What Ever Happened to Alexander von Kluck?

General  Alexander von Kluck (1846–1934)  held the most important field command of the German Army in the opening days of World War I. Known to be a very arrogant and unapproachable general officer, he was also the only German commander during war who had never served on the Great General Staff or attended the Prussian War Academy. 

When war came, though, it was von Kluck's First Army that was designated to spearhead the German invasion of France and Belgium on the extreme right of the great sweeping movement.  In doing so, he showed tremendous vigor for a man of 68 years.  While his efforts were thwarted strategically by the inherent flaws of the Schlieffen Plan, and tactically by the caution and pessimism of the Second Army commander on his left flank, General Karl von Bulow,  his decision-making as the Battle of the Marne unfolded has been consistently criticized by most historians.  Nevertheless, he retained his field command afterward.

Yet, by the middle of the war, he was nowhere in sight.  As it turns out, he was a casualty of the war. In  late March1915, he  received a severe shrapnel wound in his leg  while inspecting his front lines. He received the order of the Pour le Mérite  from the Kaiser himself as he lay on his sickbed. Von Kluck retired from military service in early 1916. His postwar memoirs, The March on Paris and the Battle of the Marne, were published in 1920. The general died on 19 October 1934 in Berlin. He is buried at the Südwestkirchhof in Stahnsdorf.

Sometime during the war, von Kluck, gained a bit of immortality when his name was incorporated into a bawdy British soldiers' song:

"Kaiser Bill is feeling ill,

The Crown Prince he's gone barmy.

We don't give a fuck for old von Kluck

And all his bleedin' army."

Sources:  Who's Who in World War One; Prussianmachine.com; Library  of Congress