, short for ( "Supreme Commander of All German Forces in the East"), was both a high-ranking position in the armed forces of the German Empire as well as the name given to the occupied territories on the German section of the Eastern Front of World War I, with the exception of Poland. It encompassed the former Russian governorates of Courland, Grodno, Vilna, Kovno and Suwałki. It was governed in succession by Paul von Hindenburg and Prince Leopold of Bavaria, and collapsed by the end of World War I. Extension was set up by Kaiser Wilhelm II in November 1914, initially came under the command of Paul von Hindenburg, a Prussian general who had come out of retirement to achieve the German victory of the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914 and became a national hero. When the Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn was dismissed from office by the Kaiser in August 1916, Hindenburg took over at the General Staff, and Prince Leopold of Bavaria took control of the . By October 1915, the Imperial German Army had advanced so far to the east that central Poland could be put under a civil administration. Accordingly, the German Empire established the Government General of Warsaw and the Austro-Hungarian Empire set up the Government General of Lublin. The military Ober Ost government from then on controlled only the conquered areas east and north of central Poland. After the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 1918, the German Empire effectively controlled Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, parts of Poland, and Courland, all of which had been part of the Russian Empire. itself controlled present-day Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Poland, and Courland. Policies ruled the land in a very strict and often cruel way. The movement policy or , divided the land without regard to the existing social and ethnic organization and patterns. One was not allowed to move between the districts, which destroyed the livelihood of many merchants and prevented indigenous people from visiting friends and relatives in neighboring districts. They also tried to "civilize" the people in the Ober Ost-controlled land, attempting to integrate German ideals and institutions with existing cultures. They constructed railroads but only Germans were allowed to ride them and schools were taught by German instructors, since they lacked trained Lithuanians. In 1915, when large territories came under Ober Osts administration as a result of military successes