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EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM, 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/earlkitchenerofkOOjerrrich 
 
Frontispiece. 
 
 Lord Kitchener. 
 
 Photo: News Pictures. 
 
EARL KITCHENER 
 OF KHARTOUM: 
 
 The Story of his Life. 
 
 By WALTER JERROLD, 
 
 Author of " Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, V.C. : the Life 
 Story of a Great Soldier." ** Sir Redvers H. Buller, V.C, 
 the Story of his Life and Campaigns." 
 X etc., etc. 
 
 ••ooot.-:,.^ :»ooo.. 
 
 London :: :: :: Joseph Johnson, 
 HoLBORN Hall, Clerkenwell Road, E.C. 
 
LOAN STACK 
 

 7)/}^g 
 
 
 .sa 
 
 
 Ki^r^ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 - 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 page 
 
 I. — Early Life 
 
 7 
 
 II.— In Palestine 
 
 19 
 
 III.— Beginnings in Egypt ... 
 
 49 
 
 IV. — Gordon at Khartoum 
 
 65 
 
 V. — Sirdar of the Egyptian Army ... 96 
 
 VI. — The Beginning of the " Reconquest " 121 
 
 VII. — Reconquest of the Soudan Com- 
 
 pleted 
 
 142 
 
 VIII.— The Victor of Omdurman 
 
 161 
 
 IX.— In South .\frica 
 
 181 
 
 X.— In India 
 
 203 
 
 XL— Back to Egypt 
 
 225 
 
 XIL— The Great War 
 
 260 
 
 ord Kitchener 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 %J 
 
 68 
 
Earl Kitchener of Khartoum 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY LIFE. 
 
 It was not, perhaps, until after the triumphant 
 vindication of his policy as " Sirdar " in Egypt, 
 that the name of Herbert Kitchener became 
 widely known, though for more than twenty 
 years before the final breaking of the Mahdi's 
 power and the completion of the re-conquest of 
 the Soudan, it was familiar to many people as 
 that of a strong, self-reliant young officer of 
 the Engineers who was certain '* to be heard of/' 
 It was known to those who had studied the 
 progress of affairs in Egypt during the tragic 
 eighties, and it was familiar to those who were 
 interested in the wonderful work achieved in 
 the Holy Land during the seventies by the 
 officers engaged by the Committee of the Pales- 
 tine Exploration Fund. During the past sixteen 
 or eighteen years it has become familiar in our 
 mouths as a household word. And' during that 
 time, too, there may be said to have grown up 
 something of a " Kitchener legend '' ; some- 
 thing of an impression of a somewhat sombre, 
 
 7 
 
8 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 silent man, almost uncannily capable in carrying 
 out any work to which he sets his hand ; sure 
 and remorseless as a machine. 
 
 The pen-portrait of Lord Kitchener, drawn by 
 one of the most literary of war-correspondents 
 who ever went campaigning, shows us the hero 
 of Omdurman as he appeared to an acute 
 observer at the time that he was organising 
 that great coup which established his reputation. 
 The portrait has been often cited, for it has 
 become an inevitable part of any presentation 
 of this master of military preparation. Writing 
 in 1898 the late G. W. Steevens said : 
 
 " Major-General Sir Horatio Herbert Kitchener 
 is forty-eight years old by the book ; but that 
 is irrelevant. He stands several inches over six 
 feet, straight as a lance, and looks out im- 
 periously above most men's heads ; his motions 
 are deliberate and strong; slender but firmly 
 knit, he seems built for tireless, steel-wire en- 
 durance rather than for power or agility : that 
 also is irrelevant. Steady, passionless eyes, 
 shaded by decisive brows, brick-red rather full 
 cheeks, a long moustache, beneath which you 
 divine an imm.ovable mouth ; his face is harsh, 
 and neither appeals for affection nor stirs dislike. 
 All this is irrelevant too : neither age, nor 
 
EARLY LIFE. 9 
 
 figure, nor face, nor any accident of person, 
 has any bearing on the essential Sirdar. You 
 could imagine the character just the same if 
 all the externals were different. He has no age 
 but the prime of Hfe, no body but one to carry 
 his mind, no face but one to keep his brain 
 behind. The brain and the will are the essence 
 and the whole of the man — a brain and a will so 
 perfect in their workings that, in the face of 
 extremest difficulty, they never seem to know 
 what struggle is. You cannot imagine the 
 Sirdar otherwise than as seeing the right thing 
 to do and doing it. His precision is so in- 
 humanly unnerving, he is more Uke a machine 
 than a man. You feel that he ought to be 
 patented and shown with pride at the Paris 
 International Exhibition : British Empire Ex- 
 hibit No. I, hoYs concours the Sudan Machine."* 
 
 That was the man as he appeared to a very 
 keen observer at the time when he had first 
 greatly vindicated his great ability. Since those 
 words were written Lord Kitchener has again 
 and again proved them justified ; has so far 
 impressed all by the strength of his character 
 and the force of his genius that the whole story 
 
 •" With Kitchener to Khartoum." By G. W. Steeveas. 
 j(Blackwood 1898), 
 
10 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 of his life takes on new interest for many people. 
 It is a story not only of opportunities taken, 
 but one of "opportunities made, for if it be true 
 that '' there is a tide in the affairs of men which 
 taken at the flood leads on to fortune/' it is 
 also true that the man of character does not sit 
 down and wait for the particular " tide '' which 
 is to help him. It is often rather lack of force 
 than lack of opportunity that keeps men back 
 from high achievements am^ong their fellows, 
 but in the case of Lord Kitchener his own force 
 of character and happy opportunity are so 
 often seen working together that we cannot help 
 feeling that it is this combination which has 
 been responsible for what was at one time 
 termed " Kitchener's luck." 
 
 At the age of twenty-four Lieutenant 
 Kitchener had his first " chance,'' a chance eagerly 
 taken, and as his subsequent career was to testify, 
 most profitably employed. Now, at the age of 
 sixty-four he occupies a position unique in the 
 modern history of our country — he is a Field- 
 Marshal of the Arm.y, he is War Mnister and a 
 mem.ber of the Cabinet. It is largely the story of 
 the forty intervening years that is set forth in 
 this book, forty years of active life in various 
 parts of the world, of work that has won the 
 
EARLY LIFE. ii 
 
 widest admiration and has but rarely met with 
 any adverse criticism from those most capable 
 of appreciating its value. 
 
 The great soldier of whom this can be said 
 was himself the son of a soldier, as was Lord 
 Roberts, and he was born — as were so many of 
 our most famous miUtary leaders — in Ireland, 
 though, except in so far as he is such by birth- 
 place, he cannot claim to be an Irishman for 
 his father came of an East AngHan family and 
 his mother also belonged to East AngUa, though 
 she was of Jersey ancestry. At the close of the 
 seventeenth century a Kitchener is said to 
 have migrated from Hampshire and settled at 
 Lakenheath in Suffolk, and a descendant of 
 his, Henry Horatio Kitchener, who was born 
 in 1805, entered the Army in 1830, and 
 retired on half-pay, with the rank of Lieut.- 
 Colonel at the age of 44, in 1849. ^^ 
 married Frances, daughter of the Rev. Dr. 
 ChevaUier, of Aspall Hall, Aspall, Suffolk, and 
 shortly after his retirement bought an extensive 
 estate in Kerry and settled down to the life of 
 an energetic country gentleman. There were 
 five children born of this marriage — four sons 
 and a daughter — the second son being the 
 subject of this biography. 
 
12 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM, 
 
 Horatio Herbert Kitchener was born on 
 June 24, 1850, at Gunsborough, about three 
 and a-half miles from Listowel, in North Kerry, 
 but the family immediately after his birth 
 appear to have removed to Crotter, near Bally- 
 longford, on an inlet of the Shannon estuary, for 
 it was near there, at Aghavallen church, that he 
 was baptised on September 22. Horatio, it may 
 be noted, is said to have been repeatedly used as 
 a name in the Kitchener family in memory of 
 Nelson, and in connection with that it is interest- 
 ing to learn that the family traces connection 
 with that of Admiral Edward Berry — another 
 East Anglian — who was one of Nelson's most 
 capable lieutenants. When Nelson presented 
 Captain Berry at Court, King George the Third, 
 having remarked on the Admiral's loss of his 
 right arm. Nelson at once said that he " still 
 had his right hand " — indicating the younger 
 officer. 
 
 The house known as Crotter or Crotta, at 
 Bally longf or d, was the home of the future Field- 
 Marshal and his brothers until they were in 
 their early teens, and it was presumably at home 
 or in a small school in the neighbourhood, that 
 they received their earliest education, and from 
 their military father doubtless imbibed that 
 
EARLY LIFE. i3 
 
 desire for soldiering which is to be recognised 
 in the fact that three out of the four sons of the 
 retired colonel in due course entered the array. 
 Colonel Kitchener is said to have been something 
 of a martinet, but he is said also to have proved 
 himself a capable organiser of the work on his 
 estates, to have gone in thoroughly for the 
 breeding of stock and the making the best use 
 of the land which he had acquired. From him, 
 by heredity and example, his famous son may 
 well have got those quaHties which seem to 
 stand out markedly in the story of his career, 
 and by means of which he has come to be re- 
 garded as an almost ruthless commander, and 
 a careful planner, whose powers of patient 
 organisation to an assured end have the value 
 of genius. 
 
 As a boy Herbert Kitchener is reported to 
 have been of a retiring, even taciturn nature — 
 the child is father to the man — with a taste for 
 books and a distinct ability for figures, but no 
 particular liking for open air games and sports. 
 Despite his leaning to the studious side rather 
 more than is generally associated with the aver- 
 age of boyhood, an early story w^hich has been 
 recorded suggests that his bookishness did not 
 lead to early distinction at school work. It is 
 
14 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 said that having to prepare for a certain examina- 
 tion he did so in such a half-hearted fashion 
 that his father declared that if he failed to pass 
 he would be sent to walk in procession with the 
 pupils of the local dames' school, and if he failed 
 a second time that he should be apprenticed to 
 a hatter ! The examination came on, and, the 
 boy failing, his father duly insisted on his 
 walking with the smaller children of the dame 
 school. That the second part of the threat did 
 not have to be acted upon the career of Herbert 
 Kitchener has sufficiently proved. 
 
 When Herbert Kitchener was thirteen years 
 of age he was sent with his brothers to a school 
 at Grand Clos, Villeneuve, on the shores of Lake 
 Geneva, in French Svvitzerland, kept by an 
 English clergyman, the Rev. J. Bennett, for 
 Colonel Kitchener appears to have been im- 
 pressed by the value of the acquisition of foreign 
 languages, and to have thought that such was 
 more important than the following of the 
 regulation round of public school work at home. 
 
 It was while the boy was there that his mother 
 died in 1864, but he seems to have remained at 
 Grand Clos until, three years later, it was time 
 for him to go to an army " crammer's " in London 
 to prepare for the Royal Military Academy at 
 
EARLY LIFE. 15 
 
 Woolwich. He was appointed to that Academy 
 on the last day of January, 1868, and duly 
 entered as a cadet a few days later. Such scanty 
 recollections of him at this period as have been 
 recorded tell us that he was " rather a dandy.'* 
 and that the study in which he especially dis- 
 tinguished himself was mathematics. 
 
 By 1870 Colonel Kitchener had married again, 
 had sold his Kerry estates and settled at the 
 picturesque mediaeval town of Dinan in Brittany, 
 which has long been a place attractive to British 
 residents settling in France. In a brief notice 
 written at the time of his death it was stated 
 that he resided in Ireland until 1 864, " when he 
 became the owner of properties in New Zealand.*' 
 Cadet Kitchener was at Dinan with his family 
 when the Franco-Prussian war was being waged, 
 and — it is said without seeking permission either 
 of the authorities at Woolwich or of his father — 
 the young man of twenty thought there was a 
 capital opportunity of seeing active service, and 
 went off and enHsted in the 6th Battalion of the 
 Reserves of the Mobile Guard of the Cotes du 
 Nord, under the command of General Chanzy, 
 " the strong right arm of French resistance to 
 the invader.*' If the zealous student of mili- 
 tarism did not see any fighting he seems to 
 
i6 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 have learned some valuable lessons during this 
 escapade ; he learned, incidentally, that the 
 bravest troops cannot achieve victory if they 
 are not organised for victory, and in the dis- 
 organisation of General Chanzy's army, the 
 awful mismanagement and lack of discipline, 
 he had object lessons which, judging by his later 
 career, made an indelible impression. 
 
 Though he did not take part in actual fighting, 
 the Woolwich cadet who had taken " French 
 leave " in joining the French army nearly paid 
 for his enterprise with his life, for not only was 
 he the victim of a balloon adventure, but he 
 was also laid low by a severe attack of pleurisy 
 consequent upon exposure and privations — an 
 attack which brought to a close his first ex- 
 perience of active service. 
 
 And not only did he suffer thus, for the 
 escapade threatened to jeopardise his career, as 
 the authorities at Woolwich were by no means 
 inclined to treat it complacently. Indeed, it is 
 said, that his father had to enlist powerful 
 influence to get the episode overlooked, and allow 
 the young man to complete his studies at 
 " the shop." 
 
 The late Major Arthur Griffiths has said that 
 the eve of the last examination at the Military 
 
Horatio and Walter Kitchener. 
 Opp. p. 10. Photo: Daily Mirror. 
 
EARLY LIFE. 17 
 
 Academy is inevitably an anxious moment to 
 the cadet, for it is on the place which he takes 
 in the examination list that his future career 
 depends : '' The first cadets on the Hst have 
 first choice, and they generally take the Engineers 
 although they sometimes elect for the Artillery, 
 and when they do, their future is fixed to work 
 guns, great or small, garrison or field, so long 
 as they serve the Queen actively. 
 
 " Not so the Engineers. A great variety of 
 chances may interpose, such as personal tastes 
 and aptitudes, or the luck of being somewhere 
 at a particular time. The mere red tape routine 
 of the roster may allot the young Engineer officer 
 to one of many kinds of work, both inside and 
 outside the profession of arms. Some take to 
 military engineering pure and simple, the con- 
 struction of forts and strong places, while others 
 are put to control the innumerable scientific 
 appliances adopted into modern warfare — tele- 
 graphy, photography, railways, balloons 
 
 A few only, and they may be counted on one's 
 fingers, have found their account in troop- 
 leading, in the manipulation and command of 
 men, whether as staff or general officers ; and 
 the nation most cordially recognises the obli- 
 gation thus conferred, for they have often 
 
1 8 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 achieved great things. Lord Napier of Magdala 
 was an Engineer officer, and so was Charles 
 Gordon, and so to-day is Lord Kitchener of 
 Khartoum."* 
 
 It was probably for but a short period that 
 young Kitchener served in the reserves of General 
 Chanzy's army, for he had got through the 
 fateful examination, and was duly commissioned 
 as second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers 
 on January 4, 1871. For the next three years 
 he was mainly engaged in the pursuit of the 
 particular branch he had chosen, that of field 
 telegraphy, at Chatham and Aldershot, while 
 doubtless ready to avail himself of any oppor- 
 tunity which should offer for service that 
 promised adventurous experience. That oppor- 
 tunity was to come, and of a kind which was to 
 have a momentous effect upon his after career. 
 
 * Pearson's Ma^asine, April, 1900. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 IN PALESTINE. 
 
 The 'prentice work of a man who achieves wide 
 fame is always of interest to those who consider 
 the full career of such a man, and in the case of 
 Lord Kitchener the 'prentice work was in an 
 unusual degree work of notable and lasting 
 value, though its importance has been over- 
 shadowed by his later achievements. It was 
 in 1874 ^^^^ Kitchener's opportunity came, and 
 in a form which could scarcely fail to appeal to 
 any young officer eager for work that should 
 take him off the beaten track. 
 
 In 1864 there had been established the Pales- 
 tine Exploration Fund — a body, the object of 
 which, was to survey the Holy Land with a 
 thoroughness that should make possible the 
 drawing up of a full and reliable map, should 
 identify the sites in which all Christendom is 
 interested, and should make records of all ancient 
 monuments, and reveal by excavation some of 
 the secrets of the country. The actual survey 
 work was started in 1872 by Captain Stewart 
 
 19 
 
20 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 and Lieutenant Conder, both of them of the 
 Royal Engineers. The former had to give up 
 the work on account of health, and his colleague 
 was left in command of the surveying party, 
 being joined as assistant by Mr. C. F. Tyrwhitt- 
 Drake. 
 
 In the summer of 1874, Tyrwhitt-Drake's 
 health broke down, and he died at Jerusalem. 
 The post thus left vacant was offered to Lieu- 
 tenant Kitchener who set out for Palestine in 
 the autumn, and joined the survey party on 
 December 19, as the leader duly chronicled. 
 
 Violent gales, and illness in some members of 
 the party — one of the non-commissioned officers 
 of which had to be invalided home — interrupted 
 the work of the survey, and the winter was 
 spent in Jerusalem. 
 
