- marshal. During the rest of 

 1914, throughout 1915, and during 

 the greater part of 1916 he was 

 German generalissimo on the 

 Eastern front. On Aug. 30, 1916, 

 it was announced that Falkenhayn 

 had been removed from the posi- 

 tion of chief of the central general 

 staff, and that Hinden-burg had 

 been appointed chief of the general 



Mta 





Hindenburg. 



German battle cruiser, sister snip of the Lutzow. She was 

 handed over to the British in 1918 



Hindenburg. The colossal wooden 



statue in Berlin. In aid of war 



charities nails were purchased and 



driven into it 



staff of the field army. From that 

 time to the signing of the armistice 

 by Germany on Nov. 11, 1918, 

 Hindenburg was the German 

 generalissimo, Ludendorff being 

 his chief of staff. After the German 

 Revolution he remained in com- 

 mand of the German army, but 

 retired into private life in June, 

 1919. See Out of My Life, Marshal 

 von Hindenburg, 1920. 



Hindenburg Line. German 

 fortified system in France in" the 

 Great War. After the battle of the 

 Somme, 1916, the German High 

 Command decided to abandon their 

 advanced positions and retreat to 

 a line which they could defen- 

 sively hold while giving Russia the 

 knock-out blow. Accordingly in 

 the winter of 1916-17 the con- 

 struction of the Hindenburg line 

 was undertaken. Known to the 

 Germans as the Siegfried line, it 

 consisted of trenches strengthened 

 by concrete shelters and gun em- 

 placements, and protected by 

 broad belts of barbed wire. 



Roughly it ran from Arras to 

 Laon, but more particularly from 

 Tilloy-les-Mofliaines, S.E. of Arras, 

 through Bullecourt, through 

 Queant, and thence west of Cam- 

 brai, St. Quentin, and La Fere to 

 the rising ground of the Chemin 

 des Dames. The outpost trenched 

 were on the forward slopes, and t 

 the main positions on the reverse 

 slopes, covered by defensive artil- 

 lery fire from higher ground in the 

 rear. Behind the first line of 

 trenches were belts of wire ar- 

 ranged in criss-cross geometrical 

 pattern, and after an interval 

 varying from a few hundred y aids 

 to half a mile was a second trench' 

 of considerable width, intended 

 to prevent tanks from crossing it. 



