Germany
August von Mackensen
1849–1945 Field marshal; commander of Army Group Mackensen, 1915–1918
August von Mackensen was born on 6 December 1849 in the Prussian Province of Saxony and joined a Hussar regiment in 1869. He rose through the General Staff, serving as adjutant to Schlieffen and later to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who ennobled him in 1899. On 16 April 1915 he took command of a new German Eleventh Army, with Hans von Seeckt as chief of staff. Its breakthrough between Gorlice and Tarnow on 2 May and the recapture of Lemberg (Lviv) on 22 June drove the Russians out of Galicia, and Mackensen became a field marshal that June. He then led the October 1915 campaign against Serbia and the 1916 campaign that overran most of Romania. Interned by the Allies until late 1919, he died on 8 November 1945, aged 95.