 " I think it is General Gordon w^ho has some- 
 where said that for a^man to understand the 
 world he should for a time leave the life of busy 
 cities and think out his thoughts alone in the 
 wilderness. Often have I thought that could 
 the critic leave his comfortable study and dwell 
 for a time in this desert of Judah, under the 
 starry sky at night and the hot glare of the sun 
 by day, in a land which men once thought|to 
 have been burned by fire, cursed and sown v/ith 
 
IN PALESTINE. 21 
 
 salt, and in the great stillness of a world almost 
 without life, Jie would be better able to under- 
 stand what Hebrew poets, prophets, and his- 
 torians have written/** 
 
 If it was Httle likely to be a reahsation of this 
 which would weigh with the young officer who 
 seized the opportunity of spending some years 
 of active work in Palestine, such may well have 
 come to be his feelings after intimate experience 
 of the fascinating land. It was work, and 
 adventurous work that offered, and work which 
 afforded opportunities to be taken by a discerning 
 man. To Lieutenant Kitchener it gave the 
 opportunity, eagerly seized, of getting to know 
 the Arab and to learn his language — knowledge 
 that was to be of incalculable value in the 
 future ; but then he was one of those who, as 
 he is said to have put it, " could not understand 
 how any young fellow in the army could settle 
 down into the humdrum life of a home station 
 while opportunities were going for adventure 
 and distinction abroad." 
 
 There was little of the " hum-drum '* in the 
 life of the English officers engaged in the survey : 
 not only had they interesting work to do amid 
 surroundings which could not fail to stimulate 
 
 * " Palestine." By Major C. R. Conder. 
 
22 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 the imagination, but there were not wanting 
 those elements of risk which gave more than a 
 spice of adventure to the undertaking. Not 
 always were the people of the country friendly, 
 for though on the whole the surveying party were 
 treated tolerantly, there were occasional incidents 
 which called for careful treatment, and at one 
 point such aggressive opposition as led to the 
 actual suspension of the work. To appreciate 
 fully that which was achieved, and to realise 
 the beauty and fascination of the land in which 
 it was done, Conder's book on '^ Palestine " 
 should be read. Here we must confine ourselves 
 to a summary account of Lieutenant Kitchener's 
 association with the work. 
 
 It has been said that the winter of 1874-5 
 had to be spent in Jerusalem owing to sickness 
 in Conder's party, and Kitchener was one of 
 the victims, being laid low by a serious attack 
 of Jericho fever. Indeed, when Conder, as he 
 put it, " once more took the field '' with a light 
 and compact expedition on February 25, 1875, 
 Kitchener was still scarcely convalescent, and 
 he and the Arab headman were left in comfort- 
 able quarters while the main party continued 
 the work in the Dead Sea desert. A few weeks 
 later and the young lieutenant joined in the 
 
IN PALESTINE. 23 
 
 survey, which, during March and April, was 
 carried to Ascalon, Gaza, and the Phihstine plain. 
 
 At Ascalon, Kitchener and Conder were 
 swimming in the Mediterranean, when the latter 
 got into difficulties, and was being carried away 
 by a strong current ; fortunately Kitchener, who 
 was nearer the shore, observed his friend's pre- 
 dicament, and struck out to his assistance, caught 
 hold of him, and with considerable difficulty 
 succeeded in getting him back to safety. It 
 was not the only time as we shall sec in which 
 he saved Condcr's Ufe during this first year of 
 their association in work. After a rest at Jeru- 
 salem during the trying east winds of May, the 
 party proceeded north to survey the country 
 from the Sea of GaUlee to the Mediterranean. 
 They set out on June 8, and Uttle more than a 
 month later when they arrived, on July 10, near 
 Safed, about a dozen miles to the north-west 
 of the Sea of Galilee, their camp was suddenly 
 attacked by a marauding band of fanatical 
 Moorish settlers under Ali Agha Alan. 
 
 Of this episode there are several accounts, 
 but the most trustworthy, it may well be believed, 
 is that which Major Conder himself gave in the 
 book already mentioned : " Our relations with 
 natives of all creeds and races had always 
 
24 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 been excellent, and so remained afterwards. 
 A little rigour was occasionally necessary 
 when my men were pelted with stones, or 
 when the muleteers in camp fought with 
 knives, but our actions were always legal, and 
 a Turkish policeman attached to the party 
 was employed to take offenders before the 
 local magistrates. There were no complaints 
 against any of the party, and indeed, as we spent 
 money, employed labour, and bought provisions 
 at a good price, the Survey was always popular 
 in Palestine. But at Safed a Christian was then 
 rarely seen, and fanaticism always lives longest 
 in the mountains. It is possible that some 
 imprudent speech of the dragoman may have 
 enraged the Emir who attacked us. Certainly 
 a pistol belonging to our party was stolen, and 
 was the immediate cause of the quarrel ; but I 
 never expected it to become serious until the 
 furious Algerine attacked me with a knife. Few 
 readers will blame me for knocking him down 
 and breaking his tooth ; but the result was an 
 attack by his followers with stones and swords 
 and aged guns. Several shots were fired at us, 
 but no one was hit. They, however, broke my 
 head badly with a club, and I was defended by 
 Lieutenant Kitchener, while I lay for a few 
 
IN PALESTINE. 25 
 
 moments stunned. I fear that I broke the head 
 of the clubman afterwards even worse, but the 
 party was never out of hand. We were armed 
 with shot guns and pistols but we never fired a 
 shot, and defended our tents without bloodshed 
 until the police arrived. The enraged Algerines 
 threatened to kill us during the night, but we 
 kept watch with our guns loaded with ball 
 cartridge, hastily made up, and only in the 
 morning did we march off the field in good order. 
 The worst hurt was that of my groom, who was 
 an old soldier. His head was laid open with a 
 sword-cut, and had to be sewn up ; but he accom- 
 panied us for several years after, and except a 
 cook and a scribe little accustomed to such 
 scenes, none of the natives in our party showed 
 any signs of fear in face of the howhng mob.*** 
 
 In a letter home Conder said : '^ I must in- 
 evitably have been murdered but for the cool 
 and prompt assistance of Lieutenant Kitchener, 
 who managed to get to me and engaged one of 
 the clubmen, thereby covering my retreat. A 
 blow descending on the top of his head he parried 
 with a cane, which was broken by the force of 
 the blow. A second wounded his arm. His 
 escape is unaccountable." It will be noticed 
 
 * " Palestine." By Major C. R. Conder. 
 
26 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 that Conder's recognition of Kitchener's aid 
 was more emphatic in the letter written shortly 
 after the occurrence than in his narrative pre- 
 sented a few years later. One account goes so 
 far as to say that the young officer's arm was 
 almost severed. 
 
 The wounding of the two leaders of the party 
 and the disturbance of the district consequent 
 upon the affray made it necessary for the members 
 of the Survey to retire from the immediate 
 neighbourhood and rest, and they journeyed 
 to Mount Carmel near the coast, where all fell ill 
 with malarial fever, except one of the non- 
 commissioned officers (Sergeant Armstrong) who 
 was assisting in the work at the time. Kitchener 
 is said to have been one of the worst of 
 the sufferers, and a story is told of him that when 
 begging for a drink as he lay in the heat of the 
 fever he saw some beer on a table and pleaded 
 that he might have some of it. Conder said 
 that it would be madness to give beer to one in 
 his state, but another member of the party 
 could not withstand the sick man's appeal and 
 handed him half a glass of the coveted drink. 
 Kitchener hastily drank it, with the result that 
 he was alarmingly sick. Afterwards he fell into 
 a deep sleep, and when he awakened the fever 
 had gone ! 
 
IN PALESTINE. 27 
 
 In September the men who had attacked the 
 party at Safed were brought to trial at Acre, and 
 both Conder and Kitchener had to attend, when 
 they had the satisfaction of seeing their late 
 assailants sentenced to terms of imprisonment 
 — the ringleader to four months — and the pay- 
 ment of fines amounting to ;^340. When the 
 trial was over, the two Heutenants returned to 
 England, an outbreak of cholera, following upon 
 the attack on the surveying party, making it 
 advisable to interrupt the field work of the Survey 
 when about four-fifths of the task was accom- 
 plished. 
 
 The first Quarterly Report of the ' Palestine 
 Exploration Fund issued after the return of the 
 two young ofiicers included the following passage : 
 ** The materials brought home by Lieutenants 
 Conder and Kitchener are of far greater value 
 than was expected. They consist of an addition 
 to our map work of about 1,600 square miles, 
 chiefly lying in the territory of Judah and 
 Philistia. About 180 square miles of Lower 
 Galilee are accomplished. There remain only 
 some 1,400 square miles to complete the map of 
 Western Palestine, from Dan to Beersheba.*' 
 
 For the whole of 1876 the officers were engaged 
 — in rooms at the' Albert Hall which were placed 
 
28 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 at the disposal of the Fund — in work on the 
 great map which was the primary object of 
 the survey, and the preparation of the accom- 
 panying memoirs. 
 
 Kitchener's work had included that of photo- 
 grapher to the party, and at Easter, 1876, there 
 was pubHshed '* Lieutenant Kitchener's Guinea 
 Book of Biblical Photographs,"* consisting of a 
 dozen mounted views with a short account of 
 each. This was, presumably, the first attempt 
 to bring Palestine home to British eyes by means 
 of photography, and the book should to-day 
 have an added interest, beyond that perennially 
 inherent in its subject. The whole series of 
 photographs taken by Kitchener consisted 
 of fifty views of places of Biblical interest. 
 
 After a year of office work on the maps, and 
 reports in London, Lieutenant Kitchener found 
 himself appointed to chief command of the 
 party to be sent out to complete the work by 
 surveying the last thirteen or fourteen hundred 
 square miles, left unfinished at the return at 
 the close of 1875. Lieutenant Conder's health 
 made it advisable that he should for some time 
 confine himself to working at home on the 
 
 * A few copies of this work are still obtainable at the offices oi 
 the Palestine Exploration Fund. 
 
IN PALESTINE. 29 
 
 materials already accumulated. The announce- 
 ment was thus made in the * 'Quarterly Statement " : 
 
 " It has been decided to despatch Lieutenant 
 Kitchener, who assumes the command, to 
 Damascus, where he will buy horses, and provide 
 for the starting of the party. Everything ready, 
 he will repair to Haifa, via Beyrout and the coast 
 road, there to await the arrival of his staff, 
 who will probably reach Palestine early in 
 February. . . . The survey of Galilee, including 
 the levelling for the depth of the lake below 
 the surface of the sea, for which the grant of 
 one hundred pounds was made by the British 
 Association two years ago, is calculated to take 
 until the middle of August. Lieutenant 
 
 Kitchener proposes then to finish off the hundred 
 and fifty square miles at the south-west of 
 Palestine yet remaining to be surveyed ; and, 
 this done, will then ride through the country 
 to clear up various points of difficulty which 
 have arisen during the execution of the map 
 from the notes.'' 
 
 In the same number of the " Statement " it 
 was reported that ^^270 had been forwarded to 
 England out of the ^^340 granted for fines and 
 damages, and that a further ^200 claimed for 
 compensation had not been allowed. 
 
30 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 In January, 1877, Lieutenant Kitchener set 
 out again for Palestine, reaching Beyrout on 
 February 6, and a few days later journeying to 
 Damascus where he saw the Emir Abd el Kader, 
 ** who received me very well, and expressed great 
 regret for the conduct of his people in the late 
 affair at Safcd." The whole story of the work 
 as set forth in Kitchener's reports printed in 
 the " Quarterly Statem^ent " is full of interest, 
 but here it is only possible to touch upon one or 
 two points in it. After certain delays the party 
 got definitely to work on February 28, and the 
 survey proceeded regularly and ' without any 
 hitch. From his camp at Tiberias on the shore 
 of the Lake of Galilee, Lieutenant Kitchener 
 wrote that his previous camp had been on " the 
 field of the last great fight of the Crusaders '' — 
 " the Kurn Hattin, or ' Horns of Hattin,' was 
 the last place held by the King and his brave 
 Knights when surrounded by the forces of Sala- 
 din. The rocky top seems a very natural fortress, 
 and well adapted to be defended against far 
 superior numbers. The Crusaders were, how- 
 ever, worn out by their long marches and hard 
 fighting, and after driving back the stormers 
 three times, the place was carried, the King 
 surrendered with the remnant of his forces, and 
 
IN PALESTINE. 31 
 
 the Christian Kingdom in Palestine ceased to 
 exist." The youthful soldier was moved to 
 military enthusiasm by consideration of the 
 field on which were enacted old unhappy things 
 and battles long ago. On April 10 the party 
 encamped at Safed — scene, just nine months 
 earlier, of the affray in which Kitchener had 
 been wounded. To quote his own words : 
 
 " On the loth we marched to Safed, the scene 
 of our conflict with the natives on a former 
 occasion. Mr. Eldridge, the British Consul- 
 General for Syria, had kindly arranged that I 
 should be well received, and the arrival of 
 H.M.S. Torch at Acre, of which I was informed 
 by telegram, made it certain that I should not 
 be molested on this occasion. The Governor 
 of Safed, with a score of soldiers and followers, 
 came out half way to my camp to meet me, and 
 we rode into the town in a triumphal procession. 
 I remained six days, and was much annoyed by 
 the continual visitors I had to receive. The 
 most interesting of these was Aly Agha, the cause 
 of our former unpleasantness. Now he came 
 as a ruined, humble man, after undergoing his 
 term of imprisonment, to beg for forgiveness. 
 I was glad to be able to remit a small portion of 
 the fine, some sixty pounds, that had not been 
 
32 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 paid, on account of their behaviour on this 
 
 occasion."* 
 
 Writing on March 30, Kitchener had said that 
 he would shortly be starting for Safed, adding, 
 " my servants rather dread going back, so I 
 shall have to keep a look-out on the rearguard 
 as well as in front going up the hill. ... If I 
 am well received at Safed and report satis- 
 factorily would the Committee give up their 
 claim to the rest of the fine imposed ? It would 
 smooth matters.'' The happy suggestion was 
 adopted, and the party benefited by tactful 
 clemency. While at Safed on this occasion 
 Kitchener had a small adventure when he 
 braved the danger of traditional vampires and 
 the possible anger of those who protested against 
 his visiting a sacred place. He told the story 
 to the British Association in the paper already 
 cited : 
 
 " I visited a Mohammedan sacred place in 
 the town called the Mukam Benat Yakub, or 
 the sacred place of the daughters of Jacob. 
 Many legends were attached to the place. I 
 was shown without difficulty the little mosque 
 and then into a large square cave, which had 
 originally been a tomb of some importance. 
 
 * Paper on the " Survey of Galilee," read before the British 
 Association by Lieut. H. H. Kitchener, R.E., F.R.G.S. 
 
IN PALESTINE. 33 
 
 Two rows of recesses for sarcophagi lined the 
 walls. Here tradition relates that Jacob and 
 his children lived, and that when he was old and 
 bHnd they brought him Joseph's coat, and the 
 smell of it at once cured him. On regaining 
 the outer mosque I saw a small door with a 
 green curtain hanging over it, and incense 
 burning in front ; this. I was told, was the 
 tomb of the seven daughters of Jacob. There 
 they were said to be all as in life, their beauty un- 
 impaired, but it was too sacred to be approached 
 by any but a true believer. I insisted, and was 
 then told that these beautiful and holy maids 
 were very quick to take offence, and devoured 
 any who came too near their place of rest. 
 However, after a little persuasion I pushed the 
 sheikh aside and squeezed through the hole, 
 being nearly stifled with the bad incense. After 
 a drop of some feet, I found myself on the floor 
 of a cave that opened into another. I explored 
 the caves, one of which had been a tomb ; the 
 roof had fallen in, probably in the earthquake 
 of 1838. No recumbent Semitic beauties awaited 
 me, and I was very glad to get out into the 
 fresh air again.'* 
 
 At the end of April, Kitchener received a tele- 
 gram announcing the outbreak of war between 
 
34 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Turkey and Russia, and expressed the hope 
 that it would not interfere with the completion 
 of his task. He had, indeed, thought that that 
 task might be facilitated rather than otherwise 
 by the fact of the young men of the country 
 having been called to the army, and so it proved, 
 for despite the war he was enabled to complete 
 the work which he had undertaken, and that in 
 less time than he had estimated would be neces- 
 sary. It had been judged that the survey of 
 Galilee would occupy the time until the middle 
 of August, but on July ii, Kitchener had the 
 gratification of being able to write home : " I 
 have finished the North under my original 
 estimate, and without Armstrong,* and there 
 has been no accident, as you will have been 
 informed by telegram. We are now off for the 
 Lebanon for three weeks' rest, which we sadly 
 want. ... A report was started in the Beyrout 
 paper thatll had been^^ataeked and wounded 
 by Bedouin near Banias. Eldridge sent soldiers 
 and secured the country. I, in the meantime, 
 had gone peacefully across to Tyre, so there was 
 no end of alarm at rny not being found or heard 
 of." That the telegram announcing the com- 
 
 * Sergeant Armstrong, who had been attached to the Survey 
 from the first, had apparently returned to England, for he 
 had been announced to be of the party. 
 
