Kitchener of Khartoum.

LORD KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM.

From: The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, 1910-1911.

HORATIO HERBERT KITCHENER, VISCOUNT (1850- ), British Field Marshal, was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel H. H. Kitchener and was born at Bally Longford, Co. Kerry, on the 24th of June 1850. He entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1868, and was commissioned Second Lieutenant, Royal Engineers, in 1871. As a Subaltern he was employed in survey work in Cyprus and Palestine, and on promotion to Captain in 1883 was attached to the Egyptian army, then in course of re-organization under British officers.

In the following year he served on the staff of the British expeditionary force on the Nile, and was promoted successively Major and Lieutenant-Colonel by brevet for his services. From 1886 to 1888 he was commandant at Suakin, commanding and receiving a severe wound in the action of Handub in 1888. In 1888 he commanded a brigade in the actions of Gamaizieh and Toski. From 1880 to 1892 he served as Adjutant-General of the Army. He had become Brevet-Colonel in the British army in 1888, and he received the C.B. in 1889 after the action of Toski.

In 1892 Colonel Kitchener succeeded Sir Francis (Lord) Grenfell as Sirdar of the Egyptian army, and three years later, when he had completed his predecessor's work of re-organizing the forces of the Khedive, he began the formation of an expeditionary force on the vexed military frontier of Wady Halfa. The advance into the Sudan was prepared by thorough administrative work on his part which gained universal admiration. In 1896 Kitchener won the action of Ferket (June 7) and advanced the frontier and the railway to Dongola. In 1897 Sir Archibald Hunter's victory of Abu Hamed (Aug. 7) carried the Egyptian flag one stage farther, and in 1898 the resolve to destroy the Mahdi's power was openly indicated by the despatch of a British force to co-operate with the Egyptians.

The Sirdar, who in 1896 became a British Major-General and received the K.C.B., commanded the united force, which stormed the Mahdist zareba on the river Atbara on the 8th of April, and, the outposts being soon afterwards advanced to Metemmeh and Shendy, the British force was augmented to the strength of a division for the final advance on Khartoum. Kitchener's work was crowned and the power of the Mahdists utterly destroyed by the victory of Omdurman (Sept. 2), for which he was raised to the peerage as Baron Kitchener of Khartoum, received the G.C.B., the thanks of parliament and a grant of £30,000.

Little more than a year afterwards, while still Sirdar of the Egyptian army, he was promoted Lieutenant-General and appointed Chief-of-Staff to Lord Roberts in the South African War. In this capacity he served in the campaign of Paardeberg, the advance on Bloemfontein and the subsequent northward advance to Pretoria, and on Lord Roberts' return to England in November 1900 succeeded him as Commander-in-Chief, receiving at the same time the local rank of general. In June 1902 the long and harassing war came to its close, and Kitchener was rewarded by advancement to the dignity of Viscount, promotion to the substantive rank of General “for distinguished service,” the thanks of parliament and a grant of £50,000. He was also included in the Order of Merit.

Immediately after the peace he went to India as Commander-in-Chief in the East Indies, and in this position, which he held for seven years, he carried out not only many far-reaching administrative reforms but a complete reorganization and strategical redistribution of the British and native forces. On leaving India in l909 he was promoted Field Marshal, and succeeded the Duke of Connaught as Commander-in-Chief and High Commissioner in the Mediterranean. This post, not of great importance in itself, was regarded as a virtual command of the colonial as distinct from the home and the Indian forces, and on his appointment Lord Kitchener (after a visit to Japan) undertook a tour of inspection of the forces of the empire, and went to Australia and New Zealand in order to assist in drawing up local schemes of defence. In this mission he was highly successful, and earned golden opinions. But soon after his return to England in April 1910 he declined to take up his Mediterranean appointment, owing to his dislike of its inadequate scope, and he was succeeded in June by Sir Ian Hamilton.

From the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, 1910-1911.

From: Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, 2002.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Kitchener (of Khartoum and of Broome), 1st Earl.
Viscount Broome of Broome, Baron Denton of Denton, also called (from 1898) Baron Kitchener of Khartoum and of Aspall, and (from 1902) Viscount Kitchener of Khartoum, of The Vaal, and of Aspall born June 24, 1850 , near Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland, died June 5, 1916 , at sea off Orkney Islands

British field marshal, imperial administrator, conqueror of the Sudan, commander in chief during the South African War, and (perhaps his most important role) secretary of state for war at the beginning of World War I. At that time he organized armies on a scale unprecedented in British history and became a symbol of the national will to victory.

Educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, Kitchener was commissioned in the Royal Engineers, and from 1874 he served in the Middle East. In 1886 he was appointed governor (at Suakin [Sawakin], Sudan) of the British Red Sea territories and subsequently was assigned to Egypt as adjutant general in Cairo. His energy and thoroughness led to his appointment as sirdar (commander in chief) of the Egyptian army in 1892. On Sept. 2, 1898, he crushed the religious and politically separatist Sudanese forces of al-Mahdi in the Battle of Omdurman and then occupied the nearby city of Khartoum, which he rebuilt as the centre of Anglo-Egyptian government in the Sudan. His reputation in Great Britain was enhanced by his firm, tactful, and successful handling (from Sept. 18, 1898) of an explosive situation at Fashoda (now Kodok), where Jean-Baptiste Marchand's expeditionary force was trying to establish French sovereignty over parts of the Sudan. He was created Baron Kitchener in 1898.

After a year as governor-general of the Sudan, Kitchener entered the South African War (Boer War) in December 1899 as chief of staff to Field Marshal Sir Frederick Sleigh Roberts, whom he succeeded as commander in chief in November 1900. During the last 18 months of the war, Kitchener combated guerrilla resistance by such methods as burning Boer farms and herding Boer women and children into disease-ridden concentration camps. These ruthless measures, and Kitchener's strategic construction of a network of blockhouses across the country to localize and isolate the Boers' forces, steadily weakened their resistance.

On returning to England after the British victory in the war, he was created Viscount Kitchener (July 1902) and was sent as commander in chief to India, where he reorganized the army in order to meet possible external aggression rather than internal rebellion, which previously had been the primary concern. His quarrel with the viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, over control of the army in India ended in 1905 when the British cabinet upheld Kitchener and Curzon resigned. Remaining in India until 1909, Kitchener was bitterly disappointed at not being appointed viceroy. In September 1911 he accepted the proconsulship of Egypt, and until August 1914 he ruled that country and the Sudan. Protection of the peasants from seizure of their land for debt and the advancement of the cotton-growing interest were his basic concerns. Tolerating no opposition, he was about to depose the hostile Khedive Abbas II (Abbas Hilmi) of Egypt when World War I broke out.

Kitchener, who was on leave in England and had just received an earldom and another viscountcy and barony (June 1914), reluctantly accepted an appointment to the cabinet as secretary of state for war and was promoted to field marshal. He warned his colleagues, most of whom expected a short war, that the conflict would be decided by the last 1,000,000 men that Great Britain could throw into battle. Quickly enlisting a great number of volunteers, he had them trained as professional soldiers for a succession of entirely new "Kitchener armies." By the end of 1915 he was convinced of the need for military conscription, but he never publicly advocated it, in deference to Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith's belief that conscription was not yet politically practicable.

In his recruitment of soldiers, planning of strategy, and mobilization of industry, Kitchener was handicapped by British governmental processes and by his own distaste for teamwork and delegation of responsibility. His cabinet associates, who did not share in the public idolatry of Kitchener, relieved him of responsibility first for industrial mobilization and later for strategy, but he refused to quit the cabinet. His career was ended suddenly, by drowning, when the cruiser HMS Hampshire, bearing him on a mission to Russia, was sunk by a German mine.

From: "Kitchener, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl" Encyclopaedia Britannica
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=46748 [Accessed August 10, 2002].

		The Manchester Guardian reports the death of Lord Kitchener while on a mission to Russia in 1916.
		In 1902, Commander Charles N. Robinson, R.N., edited and published Celebrities of the Army, a collection of portraits and short biographies of senior offices and major heroes of the South African War. These include Baden-Powell and several officers with whom he served in India and Africa both before and during the war. The portraits are quite elegant and are presented along with biographical information.
		It was at the Siege and Defense of Mafeking during the South African (Anglo-Boer) War that Baden-Powell made his name and first gained public recognition. 1999-1902 marks the Centennial of the War. Developed as part of that observance, Perspectives on the South African War provides a collection of links to original and contemporary sources on the South African War.
		Robert Baden-Powell, Founder of the World Scout Movement, Chief Scout of the World. A Home Page for the Founder. Links Relating to Baden-Powell on the Pine Tree Web and elsewhere.

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