Earl Kitchener of Khartoum

In 1882, Kitchener joined the expedition against the rebellious Egyptian Army of Arabi Pasha in a small and unofficial role, reconnoitring up the Nile Valley from Alexandria towards Cairo with another officer. At the end of 1882 the survey of Cyprus was almost complete and Kitchener accepted the the post of second in command of the Egyptian cavalry. He participated in the operations against the Sudanese insurrection and sent back to England the first authoritative report of General Gordon’s death. He resigned his commission in July 1885 and returned to England, now a brevet lieutenant colonel.

After a spell of leave he was a member of the joint English, French and German commission appointed at the close of 1885 to delimit the territory of the sultan of Zanzibar. He returned in 1886 and received the news that he had been appointed the governor-general of the Eastern Sudan, where he remained until 1888. Having been severely wounded in conflict with Osman Digna the local leader of the Dervishes. For his work in Sudan he was made brevet Colonel and aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria.

After his recovery he was appointed Adjutant-general of the Egyptian Army and, in command of the cavalry once more, he participated in the defeat of the Dervishes on 2nd August and received the CBE. He then undertook the reorganization of the Egyptian Police at the request of Sir Evelyn Baring.

Kitchener succeeded Grenfell as Sirdar of the Egyptian Army and spent four years preparing to advance into the Sudan and defeat the Dervishes. He was created KCMG in 1894 and started the River War in 1896, advancing on Dongola in the first stage of the war. In September he was promoted to major general and created KCB. After securing Government approval for a further advance he continued his advance on the Dervishes and reoccupied Khartoum and retook the Sudan.

Within reach of the city, the Dervishes tried to counter but were outmanoeuvred and eventually defeated. Kitchener returned home to be received with great enthusiasm and was raised to the peerage as Baron Kitchener of Khartoum, received the thanks of parliament and was feted in England, Scotland and Wales.

He returned to the Sudan as governor-general with funds for a college at Khartoum and set about creating a civil administration for the country. Sir Reginald Wingate removed the last of the rebels on 22nd November. Wingate would go on to succeed Kitchener as Sirdar. Kitchener was recalled within a month of this event.

He now journeyed to South Africa and joined the British forces involved in the second Boer War. When the end in South Africa did come, Kitchener returned to England and received a Viscountcy, with special remainder, and became one of the original members of the order of merit. He left England after a few months rest to take up the post of commander-in-chief in India, breaking his voyage to go to Khartoum and open the Gordon Memorial College.

In India, he reorganised the army but had to battle civilian administration and initiated many more reforms as commander-in-chief than any of his predecessors and he established a Staff College in India as well as providing the machinery for mobilisation and modernising the system of training.

On leaving India in September 1909, he was promoted Field Marshal and visited the battlefields of the Russo-Japanese War, before going to Australia and New Zealand to advise the Dominion governments as to their organisation for defence. He reached England in 1914 in order to receive the Field Marshal’s baton from King Edward VII.

He then enjoyed some 15 months of comparative leisure, only broken up by his duties as a member of the Committee of Imperial Defence.

In September 1911, he was appointed British agent and Consul-General in Egypt and succeeded in keeping Egypt quiet while unrest gripped the Near East as Turkey engaged in two wars. In June 1914 he received an Earldom when he returned to England on his annual holiday.

Field Marshal Kitchener was in the popular view, the greatest living British hero, whose experience in colonial campaigns was vast and punctuated with great success such as the victory of Omdurman, the successful conclusion of the Boer War, and the reorganisation of the military forces in India.

He was in the course of returning to Egypt to take on the reins of government when he was appointed War Minister upon the outbreak of World War One and, for the next year and a half he virtually ran the British war effort. His appointment was unusual in that it was not political, and included some good points; he was among the first to realize that the war would not ‘be over by Christmas’, and thus he planned for at least three years conflict, and his success in recruiting the new armies was astonishing, during the course of which his face and pointing finger featured upon the most famous recruiting poster in history.

He also did much to cement the relationship with France, his concern for support of Britain’s ally leading him to inter vene in person to put backbone into the timid Sir John French. In other ways, however, he was not a success and infuriating to work alongside. Like others he was unable to delegate or to establish close relations, contemptuous of politicians and unwill ing to act as part of a team. The Dardanelles was at least partly his fault, in his lack of preparation, consultation with subordinates and practical support. Kitchener’s reputation came over with the failure at Gallipoli, upon which expedition he had staked much, and his influence, his role as the cabinet’s chief military advisor being taken over by Sir William Robertson, as new Chief of Imperial General Staff.

However, Kitchener’s influence also resulted in the army becoming semi-independent of political control, and it took some two years to re-establish the Primacy of civilian control of strategy.

The First Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, Horatio Herbert Kitchener died when the cruiser HMS Hampshire struck a mine en route to Russia where he was leading a mission on 5th June 1916.