IN PALESTINE. 35 
 
 pletion of the work had been duly received is to 
 be recognised in the report of the July meeting 
 of the Fund Committee when opportunity was 
 taken of expressing a high sense of Lieutenant 
 Kitchener's ability and zeal — " he has conducted 
 the work for six months without any accident, 
 during a period of suspicion and excitement. 
 His reports . . . are careful and intelligent, 
 and his monthly accounts show due regard to 
 economy/' 
 
 After the needed rest on Lebanon the party 
 went to the south to round off the work in 
 surveying a tract believed to be about two 
 hundred square males, but which proved to be 
 340. Despite this, however, the young com- 
 mander was able to report that he had the work 
 finished in a week less than the time allowed, 
 and at a cost within the estimate. An extract 
 from Lieutenant Kitchener's letter announcing 
 to his -Committee the completion of his under- 
 taking affords a hint of some of the difficulties 
 attending the cartographer. Writing from 
 Jerusalem on October 2, he said : 
 
 " I am sure you will be glad to hear that 
 the map is an accomplished fact, and six years' 
 work has been finished. We wound up at Beer- 
 sheba on the 28th of September, much quicker 
 
36 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM- 
 
 than I expected, though the work in the south 
 was 340 square miles instead of 200. The fact 
 is we had to work hard ; the water was so bad, 
 being salt, and the colour of weak tea, and our 
 bread all went mouldy. The country we have 
 been in is only inhabited by Arabs, who have 
 been at war amongst themselves for the last three 
 years. They said no Europeans had ever been 
 in this part of the country before, which I can 
 beheve from the very bad state of all existing 
 maps of the district. You will see by my report 
 the details of our campaign and the discovery 
 of Ziklag. Everybody was very full of the 
 danger of going to Beersheba, but I found no 
 Arabs within five hours of the place. In fact, 
 everyone is so afraid that no one goes there. I 
 had some difficulty in getting rid of the expensive 
 escorts the Kaimacam of Gaza wanted to impose 
 upon me, but at last we started with only our 
 own party. The Kaimacam did it out of civility, 
 and really was afraid of us. We got back here 
 at the end of the month, a week earHer than I 
 had calculated upon. I now have a full fort- 
 night of office work, and will then send you home 
 the results, keeping duplicates ; we shall then 
 take up the revision, which I expect will take 
 some time. I cannot say how long it will take 
 
IN PALESTINE. 37 
 
 me till I get it well in hand ; I will then send 
 you an estimate. Expenses were high among 
 the Arabs, and I had a great deal of travelling, 
 but I still keep on the right side of the estimate." 
 During this autumn — while riding from Jeru- 
 salem to Sidon on the hottest day that had been 
 known in the country for ten years — Lieutenant 
 Kitchener got a slight sunstroke. The seeking 
 to carry out a work which had been entrusted 
 to him caused the young officer an unpleasant 
 experience at the close of his campaign. A 
 couple of members of the Palestine Exploration 
 Fund had contributed ;^IS0 to clean out and 
 put a stone wall round Jacob's Well at Nablus, 
 but local prejudice prevented the work being 
 done. " The obstruction of the authorities of 
 Nablus to my repairing Jacob's Well continued 
 during the whole time I was there, in spite of 
 all the measures I took to gain their compliance 
 in a work which could only be for the good of 
 all, Mohammedans and Christians alike. I was 
 subjected to many indignities by the officials, 
 which culminated on the 3rd of November by 
 my being stoned by a mob of boys in the streets 
 of Nablus. My letter of complaint to the acting 
 Governor was sent back unopened, showing 
 that, if they had not connived at the insult to 
 
38 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 me, they intended taking no steps to punish 
 the delinquents." 
 
 By the end of the year, or in the early days of 
 1878, Lieutenant Kitchener was back in England 
 and for some months was occupied with Conder 
 on the great map from the materials which they 
 had gathered. The work which Kitchener had 
 done is indicated by a passage in the " Quarterly 
 Statement '' concerning his survey of the north 
 of Palestine : " in the course of the work 1,000 
 square miles of country were surveyed ; 2,773 
 names were collected, and 476 ruins were visited 
 and described, some with special plans. All 
 the villages were also described with regard to 
 the number and religion of the inhabitants, 
 the remains of ancient buildings, and the nature 
 of the country. The water supply has also in 
 all cases been specially described. The whole 
 country has been hill-shaded ; the altitudes of 
 a great number of points have been obtained by 
 aneroid readings besides the observed heights ; 
 special notes have been taken on the geology, 
 archaeology, etc., of the country. The Hne of 
 levels connecting the Mediterranean and the 
 Sea of GaHlee was completed on the 24th March. 
 Photographs have been taken of the more 
 interesting sites." 
 
IN PALESTINE. 39 
 
 A description of twenty ** Photographs taken 
 in Galilee " was contributed by Lieutenant 
 Kitchener to the " Quarterly Statement " for 
 July, 1878. Two of the most picturesque of 
 these descriptions (the nineteenth and twentieth) 
 may be quoted, both for the interest of the spot 
 dealt with and as examples of the soldier- 
 surveyor's literary work : 
 
 " The Source of Jordan. — The great spring 
 at Banias has from an early date been allowed 
 to be the real source of the River Jordan. The 
 water gushes out of a cave situated in the face of 
 a cliff of Umestonc rock about 100 feet high. 
 Earthquakes have shaken down great fragments 
 of rock, so that the base of the cliff has been 
 blocked up and the cave almost entirely ruined. 
 The water now finds its way through this mass 
 of stones by different channels, uniting immedi- 
 ately below the debris, and forming at once a 
 strong stream that irrigates the Surrounding 
 gardens and makes Banias the most beautiful 
 place in Palestine. By this stream stood the 
 ancient Panium of the Greeks, and here Herod 
 erected a temple in honour of Augustus. There 
 are three votive niches in the face of the rock, 
 one of which is visible in the photograph. They 
 were once much higher above the ground than 
 
40 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 now. Two of them bear Greek inscriptions, in 
 one of which ' Priest of Pan ' is mentioned. 
 This was also the site of Cssarea Phillippi, of 
 the New Testament, and it has been suggested 
 that this rock was intended in our Lord's words, 
 \ Upon this rock I will build My church, and the 
 gates of hell shall not prevail against it.* — 
 (Matt, xvi., 1 8). 
 
 " Palestine Survey Camp at Banias. — ^The 
 magnificent olive trees formed a dehghtful 
 shade, while the trickhng stream of water led 
 through our camp, making everything cool and 
 delightful. Under the roots of these great trees 
 we found remains of tcsselated pavement in 
 different coloured marbles, showing that some 
 ancient buildings once occupied this site. A 
 hundred yards to the cast of our camp was the 
 great source of Jordan, clear and sparkling, and 
 dehghtfuUy cold."* 
 
 At the general meeting of the Committee of 
 the Fund cordial testimony was paid to the 
 rapidity and efficiency with which Lieutenant 
 Kitchener had accomphshed his work, and in 
 this first command of his we find that he was 
 specially commended for methods which have 
 characterised him throughout his career, for the 
 
 * Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement, July, 1878. 
 

 The Valley of Michmash. 
 Scene of the Attack of the Philistine Camp by Jonathan 
 
 AND HIS armour-bearer. 
 Opp. p. 40. Photo by permission of The Palestitie Exploration Fund. 
 
The Valley of Michmash. 
 Scene of the Attack of the Philistine Camp by Jonathan 
 AND HIS Armour-bearer. 
 
 " Tliis view is taken from the southern brink of the valley 
 of Michmash, now called Wady Suweinit, a name supposed to 
 take its derivation from the Hebrew Seneh — meaning a thorn. 
 The gorge is called Valley of Thorns by Josephus. The point 
 from which it is taken is at the end of a plateau called " Gibeah 
 in the Field " in Scripture (Judges xx., 31). The spectator looks 
 eastward towards the Desert above Jericho. The northern cliff 
 is in bright light, and the southern in the shade. This is probably 
 the real origin of the name Bozez, or " Shining," which is given 
 in the Old Testament (l. Sam., xiv., 4) to this side of the valley. 
 The cliff retains the name of El Hesn, " the Fortress," a title 
 which may very probably have originated in its being the 
 Pbihstine fortress in the time of Saul. 
 
 " At a later period this terrible gorge proved a considerable 
 obstacle to Senacherib in his advance on Jerusalem (Isaiah x., 28). 
 It is the most precipitous valley in the wholedistrict of Benjamin, 
 and can only be crossed by a winding path leading from Jeba 
 (the ancient Jeba) to Mukhmas (the ancient Michmas). Both of 
 these towns are out of the picture towards the left hand." 
 
 Copied from Lieut. Kitchener's volume of photographs of Biblical 
 Sites. pubUshed by the Palestine Exploration Fund. 
 
IN PALESTINE. 41 
 
 Committee wound up by expressing " their 
 sense not only of the energy and ability, but also 
 of the tact shown by this officer in the conduct 
 of his expedition, and of the careful economy 
 with which he kept his expenses below the 
 estimate." 
 
 In the very year in which Kitchener went first 
 to Palestine a young French savant, M. Charles 
 Clermont-Ganneau, was also sent out in charge 
 of an archaeological expedition. M. Clermont- 
 Ganneau, who had discovered four years earUer 
 the famous ^* Moabite stone," and was to 
 become widely known for his establishing of 
 the Shapira forgeries, has recorded something 
 of his impressions of the Kitchener of those 
 days, though he makes the mistake of regarding 
 him as racially an Irishman : 
 
 " We often had to meet and consult each other. 
 I have the pleasantest remembrance. Kitchener 
 was a ' good fellow ' in the fullest acceptance 
 of the word. Tall, shm, vigorous, dark-haired, 
 he was clearly of the Irish type. One felt him 
 capable of headstrong acts ; indeed, he showed 
 visible signs of the ' hammering * that many 
 Irishmen get on coming into the world. Putting 
 it politely, he did not lack originaUty. A frank 
 and most outspoken character, with recesses of 
 
42 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 winsome freshness. His high spirits and cheeri- 
 ness formed an agreeable contrast to the serious 
 grave characters of some of his comrades. His 
 predecessor, Lieutenant Conder, for instance, 
 was of a much sadder disposition. Kitchener's 
 ardour for his work astonished us. He drew up 
 excellent maps, but he did not confine himself 
 to cartographic labours. Gradually he began to 
 take an interest in archceological discoveries, 
 and acquired in these matters a marked pro- 
 ficiency. The more important of his researches 
 dealt with the synagogues of Galilee.*' 
 
 It was said by another man who knew him 
 at the time, that " he was as good company as 
 a man could wish to have, full of life and high 
 spirits." Such testimony should be remem- 
 bered as qualifying the stern unbending, almost 
 dour, personality which is the Kitchener of the 
 later tradition. 
 
 An interesting episode in Kitchener's career 
 occurred between his leaving Palestine and his 
 reaching England. In the Holy Land he had 
 heard of the outbreak of hostilities between 
 Russia and Turkey, and had noticed the way in 
 which the young men of the country had been 
 called to take part in the Sultan's quarrel. The 
 opportunity of seeing something of actual 
 
IN PALESTINE, 43 
 
 fighting was too good to he missed, and he 
 decided to go to the front in Bulgaria before 
 continuing his homeward journey. Early in 
 December he reached Constantinople, and in 
 company with a friend, on the 12th of that 
 month, the heights of Kamerleh, via Adrianople. 
 The story of the excursion was told by Lieutenant 
 Kitchener himself in the form of a pleasant 
 article which he contributed to Blackwood's 
 Magazine,* so that he may not unfairly be 
 regarded as having on that occasion belonged 
 to that race of war correspondents which in the 
 days of his command he did his best to dis- 
 courage. On the journey by train from Con- 
 stantinople to Tatar Bazardjik, Kitchener found 
 his knowledge of Arabic useful in allowing him 
 to converse with his travelling companions. 
 One old captain said that he was going through 
 to Sofia, and would look after the two English- 
 men — having borrowed some small change from 
 Kitchener that same old captain took the oppor- 
 tunity of disappearing at one of the interme- 
 diate stations ! Writing of the Chatalja lines, 
 where, it will be recalled, the Turks succeeded 
 during the recent war in the Balkans in 
 
 " A Visit to Sophia and the Heights of Kamerleh. Christinas. 
 1877." By H. H. K. Blackwood's Magazine. February, 1878. 
 
44 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 stopping the triumphant Bulgarian advance. 
 Lieutenant Kitchener said that '' the slopes in 
 front of the position seemed splendidly adapted 
 for artillery fire, and with a good garrison, and 
 the command of the sea, no army ought to be 
 able to force these hnes.*' At Adrianople the 
 travellers could not find any hotel accommodation 
 and were compelled to ask leave to sleep in the 
 waiting room at the station. When they con- 
 tinued their journey next day Lieutenant Kit- 
 chener learned something of the ways of railway 
 contractors in the Near East, which will 
 have been recalled to his memory when it fell 
 to him to forward the building of railways in 
 Egypt. Being struck by the way in which the 
 railway wound about in an absurd fashion in 
 places where it might well have been laid straight 
 he enquired why it was so, and was told that 
 the railway had been contracted for at so much 
 a kilometre, and therefore as many kilometres 
 as possible were got into the level land ' Leaving 
 the railway at Tatar Bazardjik they could get 
 no cart on to Sofia until a friendly English 
 doctor in charge of the Red Crescent Ambulance 
 offered them a lift in one of the fifteen ambulances 
 going back to the front. After a tr;^ing journey 
 they reached Ichtiman at 9*30 at night — the 
 
IN PALESTINE. 45 
 
 doctor being four hours later and the rest of the 
 carts not arriving until many hours later still, 
 after extra horses had been sent to help them 
 over the trying roads. Lieutenant Kitchener tells 
 how he and his friend got to an inn that appeared 
 to have no inhabitant beyond a Bulgarian boy, 
 and how having procured some chickens and 
 eggs, they had to cook their own suppers, after 
 doing justice to which they turned to and pre- 
 pared a supper for their friend of the Red 
 Crescent. 
 
 It was a terrible winter in the Balkans, that 
 winter of the Russo-Turkish War, and Lieutenant 
 Kitchener impresses the fact upon us grimly by 
 pointing out that at the front, though the 
 Turkish sentries were relieved every fifteen 
 minutes, no fewer than twenty-seven of them 
 died at their posts in three nights ! They went 
 up to the front to visit Baker Pasha, one of the 
 generals, and " many frost-bitten soldiers were 
 staggering back along the road ; some seemed 
 almost in delirium, tearing off their clothes and 
 falling by the wayside." At the last Red 
 Crescent centre before reaching the actual front 
 the young officer fell in with old friends : " Some 
 poor soldiers of the Arab battalions, who had 
 come from the w^rm climate of Palestine, could 
 
46 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 not understand how they were to lose their hands 
 and feet by the cold. They appeared quite 
 delighted to hear me talk to them in Arabic, 
 but though in great pain all they seemed to care 
 to talk about was the beautiful gardens of Jaffa, 
 where there was always a warm sun, and oranges 
 and tomatoes for all, however poor." Leaving 
 their horses the two had a trying and intensely 
 cold climb to Baker Pasha's position, and later 
 to the high-perched redoubt which formed the 
 Turkish right : 
 
 " The Hues were carried along the mountain 
 side till they ended in the Yeldis or Star redoubt, 
 perched on the top of a pointed mountain 6,200 
 feet above the level of the sea, and 2,300 above 
 the other redoubts. It must have been an 
 immense labour getting the guns up the steep 
 sides of this mountain. We found some difficulty 
 in getting up ourselves. It took two hours 
 climbing, but they were well repaid, the view 
 from the Yeldis was magnificent. The snow- 
 clad Balkans in successive cjrags and peaks and 
 wooded valleys led away as far as the eye could 
 reach. The sun threw a rosy tinge over all, 
 making the most perfect scene imaginable. 
 But we did not stop long to look at the beauties 
 of nature. There were the Russians just below 
 
IN PALESTINE. 47 
 
 us in the trenches." The view of the whole 
 field showed the positions of the two armies 
 " laid out below us as in a map." 
 
 Having snatched his glimpse of actual warfare 
 Lieutenant Kitchener had to set out on Christ- 
 mas day for Constantinople, and rode by himself 
 and without any mishap to Sofia, where the 
 English doctors had arranged a big Christmas 
 dinner party, " and though the attempted plum 
 pudding more resembled a poultice, we had a 
 pleasant evening." On Boxing Day the journey 
 was resumed and Kitchener duly arrived at 
 Tatar Bazardjik to learn that all the trains had 
 been made military and that only those in uni- 
 form were allowed to travel by them. He was, 
 however, equal to the occasion, and instead of 
 inviting a rebuff quietly entered a first-class 
 carriage, and " lay low " for the three hours 
 that elapsed before the train started. He did 
 not dare to ask where the train was going for 
 fear he should be made to leave it by drawing 
 attention to himself, and he concludes his narra- 
 tive of the escapade by saying *' At Tirnova, 
 where the hne branches to Yamboli, I was all 
 prepared to throw out my baggage and jump if 
 we were shunted on to the branch, but luckily 
 we kept on, and I arrived at Adrianople at i a.m. 
 
48 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 and took up my old quarters in the waiting room." 
 The fortnight's excursion had given the young 
 Engineer his first ghmpse of actual warfare. 
 Perhaps some day the accounts of the early 
 travels of the great soldier, his many interesting 
 letters and reports to the Palestine Exploration 
 Fund, and his articles in Blackwood's Magazine — 
 there are three or four besides the one quoted — 
 will be collected and republished as a volume. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 BEGINNINGS IN EGYPT. 
 
