to mount an offensive against impinging Soviet troops, but they were restrained by the Allied occupation administration, which in May 1919 ordered all German troops in the east home. On 25 June 1919, Hindenburg retired to Hanover once again. He settled in a splendid new villa, which was a gift of the city, despite his admittedly having "lost the greatest war in history". Military reputation "Victory comes from movement" was Schlieffen's principle for war. His disciple Hindenburg expounded his ideas as an instructor of tactics and then applied them on World War I battlefields: his retreats and mobile defenses were as skillful and daring as his slashing Schwerpunkt attacks, which even broke through the trench barrier on the Western Front. He failed to win because once through they were too slowlegs could not move quite fast enough. (With engines, German movement overwhelmed western Europe in World War II.) Surprisingly, Hindenburg has undergone a historical metamorphosis: his teaching of tactics and years on the General Staff forgotten while he is remembered as a commander as an appendage to Ludendorff's genius. Winston Churchill in his influential history of the war, published in 1923, depicts Hindenburg as a figurehead awed by the mystique of the General Staff, concluding that "Ludendorff throughout appears as the uncontested master." Churchill led the way: later he is Parkinson's "beloved figurehead", while to Stallings he is "an old military booby". These distortions stemmed from Ludendorff, who strutted in the limelight during the war and immediately thereafter wrote his comprehensive memoir with himself center stage. Hindenburg's far less detailed memoir never disputed his valued colleague's claims, military decisions were made by "we" not "I", and it is less useful to historians because it was written for general readers. Ludendorff continued touting his preeminence in print, which, typically, Hindenburg never disputed publicly. Others did, though. The OHL officers who testified before the Reichstag committee investigating the collapse of 1918 agreed that Hindenburg was always in command. He managed by setting objectives and appointing talented men to do their jobs, for instance "giving full scope to the intellectual powers" of Ludendorff. Naturally these subordinates often felt that he did little, even though he was setting the course. In addition Ludendorff overrated himself, repressing repeated demonstrations that he lacked the backbone essential to command. Postwar he displayed extraordinarily poor judgment and a penchant for bizarre ideas, contrasting sharply with his former commander's