Anton Ludwig August von Mackensen was a German field marshal. He commanded with success during the First World War and became one of the German Empire's most prominent military leaders. After the Armistice, Mackensen was interned for a year. He retired from the army in 1920 and was made a Prussian state councillor in 1933 by Hermann Göring.
Background
Mackensen was born in Haus Leipnitz, near the village of Dahlenberg (today part of Trossin) in the Prussian Province of Saxony, to Louis and Marie Louise Mackensen. His father, an administrator of agricultural enterprises, sent him to a Realgymnasium in Halle in 1865, seemingly in the hope that his eldest son would follow him in his profession.
Education
Mackensen entered the army in 1869 and fought in the war against France; in 1871 he enrolled at the University of Halle, only to return two years later to the army.
Career
In 1880, without having attended the War Academy, he was assigned to the General Staff, where eight years later he was promoted major; in 1891 Mackensen was appointed Count Alfred von Schlieffen's adjutant. By the turn of the century, Mackensen had been promoted colonel, raised into the Prussian nobility (1899), and appointed adjutant to Wilhelm II. Lieutenant General von Mackensen was given the Thirty-six Division in 1903; five years later as general of cavalry he headed the XVII Army Corps at Danzig. Mackensen's repeated commands of the prestigious horse guards had caught the kaiser's attention on several occasions.
On August 4, 1914, the XVII Army Corps was transformed into the Eighth Army with Mackensen in command. Sixteen days later, this force fronted the Russians at Gumbinnen, but withdrew after suffering 8,000 casualties that day; on August 21 Mackensen led his army behind the Vistula as part of the retreat ordered by General Max von Prittwitz und Gaffron. Under the new commanders in the east, Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, Mackensen resumed the offen-sive: on August 26 his army rolled up the Russian right wing of General A. V. Samsonov's Second Army, and on September 9 the Eighth Army successfully attacked General P. K. Rennenkampf's Niemen Army at the Masurian Lakes, throwing the enemy back upon Kovno. The former XVII Army Corps was next transferred to Silesia as part of a new Ninth Army. Mackensen entered Poland and on October 8 received orders to move against Warsaw. The order was ill advised and on October 13 Grand Duke Nikolai, enjoying a numerical advantage of fourteen to five divisions, repulsed the German attack and chased the invaders back over Lodz to Wartha by October 20.
The Germans on November 1, 1914, totally reorganized their eastern front. Hindenburg became eastern commander in chief and Mackensen was given the Ninth Army, now strengthened by eight new divisions. Mackensen reclaimed Lodz on December 6 and forced the Russians to fall back upon Warsaw with the loss of 80,000 prisoners of war; he was promoted colonel general and given the order Pour le mérite for the triumph at Lodz. With this action, Germany's eastern borders were secured.
On April 16, 1915, Mackensen was given a new Eleventh Army (including the Austro-Hungarian Third and Fourth Armies) and ordered to free Galicia of Russians. The great German breakthrough at Gorlice-Tarnow on May 2 brought Mackensen prestige second only to that enjoyed by Hindenburg. By mid-May the Germans had taken 150,000 prisoners and had reached the San River; the great fortress of Przemysl was retaken on June 2 and later that month the Russians were again defeated at Lubaczov and at Grodek-Magierov. Mackensen was promoted field marshal when his troops stormed Lemberg on June 22. On July 4, 1915, this dashing cavalryman was placed at the head of Army Group Mackensen, consisting of the German Eleventh Army and the Bug Army as well as of the Austro-Hungarian Fourth Army. In rapid succession the Russians were driven out of Lublin, Cholm, and Brest-Litovsk (August 26), and as far back as the Pripet Marshes.
Mackensen was at the height of his military career when he received command of a new Army Group Mackensen (German Ninth, Austro-Hungarian Third, and Bulgarian First Armies) on September 16, 1915, against Serbia. He crossed the Danube and Save rivers on October 6, and three days later Belgrade fell. The entire country was overrun by November and 150,000 prisoners taken; Mackensen's forces halted at the border of neutral Greece and hence left an Allied army bottled up at Salonika.
On August 28, 1916, after Rumania had declared war against the Central Powers, Mackensen was given a mixed force of German, Bulgarian, Austro- Hungarian, and Turkish troops, with which he invaded the Dobrudja during the night of September 1/2. The Rumanians, although enjoying almost a three-to-one numerical advantage, lost Tutrakan and Silistria along with 30,000 men. By October 19 Mackensen had seized the important port of Costanza, while General Erich von Falkenhayn's Ninth Army advanced across the Transylvanian mountains at Targu Jiu. Mackensen crossed the Danube at Sistovo on November 23, turned the Rumanian flank on the Alt, and advanced upon Bucharest, which he entered on December 6, 1916. By January of the following year the greater part of the country was in German hands; Mackensen headed the army of occupation until the end of the war.
On November 10, 1918, the field marshal began to clear his units out of Rumania, by way of Transylvania, into Hungary. On December 16 the government of Count Mihaly Karolyi, acting on orders from the Entente, arrested Mackensen in Budapest and turned him over to French authorities. Interned at Neusatz, the general was finally allowed to return home in December 1919; he retired from the army in January 1920.
Mackensen settled on his estate near Stettin and in August 1933 was made a member of the Prussian Council of State by Hermann Goring. The field marshal frequently appeared at Adolf Hitler's side in public wearing the uniform of the famous "Death's Head Hussars," with which he had commenced his illustrious career as a cavalryman. He was most proud that his waistline had not expanded from subaltern to field marshal. Mackensen died in Burghorn, near Celle, on November 8, 1945, at the age of ninety-six. During the war, he had displayed judicious and independent political as well as military judgment, not at all the "court general" he was often accused of being. Though it should be noted that much of his military prowess had stemmed from his brilliant staff chief, General Hans von Seeckt.
Connections
He married Doris (Dorothea) von Horn, the sister of a slain comrade, in 1879. Her father Karl von Horn (de) was the influential Oberpräsident of East Prussia; they had two daughters and three sons.