 The achievement of the Engineer Lieutenant 
 in Palestine did not go unnoted, and his oppor- 
 tunity of further work came in a few months » 
 while he was engaged in completing the great 
 Palestine Map in rooms set apart for the purpose 
 in the South Kensington Museum. While he 
 was so engaged the Congress of representatives 
 of the Powers gathered in Berlin was coming to 
 conclusions which were to make it necessary to 
 re-draw the map of South-Eastern Europe, One 
 of the decisions come to was that Britain should 
 occupy and administer the island of Cyprus so 
 long as Russia retained possession of certain 
 specified places. Sir Garnet (afterwards Vis- 
 count) Wolseley, was appointed High Commis- 
 sioner of Cyprus, and am^ong the minor appoint- 
 ments to our new possession was Lieutenant 
 Kitchener, who was entrusted by the Foreign 
 Office with the making of a survey of the island, 
 and the organizing of the land courts. In July, 
 
 1878, he had estimated that it would take six 
 
 49 a 
 
so EARL KITCHENER. OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 months to finish the map and memoirs for the 
 Palestine Fund, but, once more, well within his 
 estimate, he got the work done on September 
 10, and on September 19 started for his new field 
 of operations. 
 
 Before setting out for Cyprus, however, Lieu- 
 tenant Kitchener appeared in a role which few 
 people would associate with his name, for he 
 read a paper before the British Association 
 at its annual gathering at Dublin. It has 
 already been said that the British Association 
 had made a grant of money towards the expenses 
 of determining the level of the Lake of Galilee 
 below the sea,* and the subject of Lieutenant 
 Kitchener's paper was the " Survey of Gahlee." 
 He explained how the work was done, and gave 
 some description of the country and of special 
 sites that were identified during the course of 
 the survey, and concluded by indicating the 
 work which the Palestine Exploration Fund 
 contemplated undertaking : " Let me add one 
 more result we hope to obtain. We hope to 
 rescue from the hand of that ruthless destroyer, 
 the uneducated Arab, one of the most interesting 
 ruins in Palestine, hallowed by the footprints 
 
 * The lake level was established as 63 2 ^ feet below the level of 
 the Mediterranean. 
 
BEGINNINGS IN EGYPT. 51 
 
 of our Lord. I allude to the Synagogue of 
 Capernaum, which is rapidly disappearing owing 
 to the stones being burnt for lime. 
 
 *^ Ought we not to preserve for ourselves and 
 our children buildings so hallowed, so unique ? 
 Let us hope that if this expedition succeeds it 
 may be the means of leaving some footprints in 
 the sands of time — 
 
 ' Footpriats that perhaps another 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
 Seeing may take heart again.' " 
 
 The whole of Lieutenant Kitchener's paper 
 read before the British Association was printed 
 in the October " Quarterly Statement " of the 
 Palestine Exploration Fund, but by the tim6 
 that it was in type he had doubtless already 
 reached Cyprus and begun his work there.* 
 That work had not proceeded far when there 
 came an interruption in the form of another 
 appointment, when Sir Charles Wilson, on being 
 made British Consul-General in Anatolia, in 
 
 *Thi AthsneBum of August 24, 1878, announced that " Lieut. 
 H. H. Kitchener's paper, read before the Geographical 
 Section of the British Association, on the Survey of GalileO'. 
 in which he was engaged last year on behalf of the Palestine 
 Exploration Fund, has been printed." I have not been 
 able to see a copy of the pamphlet, which appears to have 
 the distinction of being Lord Kitchener's only separate 
 publication, apart from the earUer volume of Palestine 
 photographs. 
 
52 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 April, 1879, appointed him military Vice-Consul 
 at Kastamuni. 
 
 The principal duty of Sir Charles Wilson and 
 his officers was defined by Lord Salisbury as 
 being to enquire into the conditions of the various 
 classes of the population in their districts, to 
 assist the Turkish authorities with advice and 
 assistance, and with any information that might 
 be useful, to point out the means by which 
 economy could be secured, and administration 
 simplified, and to remonstrate against all cases 
 of oppression and corruption on the part, of the 
 executive and justiciary. It was further pointed 
 out that the officials should have urged upon 
 them the importance of the formation in each 
 district of an efficient public force for the re- 
 pression of brigandage. It was indeed a period 
 of great trouble and distress in Asia Minor, 
 distress consequent upon the recent Russo- 
 Turkish war ; and the two years of Kitchener's 
 Vice-Consulship must have been a busy time 
 in which his ability for organization was con- 
 siderably exercised, and in which he added 
 considerably to his knowledge of the Mahom- 
 medan character. When he returned to Cyprus 
 in 1 88 1 for the purpose of completing the 
 survey, Wolseley had gone to South Africa to 
 
BEGINNINGS IN EGYPT. 53 
 
 supersede Lord Chelmsford in the conduct of 
 the Zulu war, and his place as High Commis- 
 sioner of Cyprus had been taken by Sir Robert 
 Biddulph. 
 
 During a period of furlough, as one version of 
 a story of which there are several versions runs, 
 Lieutenant Kitchener heard that there would 
 be a chance of seeing action at Alexandria, where 
 the high-handed doings of Arabi Pasha were 
 rapidly bringing things to a crisis ; he therefore 
 — it is said at the suggestion of a journalist — 
 telegraphed to the High Commissioner, asking 
 for an extension of leave, and saying that he 
 would assume it granted unless recalled by tele- 
 graph. The telegram of recall duly arrived, but 
 fell into the hands of the journalist, who did not 
 pass it on until it was too late, and thus, it is 
 said, was Kitchener enabled to see the bombard- 
 ment of Alexandria by the British ships on July 
 II, 1882. Little could he guess that the results 
 of the bombardment were to include the giving 
 him his ** chance '' in a very special fashion, 
 that with Egypt much of his future career was 
 to be associated. Returning to Cyprus, he 
 completed his work in that island, but at the end 
 of the year, hearing that Sir Evelyn Wood had 
 been entrusted with the making of an Egyptian 
 
54 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 army, Kitchener offered his services, and was 
 at once appointed second in command of the 
 cavalry regiment, and began those many years 
 of service which were to make him famous, and 
 to leave a lasting impress on Egypt. 
 
 To return for a moment to Cyprus, the result 
 of Lieutenant Kitchener's work was not pub- 
 lished until 1885, when the series of maps of the 
 " Trigonometrical Survey *' were issued in a 
 handsome volume. The size of the island at 
 the time of its being taken over was variously 
 estimated as between 3,700 and 4,500 square 
 miles, but the survey established it at 3,584 
 square miles. That the British occupation 
 promised well for the prosperity of the country 
 may be gathered from the statement made at 
 the time that the value of land went up a thou- 
 sand per cent, within a short time of the announce- 
 ment of that occupation. The actual taking 
 possession of Cyprus was performed a couple of 
 months before the young Engineer officer pro- 
 ceeded to the work of the survey, and an account 
 of the incident tells us that Admiral Lord John 
 Hay landed on July 13, 1878 — nine days before 
 the arrival of Wolseley as High Commissioner — 
 and having had the British flag raised, said, " I 
 take possession of this island in the name oi 
 
BEGINNINGS IN EGYPT. 55 
 
 Queen Victoria." As the people recognised the 
 well-known name of Her Majesty they responded 
 in various dialects with a hearty " Live the 
 British Queen ! " The apparent ease with which 
 the Admiral went through all these formalities 
 particularly impressed the Cypriotes. " One 
 would think/' remarked a native, " that he had 
 been accustomed to take possession of new 
 territory all his life.'' 
 
 One of the most delightful works on Cyprus 
 is Sir Samuel Baker's *^ Cyprus as I Saw It in 
 1879," and in that book we have a gUmpse of 
 Kitchener who piloted the author about the 
 Kythrea district in February, and was " an 
 excellent guide who could explain every inch of 
 the surrounding country," 
 
 It was on the fourth of January, 1883, that 
 Kitchener was gazetted a captain, and at once 
 began the task of helping to create an army out 
 of the seemingly unpromising material that was 
 at hand in the form of the Egyptian fellaheen. 
 
 We have a notable pen sketch of him, made by 
 an able war correspondent, Mr. John Macdonald, 
 {Nineteenth Century, Oct., 1 898). In collaboration 
 with Colonel Taylor, of the 19th Hussars, the 
 task that was set to young Kitchener was to 
 form the fellaheen cavalry, and Mr. Macdonald's 
 
S6 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 narrative tells how he and the two officers drove 
 to the dingy barracks at which a beginning 
 was to be made at the task of converting the 
 raw material into cavalry soldiers : 
 
 " Taylor did most of the talking. Kitchener 
 expressed himself in an occasional nod or mono- 
 syllable. At the barracks we found some forty 
 men waiting. I remember Kitchener's gaze at 
 the awkward, slipshod group, as he took his 
 position in the centre of a circular space round 
 which the riders were to show their paces.*' 
 
 " ' We begin with the officers,' said Taylor, 
 turning to me : ' we shall train -them first, then 
 put them to drill the troopers. We have no 
 troopers just yet, though we have four hundred 
 and forty horses ready for them.' And now 
 began the selection of the fellah officers. They 
 were to be tested in horsemanship. The first 
 batch of them were ordered to mount. Round 
 they went, Indian file. Kitchener like a circus 
 master, standing in the centre. Had he 
 flourished a long whip, he might have passed for 
 a showmaster at rehearsal. Neither audible nor 
 visible sign did he give of any feehng aroused 
 in him by a performance mostly disappointing 
 and sometimes ridiculous. His hands buried 
 in his trouser pockets, he quietly watched the 
 
BEGINNINGS IN EGYPT. 57 
 
 emergence of the least unfit. ... In half-an-hour 
 or so the first native officers of the new fellah 
 cavalry were chosen. It was then that Kitchener 
 made his longest speech : * We'll have to drive 
 it into those fellows,' he muttered, as if think- 
 ing aloud." 
 
 *^ A tall, slim, thin-faced, slightly stooping 
 figure, in long boots, cutaway dark morning 
 coat, and Egyptian fez somewhat tilted over his 
 eyes." ^* He's quiet — that's his way. He's 
 clever." Such were the summings up of corres- 
 pondent and colleague. 
 
 During this year, Kitchener, in his stern, 
 concentrating fashion, occupied himself with the 
 building up of the native Egyptian army, but 
 towards the close of the year he took leave that 
 he might assist in a further piece of exploration 
 and surveying for the Palestine Fund. It had 
 been decided to send a scientific expedition to 
 the Sinaitic Peninsula and Western Palestine 
 under the direction of Professor Edward Hull, 
 and Captain Kitchener was appointed his col- 
 league for the purpose of completing the trigo- 
 nometrical survey of the Sinai district. Mr. 
 George Armstrong, late Sergeant-Major, R.E., 
 who had taken part in all the expeditions to 
 Palestine during the previous dozen years, was 
 
 X 
 
S8 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 also attached to the party. Professor Hull 
 published a narrative of his expedition under the 
 title of '^ Mount Seir, Sinai, and Western Pales- 
 tine," and by way of appendix to that work was 
 given Captain Kitchener's report of the survey 
 from Suez, at the head of the Gulf of Suez, to 
 Akabah, at the head of the Gulf of Akabah — 
 and on to the southern end of the Dead Sea 
 where the survey was linked up with that of 
 half a dozen years earlier. 
 
 Professor Hull has recorded with what pleasure 
 he received the tidings of Kitchener's appoint- 
 ment as his colleague. " I was aware of his 
 great experience in the work of the Palestine 
 Surv^ey, of his knowledge of the character and 
 customs of the Arab tribes, amongst whom we 
 were to travel, and of his ability to converse in 
 their language. All this inspired an amount 
 of confidence of ultimate success I should not 
 otherwise have felt, and the result proved that 
 my confidence was well founded. In matters 
 connected with our dealings with the Arabs I 
 readily deferred to his judgment, which I always 
 found to be judicious, while he often acted 
 as spokesman in our negotiations with the 
 Sheikhs." 
 
 An escort for the party was offered, but was 
 
BEGINNINGS IN EGYPT. 59 
 
 not regarded as necessary, though httle more than 
 a year had elapsed since that distinguished 
 Orientalist, Professor E. H. Palmer, Captain Gill 
 and Lieutenant Charrington had been murdered 
 in the Wady Sudur on the eastern shore of the 
 Gulf of Suez. And the Wady Sudur was the 
 place in which Professor Hull's party made their 
 second camp after leaving Suez on November 
 10, 1883, but the prompt punishment of the 
 murderers, and the overthrow of Arabi Pasha, 
 had greatly changed conditions, as may be 
 gathered from Captain Kitchener's own words : 
 " I obtained from an Arab of the Haiwat tribe 
 a story of the murder which I have never seen 
 published in any account of it. I give it merely 
 for what it is worth : Arabs, as everybody knows 
 who has had to do with them, have a remark- 
 able facility for making up a story to meet a 
 supposed occasion. 
 
 " This was the story in the Arab's own words : 
 " ' Arabi Pasha, directed by the Evil One — 
 may he never rest in peace ! — sent to his lord- 
 ship, the Governor of Nakhe, to tell him that 
 he had utterly destroyed all the Christian ships 
 of war at Alexandria and Suez ; also that he 
 had destroyed their houses in the same places, 
 and that the Governor of Nakhe was to take care 
 
6o EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOTOl. 
 
 if he saw any Christians running about in his 
 country, Hke rats with no holes, that the Arabs 
 were to finish them at once. On hearing this 
 news, a party of Arabs started to loot Ayun Musa 
 and Suez. Coming down Wady Sudur they met 
 the great Sheikh Abdullah and his party ; they 
 thought they were the Christians spoken of by 
 Arabi Pasha, running away, so they surrounded 
 them in the Wady. But the Arabs ran away 
 from the EngHsh, who defended themselves in 
 the Wady ; all night they stopped round them, 
 but did not dare to take them till just at dawn, 
 when they made a rush on them from every side 
 and seized them all. 
 
 " * The Arab Sheikh, who had come with the 
 party, ran away with the money. The Arabs 
 did not know Sheikh Abdullah, and did not 
 believe his statement, and when he offered 
 money, his own Sheikh would not give it, so 
 they believed that the party were running away 
 from Suez, and they finished them there. After- 
 wards the great Colonel came and caught them, 
 and they were finished at Zagez Zig. May 
 their graves be defiled ! ' 
 
 ** Such is the story I heard, and there seems 
 to me to be some amount of truth in it. 
 
 '^ Colonel Sir Charles Warren's energetic 
 
BEGINNINGS IN EGYPT. 6i 
 
 action in the capture and bringing to justice of 
 the perpetrators of the crime, has created a deep 
 impression, and I consider that the whole 
 Peninsula is for foreign travellers now as safe as, 
 if not safer than, it was previously. While on 
 this subject I may mention that I found Pro- 
 fessor Palmer's death everywhere regretted 
 deeply by the people, and his memory still warm 
 in the hearts of his Arab friends in the country. 
 Many of them came unsolicited to ask me if I 
 had known him, and to express their sorrow* at 
 his loss."* 
 
 When the expedition reached the Dead Sea 
 Captain Kitchener found there Arabs with a 
 letter for him from Sir Evelyn Baring (later 
 Lord Cromer) telling of the disaster which had 
 befallen the afmy of Hicks Pasha on November 
 5, when that force had been ambuscaded and 
 destroyed, nearly ten thousand men being 
 killed. Continuing with Professor Hull's party 
 as far as Beersheba, for the linking up of the new 
 survey with the old, Captain Kitchener accom- 
 panied them a march further towards the coast, 
 and then, *' with four Arabs of the Egyptian 
 tribe," struck across country for Ismailia, 
 
 *" Mount Seir, Sinai, and Western Palestine." By Edward 
 Hull, appended " Report " b}' H. H. Kitchener." 
 
62 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 realising that his services would be needed in 
 Egypt. He travelled as "Abdullah Bey, an 
 Egyptian official journeying back to Egypt 
 after having been at Jerusalem/' this being 
 by no means the only occasion on which his 
 mastery of Arabic allowed him to pass as a 
 Mahommedan. The last two days of the 
 journey must have been a very trying experi- 
 ence, though the account of it is very simply 
 presented. Few who had undergone sand- 
 storms, desert thirst, and deserting Arabs, 
 would be satisfied to record them thus : " Passing 
 down a sandy valley at noon, we camxe to a 
 flat of mud which formed the end of the 
 valley, a barrier of sand having been thrown up 
 and ^thus stopping up the valley completely. 
 Crossing this ridge an immense extent of sand- 
 hills appeared as far as the eye could reach. 
 I do not think I have ever seen so desolate and 
 dreary a country : nothing but ridge after ridge 
 of sand dunes for an immense distance. The 
 wind blew a strong gale from the west, sending 
 the sand up into our faces so sharply that the 
 camels would at times hardly face it. The 
 wind lasted, unfortunately, until we reached 
 Ismailia, and was very trying to the whole 
 party. 
 
BEGINNINGS IN EGYPT, 63 
 
 " We camped under a sandhill, and had a very 
 cold and wintry night. Next morning it was 
 found we had no water. The Arabs are always 
 most improvident about water, and require 
 continual watching ; during the night they had 
 used up the last drop, and in the morning said 
 they could not go on without a fresh supply, as 
 there was no chance of water before Ismailia, and 
 they did not know how long it would take to get in. 
 
 " They said they could find water in Jebel 
 Felleh. I, however, insisted on going on, and 
 with some difficulty got the camels under way. 
 Two of my Arabs had been lagging behind for 
 some time, so one of the Arabs and myself went 
 back and drove up the camels ; the two Arabs 
 were sulky and deserted ; however, we got the 
 camels all right. Pushing on through a blinding 
 storm of sand over hill and valley, with only the 
 compass to guide us, at 4 p.m. I saw Lake 
 Tumah, and skirting the shore reached the ferry 
 over the canal at dusk. I had some little 
 difficulty in getting the party across the Canal, 
 and was not sorry when I reached comfortable 
 quarters in Ismailia.*' 
 
 It was, indeed, a plucky journey across un- 
 known country, for only one of the Arabs had 
 been over the route before and that fifteen 
 
64 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 years earlier, and the simple description suffices 
 to indicate that it was really a daring undertaking 
 and one that, with disaffected Arabs, might well 
 have proved hazardous. The leader had, how- 
 ever, determined to get back to his post as 
 speedily as possible, and in characteristic fashion 
 pushed on as though convinced that difficulties 
 were made but to be overcome. About a week 
 after leaving the expedition he got back to Cairo 
 and his duties as an officer of the Egyptian army. 
 Since the disaster to the force commanded by 
 Hicks Pasha— an Egyptian force acting under 
 the authority of the Khedive — there had been 
 considerable discussion as to what should be done 
 and before Captain Kitchener got back it had 
 been suggested that all the Soudan to the south 
 of Assuan should be abandoned. Then on the 
 23rd of December came a fresh triumph for the 
 Mahdists in their victory at El Teb, when Valen- 
 tine Baker's force was almost annihilated. At the 
 beginning of 1884 the policy of evacuation was 
 finally resolved upon. On January 18, General 
 Charles George Gordon left London to assist in 
 carrying it out, and on February 18 he and 
 Lieutenant-Colonel J. D. Stewart reached 
 Khartoum and soon found themselves in a pre- 
 carious position. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 
 
 It is not necessary to tell here anew the whole 
 story of the tragedy of Khartoum, a tragedy 
 the various aspects of which have been set forth 
 by many pens, both of those who played their 
 parts in the long-drawn agony, and of those who 
 have sought to treat the whole as history. It 
 is a subject on which fecHngs ran high at the 
 time^ and on which people still " take sides '* 
 for and against those then in authority, 
 excusing or accusing them for that which was 
 done, and that which was left undone. The 
 tragedy was one which touched the imagination 
 of the people in such a way that none who lived 
 through those anxious months of 1884 was ever 
 likely to forget. . Here we are only concerned 
 with it in so far as it belongs to the life story 
 of one of the officers who took part in the effort 
 to avert the tragedy, the one who above all 
 others was the means of avenging it after a lapse 
 of manv vears. 
 
 General Gordon was sent to the Soudan on a 
 
66 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 mission to advise the home government as to 
 what was to be done, and to perform such other 
 duties as the Egyptian Government might 
 entrust to him. The Khedive and his ministers 
 at once appointed Gordon Governor-General of 
 the Soudan — a position which he had resigned 
 a few years earHer — and it was agreed that hia 
 mission was no longer merely an advisory one, 
 but he was to " evacuate the Soudan, and the 
 Egyptian Government had the fullest confidence 
 in his judgment and knowledge of the country, 
 and of his comprehension of the general Hne of 
 policy to be pursued, and no effort was to be 
 wanting on the part of the Cairo authorities, 
 whether English or Egyptian, to afford him all 
 the co-operation and support in their power/' 
 Little more than a month after Gordon had 
 reached Khartoum, Sir Evelyn Baring (after- 
 wards Lord Cromer), Great Britain's Consul- 
 General and Diplomatic Agent in Egypt, tele- 
 graphed home, " the question now is, how to 
 get General Gordon and Colonel Stewart away 
 from Khartoum/' This, however, was not as 
 Gordon saw his position ; he had gone to bring 
 the people away, and he would not leave without 
 them — indeed, it is said, that at any time almost 
 up to the end he could have got away if he had 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 67 
 
 been content to save his own skin, and to leave 
 in the lurch those who put their faith in him — 
 but he was not that kind of man. Whatever 
 may be the view taken of the situation, it cannot 
 but be recognised that it was a fine sense of 
 honour that made him stay to his death rather 
 than desert those who had placed their con- 
 fidence in him. 
 
 For month after month during this year 1884 
 there went on telegraphing and parleyings, 
 and orders from the Government at home which 
 Gordon did not feel justified, as the servant of 
 the Khedive, in obeying. For month after 
 month, London, Cc.iro, and Khartoum seemed 
 in a tangle of cross-purposes. For month after 
 month went on a " battle of the routes *' among 
 those who favoured this, that or the other way 
 of achieving the end which all had in view. 
 Kitchener, who ranked as a Major in the Egypt- 
 ian Army (his commission to that rank in the 
 Royal Engineers was dated October 8, 1884), 
 is said to have been among those who drew up 
 a scheme for the relief of Khartoum in June, 
 but it was over-ruled. Not until the end of 
 August was a relief expedition finally decided 
 upon, and the Nile route adopted for it. 
 
 Before proceeding to the narrative of the pro- 
 
68 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 gress of that delayed and ineffectual expedition 
 in so far as it belongs to a narrative of Kitchener's 
 career, a few words may fittingly be devoted to 
 recalling who the Mahdi was, and how his power 
 had grown. He was one, Mahomed Achmet, 
 born at Dongola about 1848, who had studied 
 religion in a village near Khartoum, and in 1870 
 became a Sheikh. He lived on the island of 
 Abba on the White Nile, about three hundred 
 miles south of Khartoum, and there, gaining a 
 considerable reputation for sanctity, gathered 
 many dervishes or holy men around him. It 
 was in 1881 that he first set up a claim to being 
 the prophet foretold by Mahomed, and was 
 hailed as /^ El-Mahdi " by the followers who 
 began to gather round him. Discredited by the 
 official heads of Mohammedanism, he yet suc- 
 ceeded in rallying to his banner large numbers 
 of adherents and before the close of the year 
 was in active rebellion. During the rest of the 
 year, and the two following years, up to the 
 battle in which Hicks Pasha's force of ten 
 thousand men was annihilated (only about two 
 hundred Egyptian soldiers survived), fighting 
 went on with varying success, though with 
 continued accessions to the ranks of the Mahdi's 
 force. 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 69 
 
 By the time that Gordon reached Khartoum 
 early in 1884, it was a question, as we have seen, 
 as to whether the Soudan should be evacuated 
 or an expedition sent out to destroy the Mahdi's 
 power. Evacuation was decided upon, but an 
 expedition became necessary to avoid even that 
 being disastrous. When tribe after tribe was join- 
 ing the Mahdi's army, it was advisable to find 
 which tribe could still be relied upon, and Kit- 
 chener made courageous use of his knowledge of 
 the Arab character and language when he set out 
 upon one of the most adventurous of his camel 
 rides into the desert. His object was to visit 
 Dongola — the birthplace of the Mahdi — and to 
 establish the friendHness or otherwise of the 
 Mudir of that important position on the Nile. 
 He set out with a small party of Arabs, who 
 had sworn to be faithful to him, himself disguised 
 as an Arab, and with a goodly sum of money as 
 forcible arguments for enhsting the Mudir's 
 loyalty. For six days the little party journeyed 
 up the Nile, and arrived at Dongola w^hen the 
 Mudir, it is declared, was already contemplating 
 becoming one of the Mahdi's Emirs. Though 
 Dongola may well have been regarded as a sacred 
 spot to the Mahdists, as that is where their pro- 
 phet was born, the people arc said to have been 
 
70 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 divided, and Major Kitchener only arrived in 
 the nick of time, and by his diplomacy (and 
 golden arguments) won the Mudir, whom he 
 described as " exactly like a Dervish, and very 
 religious/* He journeyed through the whole 
 province of Dongola, satisfied himself that the 
 Mudir really intended to be loyal to the Egyptian 
 Government, and collected a great deal of im- 
 portant information as to the state of affairs. 
 
 When the Nile expedition started, Major 
 Kitchener was appointed Deputy Assistant 
 Adjutant and Quarter-Master General under Sir 
 Charles Wilson, who wrote : " The Government 
 intend to make the Mudir independent governor 
 of the v/hole Soudan after Gordon has been 
 brought back, and to allow him about 3^100,000 
 a year. Some months ago Kitchener was asked 
 if the Mudir could be made the independent 
 governor of Dongola, and he was dead against 
 it as every sane man must have beeen. You can 
 therefore imagine my feelings when I found that 
 the Government seriously intended to offer the 
 whole Soudan to the Mudir ! ''** 
 
 As things fell out, the intention was not ful- 
 filled, but the episode is one of those examples 
 so frequent v/ith our Home government off 
 
 *" Life of Sir Charles Wilson," by Sir Charles M. Watson. 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 71 
 
 ignoring the judgment of the man on the spot, 
 examples plentiful enough in the tragic story of 
 General Gordon's last year. 
 
 Major Kitchener seems to have been for some 
 time at Debbeh, nearly a hundred miles above 
 Dongola, and from there he managed to get 
 several letters through to Gordon, who waxes 
 sarcastic over some of them in his " Journal/' 
 Colonel J. D. Stewart made a dash from Khar- 
 toum in one of General Gordon's " penny steam- 
 boats,'* hoping to get down the river into touch 
 with the rehef expedition, but he and his party 
 were all murdered. On September 21, Gordon 
 wrote in his journal that the following letter 
 had arrived for Stewart from Kitchener : 
 
 *' Dear Stewart, Can I do anything for you or 
 General Gordon ? I should be awfully glad if 
 you will let me know. The relief expedition 
 is evidently coming up this way, but whether 
 they will go by Berber or attempt the direct road 
 from here,* I do not know. The Mahdi is in a 
 bad way ; he has abandoned Parfur, and has 
 no reinforcements to send to Khartoum and 
 Sennaar, which are asked for. 
 " Yours always, 
 
 "H. H. Kitchener." 
 
 ♦ Presumably Debbeh. 
 
72 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Two days later Gordon noted the receipt of 
 another letter from Kitchener, dated from 
 Debbeh on August 31, mentioning the progress of 
 the relief expedition, and saying " a few words 
 about what you wish done would be very 
 acceptable." In reading the sarcastic comments 
 which Gordon made in his generally fascinating 
 but not infrequently irritating *' Journal," we 
 have to remember the trying, and appallingly 
 lonely position of great responsibility in which 
 he was placed. At the end of November Gordon 
 wrote, " I had a letter saying Government had 
 given Kitchener carte blanche to pay the Mahdi 
 up to 3^20,000 for me ; but adds, ' the writer 
 does not think I would accept such a proposition,' 
 in which he is quite right ; neither would the 
 Mahdi. I like Baker's description of Kitchener." 
 After writing those words Gordon pasted against 
 them a cutting from a letter which he had 
 received from Sir Samuel Baker : " The man 
 whom I have always placed my hopes upon, 
 Major Kitchener, R.E., who is one of the few 
 very superior British officers, with a cool and 
 good head and a hard constitution, combined 
 wdth untiring energy, has now pushed up to 
 Dongola, and has proved that the Mudir is 
 dependable. The latter has given him a letter 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 73 
 
 received from you, asking about reinforcements, 
 and stating that you have 8,000 troops at Khar- 
 toum, and that Sennaar is still occupied by the 
 Government forces." 
 
 Baker's testimony appears to have impressed 
 Gordon greatly for he wrote " Whoever comes 
 up here had better appoint Major Kitchener 
 Governor-General, for it is certain, after what 
 has passed, I am impossible, (What a comfort !) 
 . . . If Kitchener would take the place, he 
 would be the best man to put in as Governor 
 General." 
 
 We have a graphic account of Kitchener at 
 this advance post up the Nile written by one of 
 the most vigorous and adventurous of war 
 correspondents, the late Bennet Burleigh : 
 " It was at Debbeh ninety miles south of Don- 
 gola, in 1884, that I first learned to know him 
 well. He was then living with the Mudir Musta- 
 pha Yawer's irregulars. Wearing the dress of 
 an Arab, he was scarcely distinguishable from 
 a native. He had gone in advance of the British 
 forces on a delicate and dangerous mission, for 
 which he had volunteered. I had wandered, 
 unauthorised, to Debbeh, attended by one 
 servant, in search of news and adventure, and 
 easily found both. On the upward trip I passed 
 
74 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 a risky night in the Mahdi's ancestral home with 
 his uncle and nephews, and had ridden among 
 bands of fierce Kabbabish. To my astonish- 
 ment and delight I found one Englishman within 
 the mud walls of Debbeh — Captain Kitchener, 
 R.E., for such he then was. He gave me a 
 hearty welcome, and added to my debt of grati- 
 tude by producing two bottles of claret, his 
 whole store, which we m^ost loyally drank at 
 dinner. For weeks he had not heard the 
 English tongue spoken, and he naturally was 
 glad to see a countryman able to tell him some- 
 thing of what was happening outside the Soudan. 
 .... In manner he is good-natured, a listener 
 rather than a talker, but readily pronouncing an 
 opinion if it is called for. All his life he has been 
 par excellence a ' volunteer ' soldier — volun- 
 teering, tim.e and again, for one difficult and 
 dangerous duty after another.''* 
 
 Kitchener was at this time attached to the 
 staff of Sir Charles Wilson, Chief of the Intelli- 
 gence Department, who recorded that on October 
 15 he reached Debbeh and met Major Kitchener, 
 who had been living for some time with the 
 Mudir's troops at that place. When Sir Herbert 
 Stewart's column set out Khartoumwards from 
 
 ♦" Sirdar and Khalifa." By Bennet Burleigh. 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 75 
 
 Korti in December, Kitchener went with it, and 
 won the admiration of British troops, as one of 
 the correspondents said, by an act of cool 
 courage, when he rode on far ahead of the 
 Hussars, near Gakdul Wells, and summoned a 
 band of Dervish spies, headed by the notorious 
 robber chieftain of the Bayuda, to surrender. 
 Before the fight at Abu Klea in the middle of 
 January, when Sir Herbert Stewart was mortally 
 wounded, Kitchener had been ordered back, 
 ** much to his disgust,'* as Sir Charles Wilson 
 noted, to Korti, and was thus not of those who 
 penetrated nearest to Khartoum, only to learn 
 that the town had fallen and Gordon been killed 
 two days earlier, that the expedition was ^* too 
 late." 
 
 The coolness,' courage, and success of Major 
 Kitchener as an adventurous officer of the 
 IntelHgence Departnent were generally noted. 
 He went alone and unarmed said Mr.H.H.Pearse, 
 one of the war correspondents, among semi- 
 hostile tribes, meeting the sheikhs in the desert, 
 and winning them over by strength of will and 
 something of a sublime self-confidence which 
 impressed them greatly. He argued, cajoled, 
 threatened, " and if any showed signs of anger, 
 he met their fierce outbursts with the steadfast 
 
-je EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 glance of the eyes that in such moments grew 
 curiously cold, as if the fearless light in them 
 were suddenly frozen. One of those chieftains 
 told me afterwards that nothing had impressed 
 them so much as the self-reliant bearing of the 
 blue-eyed, red-bearded young Englishman, who 
 never carried any weapon or seemed to want 
 any escort." 
 
 A story told by a Canadian journaUst bears 
 striking testimony to the coolness and courage 
 of the Intelligence Officer, and incidentally sug- 
 gests that the winning over of the Mudir of 
 Dongola was not quite so easy a matter as it 
 would seem : ^' In Bishareen tents, throughout 
 Dongolese bazaars, and on the caravan trail 
 they tell this story. The House of Lords knows 
 nothing about it. . . . But it is worth telUng." 
 Mr. Charles Lewis Shaw says that he was at 
 Korti in January, 1885, when the news of the 
 Battle of Abu Klea came in. Things were at 
 a state of tension, and there was a doubt as to 
 the loyalty of the Dongalese — " The Mudir of 
 Dongola, who was more than suspected of being 
 a Mahdist was in camp. English sovereigns 
 and bayonets had changed his poUtics for the 
 time being, but several thousand traitors living 
 in your midst create an unpleasant feeHng." 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 77 
 
 One January night, when Mr. Shaw was writing 
 in his tent, an Irish-Canadian friend came in 
 and told him that there was likely to be a 
 *' scrap *' in the camp, owing to misunderstand- 
 ings between the Bashi-Bazouks and some newly 
 arrived Arabs. The two men went out to see 
 the row, the Irish-Canadian was soon mixed up 
 in it, and Mr. Shaw went to his help — with the 
 result that they soon found themselves removed 
 to the guard-tent, with about a dozen Arabs. 
 
 '' The affair didn't bother McBurney or myself 
 very much. We knew that Canadian voyageurs 
 would be released in the morning, after going 
 through a httle formality before a subaltern. 
 I was hstening to the regrets of McBurney 
 at having got only one punch at the man who 
 had nearly drowned him at Ambigol, when a 
 tall man, tied apparently hand and foot, was 
 thrown amongst them. I thought he looked 
 a diiferent brand of Arab than I had been 
 accustomed to. He was ; he was Kitchener. 
 He was after the conspiracy. 
 
 " I didn't know much Arabic in those days, 
 but we could hear the Dongalesc — they were all 
 Dongalese — talk and talk in excited tones the 
 whole night, the bound man occasionally saying 
 a few words. 
 
78 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 ** When we paraded before the large open- 
 faced orderly tent next morning, we were 
 almost paralysed to see Lord Wolseley himself 
 seated at the Httle table with Kitchener beside 
 him, both in full staff uniform. . . . We seemed 
 to have been forgotten. A tall, fine looking 
 Arab, the handsomest Dongalese Arab I ever 
 saw, was being examined through the inter- 
 preter. He didn't seem impressed by the 
 glittering uniforms or the presence of the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, or embarrassed by their ques- 
 tions. Once or twice an expression of surprise 
 flitted over his face, but his eyes were always 
 fixed on Kitchener, who would now and again 
 stoop and vvhisper something in Lord Wolseley's 
 ear. Once he raised his voice. The prisoner 
 heard its intonation and recognized him. With 
 a fierce bound the long lithe Arab made a spring 
 and was over the table, and had seized Kitchener 
 by the throat. There was a short swift struggle. 
 Wolseley' s eye glistened, and he half drew his 
 sword. Kitchener, athletic as he was, was being 
 overpowered, and the Arab was throtthng him 
 to death. Thefe was a" rush of the guard — and 
 within ten minutes a cordon of sentries sur- 
 rounded the Mudir of Dongola's tent. Within 
 three days he was a prisoner in his palace at 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOITM. 79 
 
 Dongola, guarded by half a battalion of British 
 soldiers. The conspiracy was broken. 
 
 '* How widespread it was, only half-a-dozen 
 white men knew at that time, but that it em- 
 braced the Courts of the Khedive, the Mudir, 
 and the Mahdi leaked out in after years. To it 
 the treachery of the Egyptian garrison at 
 Khartoum and the death of Gordon was due, 
 and the preservation of the desert column can 
 be placed to its discovery.''* 
 
 It fell to Kitchener to piece together, so far as 
 could be done, the official narrative of the fall of 
 Khartoum. His intimate knowledge of the 
 native character and mastery of Arabic marked 
 him out as peculiarly fitted for the task, and 
 after all those survivors from Khartoum who 
 could be reached had told their stories, these 
 were checked and collated and the result is the 
 history of the last six weeks of the siege of 
 Khartoum, from the close of Gordon's "Journal" 
 to the time of his death. The fact that it was 
 Major Kitchener who drew up this history has 
 been overlooked by his biographers, and there- 
 fore, despite its length, it may fittingly be given 
 in its entirety in closing this chapter. The 
 document, issued by the War Office at the 
 
 * T^ht Canadian Magazine, March, 1899. 
 
8o EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 beginning of October, 1885, runs as follows : 
 " The last accurate information received about 
 Khartoum is contained in General Gordon's 
 diary, and dated the 14th of December, 1884. 
 The state of the town was then very critical, 
 and General Gordon states * the town may fall 
 in ten days/ 
 
 " The fort of Omdurman had been cut off 
 from communication with Khartoum since the 
 3rd of November ; it was at that date pro- 
 visioned for one and a-half months, and the 
 Commandant, Farag Allah Bey, had requested 
 further supplies of ammunition. The garrison 
 may therefore be considered to have been in 
 great difficulties for food and necessaries after 
 the 20th of December. 
 
 " General Gordon had so weakened himself by 
 sending away five steamers (four to meet the 
 English Expedition and one with Colonel Stewart) 
 that he found it impossible to check the Arabs on 
 the White Nile, and therefore to keep open 
 communication with the fort of Omdurman. 
 According to General Gordon's statement, 
 there were in the stores at Khartoum on the 
 .14th of December, 83,525 okes of biscuit and 
 546 ardebs of dhourra. From the almost weekly 
 statement of the amounts in store, it is calculated 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 8i 
 
 that, although General Gordon was able to 
 reduce considerably the issue of dhourra, the 
 biscuit ration to the troops had not been reduced 
 up to the 14th of December. The amount in 
 store would represent approximately 18 days' 
 rations for the garrison alone. Gordon had 
 already, on the 22nd of November, found it 
 necessary to issue 9,600 lbs. of biscuit to the 
 poor, and he then says : * I am determined, if the 
 town does fall, the Mahdi shall find precious 
 little to eat in it.' 
 
 " There is little doubt that as the siege pro- 
 gressed it was found necessary to issue a con- 
 siderable amount of provisions to the poorer 
 native inhabitants of Khartoum. It may, 
 therefore, be considered that even on reduced 
 rations the supply in store must have been 
 almost, if not quite, exhausted about the 1st 
 of January, 1885. 
 
 " The town was then closely encircled by the 
 rebels, who doubtless increased the intensity of 
 the attack as they approached nearer and 
 nearer to the works. 
 
 " The Mahdi was fully aware from deserters 
 of the straits to which the garrison were reduced 
 from want of food ; and it was his intention 
 that the town should fall into his hands without 
 
82 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 fighting, being obliged by famine to surrender. 
 About the 6th of January, General Gordon 
 seeing that the garrison were reduced to great 
 want of food, and that existence for many of the 
 inhabitants was almost impossible, issued a 
 proclamation, offering to any of the inhabitants 
 who liked free permission to leave the town and 
 go to the Mahdi. Great numbers availed them- 
 selves of this permission, and General Gordon 
 wrote letters to the Mahdi requesting him to 
 protect and feed these poor Moslem people, as 
 he had done for the last nine months. It has 
 been estimated that only about 14,000 remained 
 in the town out of a total of 34,000 inhabit- 
 tants, the number obtained by a census of the 
 town in September. 
 
 " General Gordon kept heart in the garrison 
 by proclamations announcing the near approach 
 of the English Relief Expedition, and praising 
 them for the resistance they had made, as well as 
 by the example of his unshaken determination 
 never to surrender the town to the rebels. 
 
 ** It appears probable, though the precise date 
 cannot be exactly verified, that the fort of 
 Omdurman fell into the hands of the rebels on 
 or about the 13th of January. The garrison 
 were not injured, and Farag Allah Bey, the 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 83 
 
 commander, was well treated in the rebel camp, 
 as an inducement for any waverer in the Khar- 
 toum garrison to join the Mahdi's cause. 
 
 " The fall of Omdurman must have been a 
 great blow to the garrison of Khartoum, who 
 thus lost their only position on the west bank 
 of the White Nile. The Arabs were able then, 
 by the construction of batteries along the river 
 bank, entirely to close the White Nile to Gordon's 
 steamers. Having accomplished this, they 
 could estabHsh ferries on the White Nile (south 
 of Khartoum), and have constant and rapid 
 communication from Omdurman village and 
 camp to their positions along the south front. 
 
 " About the i8th of January, the rebel works 
 having approached the south front, a sortie was 
 made by the troops, which led to desperate 
 fighting. About 200 of the garrison were killed, 
 and although large numbers of the rebels were 
 said to have been slain, it does not appear that 
 any great or permanent advantage was obtained 
 by the besieged garrison. On the return of the 
 troops to Khartoum after this sortie, General 
 Gordon personally addressed them, praising 
 them for the splendid resistance they had made 
 up to that time, and urging them still to do their 
 Utmost to hold otit, as relief was near ; indeed, 
 
84 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 that the English might arrive any day, and all 
 would then be well. 
 
 '^ The state of the garrison was then desperate 
 from want of food, all the donkeys, dogs, cats, 
 rats, etc., had been eaten ; a small ration of 
 gum was issued daily to the troops, and a sort 
 of bread was made from pounded palm tree 
 fibres. Gordon held several councils of the 
 leading inhabitants, and on one occasion had the 
 town most rigorously searched for provisions ; 
 the result, however, was very poor, only yielding 
 four ardebs of grain through the whole town ; 
 this was issued to the troops. Gordon continually 
 visited the posts, and personally encouraged the 
 soldiers to stand firm ; it was said that during 
 this period he never slept. 
 
 " On the 20th January the news of the 
 defeat of the Mahdi's picked troops at Abu Klea 
 created consternation in the Mahdi's camp. 
 A council of the leaders was held, and it is said 
 a considerable amount of resistance to the Mahdi's 
 will and want of discipline was shown. On the 
 22nd the news of the arrival of the English on 
 the Nile, at Metammeh, which was thought to 
 have been taken, led the Mahdi to decide to 
 make at once a desperate attack upon Khartoum, 
 before reinforcements could enter the town. It 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 85 
 
 is probable that next day the Mahdi sent letters 
 to Farag Pasha, commanding the black troops, 
 who had been previously in communication with 
 him, offering terms for the surrender of the 
 town, and stating that the EngHsh had been 
 defeated on the Nile. Rumours were also pre- 
 valent in Khartoum of the fighting at Abu 
 Klea and the arrival of the English at 
 Metammeh. It has been said that helmets were 
 exposed by the Mahdi's troops in front of their 
 works to induce the garrison to believe that 
 the Enghsh had been defeated ; but this 
 has been distinctly denied by some who can 
 hardly have failed to observe anything of the 
 sort. 
 
 " On the 23rd General Gordon had a stormy 
 interview with Farag Pasha. An eye-witness 
 states that it was owing to Gordon having passed 
 a fort on the White Nile which was under Farag 
 Pasha's charge, and found to be inadequately 
 protected. Gordon is said to have struck Farag 
 Pasha on this occasion. It seems probable to 
 me that at this interview Farag Pasha proposed 
 to Gordon to surrender the town, and stated the 
 terms the Mahdi had offered, declaring that in 
 his opinion they should be accepted. Farag 
 Pasha left the palace in a great rage, refusing the 
 
86 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 repeated attempts of other officers to effect a 
 reconciliation between him and Gordon. Dn the 
 following day General Gordon held a council of 
 the notables at the palace. The question of the 
 surrender of the town was then discussed, and 
 General Gordon declared, whatever the council 
 decided, he would never surrender the town. 
 I think it very probable that on this occasion 
 General Gordon brought Farag Pasha's action 
 and proposals before the council ; and it appears 
 that some in the council were of Farag Pasha's 
 opinion that the town could resist no longer, 
 and should be surrendered on the terms offered 
 by the Mahdi. General Gordon would not, 
 however, listen to this proposal. 
 
 " On the 25th Gordon was slightly ill, and as 
 it was Sunday he did not appear in public. He 
 had, however, several interviews with leading 
 men of the town, and evidently knew that the 
 end was near. It has been said that Gordon 
 went out in the evening and crossed the river 
 to Tuti Island on board the Ismailia, to settle 
 some dispute amongst the garrison there. This 
 statement has not been verified by other wit- 
 nesses, but owing to it the rumour subsequently 
 arose amongst the black troops in Omdurman 
 that Gordon had escaped that night on board 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 87 
 
 the Ismailia. The {acts, however, that both 
 steamers were captured by the rebels, that the 
 IsmaiHa was afterwards used by Mahommed 
 Ahmed when he visited Khartoum, and the 
 very full and complete evidence that General 
 Gordon was killed at or near the palace entirely 
 dispel any doubt on the matter. If he crossed 
 the river to Tuti, there is no doubt he returned 
 later to his palace in Khartoum. 
 
 *' On the night of the 25th many of the 
 famished troops left their posts on the forti- 
 fications in search of food in the town. Some 
 of the troops were also too weak, from want of 
 nourishment, to go to their posts. This state 
 of things was known in the town, and caused 
 some alarm ; many of the principal inhabitants 
 armed themselves and their slaves, and went 
 to the fortifications in place of the soldiers. 
 This was not an unusual occurrence, only on this 
 night more of the inhabitants went as volunteers 
 than they had done on previous occasions. 
 
 '* At about 3.30 a.m. on the morning of Mon- 
 day, the 26th, a determined attack was made 
 by the rebels on the south front. The principal 
 points of attack were the Boori Gate, at the ex- 
 treme east end of the line of defence on the Blue 
 Nile ; and the Mesalamieh Gate, on the west 
 
88 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 side, near the White Nile. The defence of the 
 former post held out against the attack, but at 
 the Mesalamieh Gate, the rebels having filled 
 the ditch with bundles of straw, brushwood, 
 beds, etc., brought up in their arms, penetrated 
 the fortifications, led by their Emir Wad-en- 
 Nejumi. The defenders of the Boori Gate 
 seeing the rebels inside the fortifications in their 
 rear, retired, and the town was then at the mercy 
 of the rebels. 
 
 '^ General Gordon had a complete system of 
 telegraphic communication with all the posts 
 along the line of fortification, and there must 
 have been great irregularity in the telegraph 
 stations to account for his being left entirely 
 unwarned of the attack and entry of the rebels. 
 Doubtless, Farag Pasha was responsible, to some 
 extent, for this. 
 
 '^ Farag Pasha has been very generally accused 
 of having either opened the gates of Khartoum 
 himself, or to have connived at the entrance of 
 the rebels ; but this has been distinctly denied 
 by Abdullah Bey Ismail, who commanded a 
 battaUon of irregular troops at the fall of the 
 town, as well as by about 30 refugee soldiers, 
 who lately escaped, and came in during the last 
 days of the English occupation of Dongola. 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 89 
 
 The accusations of treachery have all been 
 vague, and are, to my mind, the outcome of 
 mere supposition. Hassan Bey Balmasawy, 
 who commanded at the Mesalamieh Gate, cer- 
 tainly did not make a proper defence, and 
 failed to warn General Gordon of the danger 
 the town was in. He afterwards appears to 
 have taken a commission under the Mahdi, 
 and to have gone to Kordofan with the Emir 
 Abu-Anga. 
 
 ** In my opinion Khartoum fell from sudden 
 assault when the garrison were too exhausted 
 by privations to make proper resistance. Having 
 entered the town, the rebels rushed through 
 the streets, shouting and murdering every one 
 they met, thus increasing the panic and destroy- 
 ing any opposition. 
 
 " It is difficult, from the confused accounts, 
 to make out exactly how General Gordon was 
 killed. All the evidence tends to prove it 
 happened at or near the palace, where his body 
 was subsequently seen by several witnesses. 
 It appears that there was one company of 
 black troops in the palace besides General Gor- 
 don's cavasses ; some resistance was made when 
 the rebels appeared, but I think this was after 
 General Gordon had left the palace. The only 
 
90 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 account by a person claiming to be an eye- 
 witness of the scene of General Gordon's death 
 relates, *" On hearing the noise, I got my 
 master's donkey and went with him to the 
 palace. We met Gordon Pasha at the outer 
 door of the palace. Muhammed Bey Mustapha, 
 with my master, Ibrahim Bey Rushdi, and about 
 20 cavasses, then went with Gordon towards 
 the house of the Austrian Consul Hansel, near 
 the church, when we met some rebels in an 
 open place near the outer gate of the palace. 
 Gordon Pasha was walking in front, leading the 
 party. The rebels fired a volley, and Gordon 
 was killed at once ; nine of the cavasses, Ibrahim 
 Bey Rushdi and Muhammed Bey Mustapha were 
 killed, the rest ran away.' 
 
 " A large number of witnesses state Gordon 
 was killed near the gate of the palace, and various 
 accounts have been related from hearsay of 
 the exact manner in which he met his end. 
 Several reliable witnesses saw and recognised 
 Gordon's body at the gate of the palace ; one 
 describes it as being dressed in light clothes. 
 
 " The Soudan custom of beheading and 
 exposing the heads of adversaries slain in battl^ 
 was apparently carried out, as was done by 
 the Mudir of Dongola after the battle at Korti. 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 91 
 
 The Bagara savages seem to have had some 
 doubt which was Gordon's body, and great 
 confusion occurred in the Mahdi's camp at 
 Omdurman, where the heads were exposed, as 
 to which was Gordon's head ; some recognising, 
 others denying the identity of Gordon's head. 
 One apparently rehable witness relates that he 
 saw the rebels cut off Gordon's head at the 
 palace gate after the town was in their hands. 
 The massacre in the town lasted some six 
 hours, and about 4,000 persons, at least, were 
 killed. The black troops were spared, except 
 those who resisted at the Boori Gate and else- 
 where ; large numbers of the townspeople and 
 slaves were killed and wounded. The Bashi 
 Bazouks and white regulars, numbering 3,327 
 and the Shaigia irregulars, numbering: 2,330, were 
 mostly all killed in cold blood, after they had 
 surrendered and been disarmed. Consul Hansel 
 was killed in his own house. Consul Nicola, 
 a doctor, and Ibrahim Bey Fauzi, who was 
 Gordon's secretary, were taken prisoners ;* the 
 latter was wounded. 
 
 " At about 10 a.m. the Mahdi sent over orders 
 to stop the massacre, which then ceased. The 
 rebels fell to looting the town, and ordered all 
 the inhabitants out of it ; they were searched 
 
92 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 at the gate as they passed, and were taken over 
 to Omdurman, where the women were distri- 
 buted as slaves amongst the rebel chiefs. The 
 men, after being kept as prisoners under a 
 guard for three days, were stripped and allowed 
 to get their living as best they could. 
 
 " It has been stated that the Mahdi was angry 
 when he heard of General Gordon's death ; but, 
 though he may have simulated such a feeUng 
 on account of the black troops, there is very 
 little doubt, in my opinion, that had he expressed 
 the wish, Gordon would not have been killed. 
 The presence of Gordon as a prisoner in his 
 camp would have been a source of great danger 
 to the Mahdi, for the black troops from Kordofan 
 and Khartoum all loved and venerated Gordon, 
 and many other influential men knew him to be 
 a wonderfully good man. 
 
 " The want of discipline in the Mahdi's camp 
 made it dangerous for him to keep as a prisoner 
 a man whom all the black troops Hked better 
 than himself, and in favour of whom, on a 
 revulsion of feeling, a successful revolt might take 
 place in his own camp. Moreover, if Gordon 
 was dead, he calculated the EngUsh would retire 
 and leave him in peace. 
 
 " The Mahdi had promised his followers as 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 93 
 
 much gold and silver as they could carry when 
 Khartoum fell, and immense disappointment 
 was expressed at the failure to find the Govern- 
 ment treasury. 
 
 " Three days after the fall of the town Farag 
 Pasha was brought up to show where the Govern- 
 ment money was hid. As he was naturally 
 unable to do this, owing to there not being any, 
 he was killed on the public market place at 
 Omdurman. 
 
 " Many others were put to torture to disclose 
 where their wealth was hid, with varying 
 results. 
 
 " On the third day after the fall of Khartoum 
 many of the prisoners saw Sir Charles Wilson's 
 steamers off Tuti Island, with the En.(?Hsh on 
 board ; some were present in the batteries at 
 Omdurman when the rebels opened fire on the 
 steamers. 
 
 " The number of white prisoners in the Mahdi's 
 camp has been variously stated. A Greek, 
 escaped from Khartoum, reports when the place 
 fell there were 42 Greeks, five Greek women, one 
 Jewess, six European nuns, and two priests ; of 
 these, 34 Greeks were murdered. The survivors 
 were all at liberty, but in extreme poverty. 
 
 " Abdullah Bey Ismail relates that * all the 
 
94 EARL KITCHENER OF KPiARTOUM. 
 
 European ladies are at Omdurman, living in a 
 zeriba, where they form a little colony, guarded 
 by the European men. They earn a meagre 
 sustenance, by sewing, washing, etc. Not a 
 single one was taken by the dervishes ; they all 
 wear Moslem dress.' A letter from the Mahdi 
 was received relative to the white prisoners, 
 who he declared preferred to remain with 
 him. The document bears 96 signatures of 
 Europeans ; but some of them are undoubtedly 
 spurious, as that of Father Luigi Bonomi, who 
 has since escaped from El Obeid, never having 
 been at Khartoum. 
 
 '* A large number of the Bagara Arabs left 
 the Mahdi shortly after the fall of Khartoum, 
 much disgusted at their failure to obtain a larger 
 amount of loot. On the Mahdi attempting to 
 bring them back by force they joined the party 
 in Kordofan who are now fighting against the 
 Mahdi's cause. 
 
 *' The memorable siege of Khartoum lasted 
 317 days, and it is not too much to say that such 
 a noble resistance was due to the indomitable 
 resolution and resource of one Englishman. 
 
 " Never was a garrison so nearly rescued, 
 
 never was a commander so sincerely lamented. 
 
 '* H. H. Kitchener, Major. 
 
GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 95 
 
 Major Kitchener had also drawn up the 
 official memorandum on the murder of Colonel 
 Stewart and his companions in their attempt to 
 get down the Nile to the Relief Expedition. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SIRDAR OF THE EGYPTIAN ARMY. 
 
 After the evacuation of the Soudan which 
 followed upon the fall of Khartoum, Major 
 Kitchener resigned his commission in the Egypt- 
 ian army and returned to England, and on June 
 15,1885, was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant- 
 Colonel ; he also received the medal with clasp, 
 the Khedive's star, and another Egyptian 
 decoration. During this stay in London, Colonel 
 Kitchener joined with the late Sir Augustus 
 Harris, Lord Londesborough, and Sir John 
 Gorst in founding the Drury Lane Lodge of 
 Freemasons. At about this time, too, he made 
 an appearance in an unexpected role, as we learn 
 from the genial reminiscences of that veteran 
 journalist, Mr. Thomas CatHng. Mr. Catling 
 tells us in " My Life's Pilgrimage " how he was 
 one of the few people present at a rehearsal at 
 Drury Lane Theatre of " Human Nature," a 
 drama in which occurred a very stirring military 
 
 scene. Another of the favoured few was Colonel 
 
 96 
 
i'HE Sirdar, Sir H. H. Kitchknek and his A.D.C 
 BiMBASHi J. K. Watson. 
 Opp. p. 96. ' (A Sketch from Life). 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. 97 
 
 Kitchener. When the battle scene opened it 
 was arranged in the form of a square with a 
 surrounding low wall of Oriental pattern, at 
 which the soldiers came with springing leaps 
 and tumbled over on the stage. Kitchener 
 immediately jumped up exclaiming, ** No, no ; 
 that won't do," and Augustus Harris at once 
 stood aside and told the actors and *' troops " 
 to do exactly as the Colonel told them. The 
 scene as revised by the experienced soldier 
 became far more effective, and, it is added, the 
 manager ever afterwards strove in mounting 
 a play to have all technical details made as 
 correct as expert judgment could render them. 
 Before the close of 1885, Colonel Kitchener 
 had accepted a fresh post, in which his earlier 
 surveying experience must have proved of value, 
 when he was appointed a Boundary Commissioner 
 for the delimitation of Zanzibar. In the year 
 before a small band of enterprising Germans 
 had landed on the East African Coast and begun 
 to acquire for their country the nucleus of what 
 was after to be recognised as German East 
 Africa, and in that year also the European Powers 
 were represented in a conference at Berlin dealing 
 with " spheres of influence '' and other matters 
 concerning the partition of the Dark Continent. 
 
98 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Not for long, however, was Colonel Kitchener 
 engaged in Zanzibar. It is not difficult to 
 believe that his work over the establishing of 
 the Egyptian army, and his experiences during 
 the attempt to relieve Khartoum had impressed 
 him with the necessity of overthrowing for good 
 and all the power of that which the Mahdi and his 
 satellites represented. The Mahdi had died in 
 the summer of 1885 — surviving the heroic Gordon 
 but a few months — ^his successor, the Khalifa, 
 was yet more of an " undesirable '* whose pov/cr 
 waxed with the evacuation of the Soudan, and 
 if Colonel Kitchener counted on the coming of a 
 time when Gordon should be avenged and the 
 Soudan won back for Egypt, he may well have 
 dreamed of being able to bear a part in the work. 
 In the early autumn of 1886 he was to have his 
 opportunity of working towards that wished 
 for end, as in August he was appointed Governor- 
 General of the Red Sea Littoral and Commandant 
 of Suakin. His task was to keep the "friendlies'* 
 friendly, and to add as far as might be to their 
 numbers. 
 
 Despite the death of the Mahdi in the summer 
 of 1885, Mahdiism had spread all over the 
 Soudan, until Khartoum was but the centre of 
 the great tract of country dominated by the 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. 99 
 
 Khalifa's adherents. Though Suakm was garri- 
 soned by Egyptian troops, the Red Sea shore on 
 either side of that port was occupied largely by 
 Dervish fanatics and their supporters, or tribes 
 but doubtfully loyal, and Osman Digna was their 
 most formidable leader. Colonel Kitchener 
 arrived to take up his duties at Suakin on August 
 25, 1886, and was soon able to report an im- 
 proved condition of things in the district though 
 the rebels still held Tokar to the south, and the 
 emissaries of Osman Digna were busy in seeking 
 to stem the tide of desertions from the Khalifa's 
 cause. This went on for some months, when in 
 June Colonel Kitchener took a small force to 
 Halaib, on the Red Sea, where a colony of slave 
 dealers who had fired on a boat of H.M.S. 
 Dolphin were dispersed. A number of " friend- 
 lies '' were gathered to attack Tokar in October, 
 but dissentions among them led to their retire- 
 ment when they were attacked by the enemy. 
 Then the reduction of the Suakin garrison by 
 the removal of two battaUons of Egyptians and 
 Soudanese troops encouraged Osman Digna 
 before the end of the year to think that he might 
 successfully attack the place. He left his head- 
 quarters at Kassala with a force of five thousand 
 men for Tokar, and then proceeded to Handub, 
 
100 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 some miles to the north-west of Suakin, whence 
 his scouts pillaged around, but not only did not 
 succeed in winning over new adherents to enable 
 him to capture the place, but suffered from the 
 attacks of local tribes. In the beginning of 
 January 1888, he determined to punish these 
 tribes, and prepared an expedition for the 
 purpose. News of this reached Colonel Kitchener 
 who thought he saw in it a possible opportunity 
 of breaking up Mahdiism in his part of the 
 country by the capture of Osman Digna. Having 
 telegraphed to Cairo for permission to do so, 
 he set out on January 17 with a mixed force of 
 about 500 men, and four other British officers. 
 Handub was reached, and the camp fallen upon 
 suddenly, so that Osman Digna's men fled, and 
 he himself only just escaped, but the advance 
 body of irregulars, who precipitately made the 
 first attack, too readily thought the fight won, 
 and by the time the rest of the force came up 
 the enemy had reformed and recaptured their 
 arms and ammunition. Colonel Kitchener re- 
 ceived a severe bullet wound in the face, and the 
 actual capture of the camp being impossible, 
 the force retired in an orderly fashion to Suakin. 
 Two days later Kitchener left, invalided, for 
 Cairo, but returned, though still suffering from 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. loi 
 
 his wound, when the rebel activities were renewed 
 in March. On April 1 1 he was gazetted Colonel, 
 and a few weeks later was invahded home to 
 England, and was honoured by being made 
 Aide-de-camp to the Queen. 
 
 When Colonel Kitchener returned to Egypt 
 it was as Adjutant-General of the Egyptian 
 army, and as such he took command of the First 
 Brigade at the brilliantly successful attack on 
 Gemaizeh, near Suakin, on December 20, 1888. 
 Months later, and in August 1889, at Toski, 
 where he led the mounted troops, he was able to 
 help in a more smashing blow at the forces of 
 Mahdiism, and to his '* activity and foresight " 
 the Sirdar, Sir Francis Grenfell, attributed much 
 of the completeness of the victory. For his piart 
 in this engagement. Colonel Kitchener ,was 
 honoured by being made a C.B. 
 
 After the battle of Toski, Colonel Kitchener 
 was for some time engaged in his work as Ad- 
 jutant General of the Egyptian army, carrying 
 on the development of that force which, as one 
 of Sir Evelyn Wood's assistants, he had helped 
 to create, and which had already given notable 
 evidence of the way in which the most un- 
 promising material might be made serviceable. 
 To many critics the making of an army out of 
 
102 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 the Egyptian fellaheen had seemed a hopeless 
 task. Indeed, one observant writer declared 
 bluntly that as a soldier the Egyptian fellah was 
 worthless : " He cowers at alarm, and shrinks 
 from a contest 'involving physical suffering to 
 himself. For any practical purposes an Egypt- 
 ian army is useless, and their maintenance is 
 but a waste of money. No amount of personal 
 example and European officering will prevail 
 upon them to oflfer stubborn and desperate battle 
 even in a situation where their lives are forfeit." 
 Those words were written in the early 
 days. Nearly twenty years later another writer 
 speaking of Kitchener's work in the building 
 up of the Egyptian army said : " He did not 
 create the force, of course, but he gave the 
 finishing touches to its discipline, drill, and 
 demeanour ; he deserves much, if not all, the 
 credit of perfecting it into a first-class man- 
 slaying machine.'' The change effected by the 
 first ten years of the Egyptian army, of which 
 Sir Evelyn Wood became Sirdar in 1882, is 
 well described in the History of the Soudan 
 written by the distinguished soldier who was 
 himself to become in turn Sirdar, and in suc- 
 cession to Kitchener. The secret of the success 
 achieved was the same as that shown in other 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. 103 
 
 times and in other parts of the world — '' the 
 Englishman's power to inspire confidence." 
 Service in the old-time army had been something 
 to be avoided at all costs, even that of self- 
 maiming by cutting off fingers and destroying 
 sight ; new conditions gradually came to breed 
 new confidence : 
 
 ** As the Army owed its success to the confi- 
 dence inspired by its English officers, so in its 
 turn the army has been the most powerful 
 means of spreading throughout the people of 
 the land a confidence in the honesty and fair 
 dealing of the EngHsh servants of His High- 
 ness the Khedive ; and the recruit of the new 
 army returning to his village on his annual 
 furlough, is perhaps one of the most effective 
 means of impressing this fact on the peasant 
 classes of Egypt. . . . He is well-clothed, and 
 fed, regularly paid, and treated with justice by 
 his commanding oflScers, and on the expiration 
 of his furlough he no longer bemoans the sad 
 fate which drags him once more away, but 
 returns happily enough, and perhaps inwardly 
 rejoicing to escape from the squalor of his native 
 home back to the clean and airy barracks or 
 camp.*'* 
 
 ♦"Mahdiism and the Egyptian Soudan." By Major F. R. 
 Wingatt. 
 
104 EARL KITCHENER OF KfTARTOUM. 
 
 Lord Cromer, writing sixteen years later, 
 testified to the wonderful work achieved in the 
 creating an army superior to anything that 
 Egypt had before possessed, and attributed 
 that success to the fact that the British officers 
 had been allowed a free hand. 
 
 For a time, 1890-91, Colonel Kitchener was 
 in temporary command of the Egyptian police, 
 and in 1892, on Sir Francis Grenfell resigning 
 the position of Sirdar, or Commander-in-Chief 
 of the Egyptian Army, Colonel Kitchener was 
 selected on April 9 for that responsible office. 
 The position was the more responsible in that it 
 was beginning to be realised that the reconquest 
 of the Soudan and the taking of Khartoum 
 were gradually becoming necessary. Kitchener 
 was himself, we may be sure, convinced of the 
 necessity of achieving those ends though the 
 patience which he had exercised in the helping 
 to make an army was a characteristic which 
 kept him from acting in any ill-considered 
 impulsive fashion. We may be sure, also, that 
 he was convinced of the absolute necessity of 
 " smashing *' Mahdiism, and nursed the hope 
 that Gordon would yet be avenged. His new 
 position, as head of the army which he had 
 helped to create, gave him more power than he 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. 105 
 
 had hitherto enjoyed, and he may well have 
 thought that the time for action was approach- 
 ing. If he had not already mused upon this 
 he must have done so after reading the following 
 letter addressed to him by Sir Samuel White 
 Baker, a letter which was strikingly prophetic : 
 
 '* My dear Kitchener, 
 
 " As I feel sure that the task of regaining 
 the Soudan will fall to yourself, and by its 
 success will sustain the good fortune which I 
 trust will ever favour you through simple 
 merit alone, I send you some remarks on 
 * MiUtary Routes towards Berber.' The 
 memoranda may be of service to you some 
 day when active operations shall be deter- 
 mined upon. My opinion is very strong 
 upon the necessity of quietly preparing for 
 the event beforehand, so that when the 
 moment shall arrive, the success may be 
 accomplished without loss of time. In all 
 our recent expeditions one notes a general 
 absence of military science. You will have 
 the opportunity of preparing for a blow, and 
 delivering it with undoubted result, which 
 will bring honour upon the force you command 
 and to yourself. 
 
 " Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 ' ** Samuel W. Baker.'' 
 
io6 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Acknowledging that letter the newly appointed 
 Sirdar wrote from Cairo on May i, 1892 : "I 
 am immensely obliged to you for your Notes, 
 which no doubt give the key to the whole ques- 
 tion of the re-occupation of the Soudan. I 
 only hope it may fall to my lot to use your Notes 
 and to recover the country. There is no doubt 
 that some day it must be accompHshed. I wish 
 something could be done to clear up the Slavery 
 question, which, I believe — now that the reli- 
 gious mania of Mahdiism. is dying out — is the 
 main cause that prevents the Soudanese from 
 driving out their present oppressors. They dread 
 the general freedom of slaves, which, they 
 believe, would be bound to follow the re-occu- 
 pation of the country.'* 
 
 Sir Samuel Baker's " I feel sure that the task 
 of regaining the Soudan will fall to yourself" 
 was to prove a happy forecast, though four years 
 were to elapse before the actual forward move- 
 ment was to be made, and two more before the 
 climax. Meanwhile the Sirdar was improving 
 and strengthening the Egyptian army, and was 
 also perfecting those arrangements without 
 which the : bravest army can achieve but 
 little. Progress, however, was not without 
 trouble, for in 1894 the young Khedive Abbas, 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. 107 
 
 who had succeeded Tewfik in 1892, took 
 occasion at a review of Egyptian soldiers to 
 sneer at their quality, declaring, it is reported, 
 that he could have made better troops out of the 
 horse-boys of Cairo ! The insult may well have 
 been inspired by some enemy of the strong 
 silent man who was Commander-in-Chief of the 
 Khedive's army, but that man was not one to 
 allow such words to pass unheeded, and Kit- 
 chener promptly resigned. It was only after 
 the Khedive had apologised for the stupid 
 remark that the Sirdar withdrew his resignation, 
 and at about the same time, as though to add 
 point to the incident, he was honoured with the 
 K.C.M.G., and thus became Sir Herbert Kit- 
 chener. In 1894, ^o^> ^^^ Sirdar lost his father. 
 Colonel Kitchener, who passed away in his 88th 
 year, having lived to see his son win to high 
 distinction with every promise of higher. 
 
 Knowledge of the state of affairs in the 
 abandoned Soudan under the villainous Khalifa 
 was ever being added to from the reports of 
 spies, and in 1891 and 1895, two long-held 
 prisoners, Father Ohrwalder and Slatin Pasha, 
 escaped from among the Mahdiists and brought 
 valuable information into Egypt. The " shame 
 and horror " of the evacuation of the Soudan 
 
io8 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 was brought home with cumulative force, and 
 people of the most opposite views came to regard 
 the reconquest of the territory as not only 
 desirable but demanded. As Mr. Winston 
 Churchill put it : " The name of Gordon fused 
 the miUtary, the fanatical, and the philan- 
 thropic spirits into one strong and moving 
 influence ; to this were added the impulse of 
 the national pride in the regeneration of Egypt 
 and the momentum of modern Imperialism ; 
 and these three forces — the sentimental, the 
 intellectual, and the poUtical — gradually over- 
 came the fear and hatred of Soudan warfare which 
 a long series of profitless campaigns had created 
 in the mind of the average taxpayer. The re- 
 conquest of the Soudan became again, as far as 
 British public opinion was concerned, a practi- 
 cal question."* Here we are concerned with 
 that reconquest as it forms a part of the story 
 of the life of one of the two men by whom it 
 was mainly brought about, and not as part of 
 the history of Egypt. As history it will be 
 found fully and illuminatingly dealt with both 
 in the work just quoted and in Lord Cromer's 
 " Modern Egypt.'' 
 
 Financial difficulties consequent upon the 
 *" The River War." By Winston Spencer Churchill. 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. 109 
 
 Dual Control of England and France in Egypt 
 having been overcome in a dramatic fashion 
 which resulted in England being left with a free 
 hand in the matter, the Cairo authorities and 
 the home Government decided upon an ex- 
 pedition for the re-occupying of Dongola. On 
 March 12, 1896, shortly before midnight as it 
 is recorded with minute particularity, Sir Herbert 
 Kitchener received the instructions authorising 
 the expedition to the province of Dongola, and 
 instructing him to occupy Akasheh forthwith. 
 At once he gave evidence of that forethought in 
 the matters of organisation which has character- 
 ised his work all through. On March 12 
 " shortly before midnight," he was authorised 
 to move; on March 15 the first troops, having 
 been inspected by the Khedive, started for the 
 front ; on March 18, the frontier force began 
 the actual invasion of the territory that had 
 been abandoned ten years earlier ; on the 20th 
 it occupied Akasheh, and within three weeks 
 the whole long line of communications — over 
 eight hundred miles from Cairo to the frontier 
 post at Akasheh — was completed. This has 
 been noted as '' the first, and not the least 
 remarkable instance of Sir Herbert Kitchener's 
 strange powers of rapid and comprehensive 
 arrangement." 
 
no EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 On March 22, the Sirdar himself left Cairo 
 and proceeded to Wady Haifa, there to superin- 
 tend the concentration of troops and supphes, 
 and to press forward the extension of the river- 
 side railway on which he depended as one of the 
 most effective arms in the work which he had 
 before him. That railway had previously run 
 as far as Akasheh, but much of it had disappeared 
 in the period of abandonment. Steadily and surely 
 the plans for the advance were matured, and on 
 May I, the Sirdar went on to the advanced base 
 at Akasheh, the Dervish forces being known to 
 be at Firket, about fifteen miles further up the 
 Nile. Though so near, the Dervishes did 
 practically nothing to interfere with the steady 
 preparations that were being made for their 
 undoing, and the Sirdar was able to complete 
 those preparations. Then on June 6 he decided 
 upon a forward move, and sending part of his 
 forces, mounted, by way of the desert to take up 
 a position in the rear of the Dervish position, 
 marched his infantry through the night that 
 he might surprise the enemy at dawn. His 
 plans worked perfectly, the two . columns to- 
 gether began the attack at 5 o'clock in the morn- 
 ing of June 7, and a Uttle over two hours later 
 the battle had been fought and won. This 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. in 
 
 being the first general engagement in which the 
 new Egyptian Army had been employed, their 
 behaviour may well have caused considerable 
 anxiety to their leaders, but the organisers of 
 that army had the satisfaction of finding that 
 their troops triumphantly stood the crucial test 
 of action ; and what is more, those troops had 
 been taught by victory to have confidence in 
 themselves. 
 
 After the battle of Firkct the Sirdar set about 
 preparing for his next ** pounce." A fresh base 
 was formed about five miles further up the river 
 at Kosheh, and the military railway was again 
 pressed rapidly forward, and so effectively, that 
 by July 24 the first train was running over the 
 battlefield of Firket, and within two months of 
 that battle rail-head had been carried to Kosheh. 
 Now, however, set in a period which tested the 
 Sirdar's powers of leadership and organisation 
 to the utmost. For a time everything, as the 
 saying is, " went contrary.'* Cholera broke out 
 virulently, and many valuable lives were lost. 
 In place of the expected seasonal cool north 
 wind that would have carried the flotilla of boats 
 with stores up the river and have brought health 
 to the troops, there was long continuance of hot 
 wind from the south ; there were violent storms 
 
ii2 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 which demoralised the troops and washed away 
 twelve miles of the all-important railway and 
 telegraph. When a splendid gunboat which had 
 been brought out piecemeal from England was put 
 together at Kosheh, and about to start on a trial 
 trip, she was at once put out of action by a burst 
 cylinder that was irreplaceable ! Certainly it 
 must have seemed as though "Kitchener's luck " 
 was out, yet it is said that " the Sirdar's equa- 
 nimity was scarcely ruffled." 
 
 Mr. Winston Churchill has given us a memor- 
 able sketch of the commander in this time of 
 trial, when the success of the whole campaign 
 hung in the balance : " In this serious emer- 
 gency, which threatened to wreck his schemes, 
 the Sirdar's organising talents shone more 
 brilliantly than at any other moment in this 
 account. Travelling swiftly to Moghrat, he pos- 
 sessed himself of the telephone, which luckily 
 still worked. All depended on him. But his 
 grasp of detail and power of arrangement were 
 never better displayed. He knew the exact 
 position of every soldier, coolie, camel or donkey 
 at his disposal. In a few hours, in spite of his 
 crippled transport, he concentrated 5,000 men 
 on the damaged section of the line, and there- 
 after fed them until the work was finished. In 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. 113 
 
 seven days traffic was resumed. The advance 
 had been delayed, but it was not prevented." 
 
 That trouble had scarcely been surmounted 
 when the fresh one happened with the gunboat, 
 which had been regarded as so valuable an 
 auxiliary. As that vessel had slowly grown, as 
 piece by piece of the seeming jig-saw puzzle 
 had been put together, wc are told that the 
 Sirdar watched it with fascinated attention ; 
 " it became his toy, his pet." Then on Sep- 
 tember 1 1 came the trial trip and the fresh trial 
 of Kitchener*s fortitude. We owe the story of 
 this episode also to Mr. Churchill's historical 
 account of ^ River War ' : 
 
 *' The Sirdar and his Stall embarked. Flags 
 were hoisted, and amid general cheering the 
 moorings were cast off. But the stern paddle 
 had hardly revolved twice when there was a loud 
 report, Uke that of a heavy gun ; clouds of 
 steam rushed up from the boilers, and the 
 engines stopped. Sir H. Kitchener and Com- 
 mander Colvillc were on the upper deck. The 
 latter rushed below to learn what had happened, 
 and found that she had burst her low pressure 
 cylinder, a misfortune impossible to repair until 
 a new one could be obtained from Haifa and 
 fitted. The Sirdar was still waiting on the deck, 
 
114 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 expecting to hear of some trifling accident, when 
 the naval officer returned. ' She has burst her 
 cylinder/ he said. A slight flush passed over 
 the GeneraFs face. ' How many days/ he 
 asked, ' will it take to repair her ? ' 'To repair 
 her is impossible. You will have to wait until 
 a new one is sent up.' ' Then she is absolutely 
 useless, and put out of action ? ' ' Absolutely.' 
 The Sirdar stood immovable, while everyone, 
 remembering all the disappointments and mis- 
 fortunes, watched and expected another ex- 
 plosion of a different kind. His face was im- 
 passive, and only a slight twitching of the eyes 
 betrayed his intense emotion. There was a 
 long and unpleasant silence. Then he said : ^* By 
 God, Colville, I don't know which of us its 
 hardest luck on — you or me. Well, get her guns 
 out at once, and put them on board the other 
 steamers,' and with that he left the ship. . . . 
 The Sirdar, in bitterness and vexation, shut 
 himself in the cabin of the Dal steamer, figuring out 
 his calculations again, and estimating his forces, 
 now deprived of so powerful a factor. It was not 
 until the next day that he reappeared, and only 
 the passionate telegrams which he despatched to 
 Cairo, revealed the depths of his emotions."* 
 
 *" Th« River War," p. 255. 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. 115 
 
 How bitter must have been the disappointment 
 of the leader of the expedition over this con- 
 tretemps may be gauged from the fact that it 
 happened when things were just ripe for the fresh 
 advance, when it was known that the Dervishes 
 had come down the river some distance from 
 their stronghold at Dongola. Indeed, a few 
 days before the mishap to the gunboat the 
 activity of the enemy had been manifested by 
 the cutting of telegraph wires by a Dervish 
 patrol, and only the day before the Sirdar had 
 learned that a position nearly thirty miles north 
 of Dongola was strongly held. Without the 
 powerful gunboat the advance had to be made 
 with but the three older and smaller ones that 
 remained, and on the 23rd of September, after 
 a " picturesque and bloodless affair " that has 
 been " solemnly called the ' Battle of Hafir,' *' 
 Dongola itself was occupied, and the expedition 
 brought to a successful termination. " At a 
 cost of 411 lives, of whom 364 died from cholera 
 and other diseases, and of 3^715,000 in Egyptian 
 money — a figure which bore testimony to the 
 Sirdar*s economical administration — the province 
 of Dongola had been reclaimed from barbarism.*' 
 
 The accomplishment of the task was at once 
 a great feather in the cap of Sir Herbert Kitchener 
 
ii6 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 and a sufficient vindication of the value of the 
 Egyptian Army as a fighting force. Lord 
 Cromer, who was British Agent and Consul 
 General in Egypt, has recorded how all details of 
 the plan of the campaign were left entirely at 
 the discretion of the Sirdar, and he has paid a 
 tribute to the soldier which must form an in- 
 evitable part of any sketch of that soldier's 
 career. Writing of the campaign which, begin- 
 ning with the Dongola Expedition v/as to 
 culminate in the reconquest of the Soudan, Lord 
 Cromer says : 
 
 '' The command of the force was left to the 
 Sirdar of the Egyptian Army, Sir Herbert 
 Kitchener. A better choice could not have been 
 made. Young, energetic, ardently and ex- 
 clusively devoted to his profession, and, as the 
 honourable scars on his face testified, experienced 
 in Soudanese warfare, Sir Herbert Kitchener 
 possessed all the quaHties necessary to bring 
 the campaign to a successful issue. Like many 
 another mihtary commander, the bonds which 
 united him and his subordinates were those of 
 stern discipline on the one side, and, on the 
 other, the respect due to superior talent and the 
 confidence felt in the resourcefulness of a strong 
 and masterful spirit, rather than the affectionate 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. 117 
 
 obedience yielded to the behests of a genial chief. 
 When the campaign was over, there were not 
 wanting critics who whispered that Sir Herbert 
 Kitchener's success had been due as much to 
 good luck as to good management. If, it was 
 said, a number of events had happened, which, 
 as a matter of fact, did not happen, the result 
 might have been different. The same may be 
 said of any military commander and of any 
 campaign. . . . The fact, however, is that Sir 
 Herbert Kitchener's main merit was that he left 
 as Httle as possible to chance. A first-rate 
 military administrator, every detail of the 
 machine, with which he had to work, received 
 adequate attention. Before any decisive 
 movement was made, each portion^ of the 
 machine was adapted, so far as human 
 foresight could provide, to perform its allotted 
 task. 
 
 " Sir Herbert Kitchener also possessed another 
 quahty which is rare among soldiers, and which 
 was of special value under the circumstances 
 then existing. He did not think that extrava- 
 gance was the necessary handmaid of efficiency. 
 On the contrary, he was a rigid economist, and, 
 whilst making adequate provision for all essential 
 and necessary expenditure, suppressed witli a 
 
ii8 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 firm hand any tendency towards waste and 
 extravagance/'* 
 
 It was possibly his work in the building up of 
 the Egyptian Army that developed and streng- 
 thened those powers of organisation, and that 
 regard for economical administration of which 
 he had given examples when a Heutenant 
 working for the Palestine Exploration Fund. 
 Speaking in 1895 on behalf of that Fund, of 
 which he was for many years secretary, the 
 late Sir Walter Besant said : " the military 
 record of Colonel Kitchener promises to eclipse 
 his civil distinction. But ir must never be for- 
 gotten that before he went to Egypt he surveyed 
 Galilee for this Society and Cyprus for the 
 Colonial Office." It mav also be remembered 
 that in his civil work the officer learned such 
 things as fitted him peculiarly for the military 
 tasks which fell to him later. 
 
 After the stage in the progress of the Nile 
 Expedition which closed with the reoccupation 
 of the province of Dongola, the Sirdar paid a 
 short visit to England, and on his arrival at 
 Dover, on November 9, made a statement as to 
 the situation in Egypt to an enterprising jour- 
 nalist who met him on his arrival. As he must 
 
 ^" Modern Egypt." By The Earl of Crom«r. 
 
SIRDAR OF EGYPTIAN ARMY. 119 
 
 surely be one of the notable men of his time 
 least approachable by the interviewer, this 
 occasion is the more noticeable, but it is interest- 
 ing as affording his view of coming events in 
 Egypt, and also as his tribute to the soldierly 
 qualities of the fellaheen of whom he and his 
 predecessors in command had made an army. 
 At Dongola he said that the Dervishes had 
 " bolted in utter rout on seeing the troops 
 advancing " and he attributed this to the fact 
 that the army was much larger than they had 
 expected, and to stories that they had heard of 
 the fight at Firket ; " the presence of the gun- 
 boats, too, had of course a very salutary effect." 
 It was quite a mistake, he added, to suppose 
 that the Khahfa's power was in any way broken, 
 and it was too early to judge of the full effects 
 of Dongola. Questioned as to the possibility 
 of an advance on Omdurman the Sirdar said, 
 " Much depends on the effect of Dongola upon 
 the Dervishes and of this we are ignorant. The 
 Khalifa will undoubtedly make a stand, but 
 until we know more from Omdurman it is quite 
 impossible to judge of the extent of the difficulty 
 of taking the place. . . . The Khedive is per- 
 fectly delighted with the way in which his troops 
 have come out of the campaign. The Egyptian 
 
120 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 troops behaved excellently, and the credit that 
 they have received is nothing more than they 
 deserve. Their discipline was perfect. There 
 was not a single case of insubordination during 
 the whole campaign, and they are all eager to 
 go on." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE "' RE-CONQUEST." 
 
 A Staff Officer, who had taken part in the 
 work of the '^ re-conquest " wrote in one of the 
 magazines a few years later that the Cabinet 
 Council, which had decided upon the advance 
 to Dongola had made a fortunate hit for their 
 party, for England and for Egypt, though he 
 goes on to suggest that it was all the result of 
 happy chance rather than considered statesman- 
 ship. As he put it : '^ It was all so simple. 
 There was a big map, fortunately not a large 
 scale map, on the table, and someone chanced 
 to see Dongola written in big letters. What 
 more natural than that Mr. Chamberlain should 
 remark ' Let's go to Dongola.' It sounded quite 
 reasonable, and nobody made any objection. 
 Off went a wire, and before Lord Cromer had 
 time to turn round, the army had taken wing. 
 That was, literally and without exaggeration, 
 the beginning of the reconquest of the Soudan." 
 If this is to be accepted " literally and without 
 exaggeration " it may be assumed that the 
 
 121 Q 
 
122 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Ministers who thus easily decided to " go to 
 Dongola " did not realise at the time that they 
 would have also to take the further step and go to 
 Khartoum, and would indeed have to smash the 
 Khalifa and the forces of Mahdiism finally and 
 completely. It may well be believed that the 
 Sirdar himself fully reahsed this, and went on 
 patiently working to that end. As he is re- 
 ported to have said in the interview during a 
 visit paid to England after the conclusion of the 
 Dongola Expedition, the Khalifa was by no 
 means crushed, though the sphere of his abomin- 
 able rule was shorn of a goodly province. It 
 was, however, some time before the full signi- 
 ficance of the situation came to be recognised. 
 
 On September 25, 1896, the Sirdar was pro- 
 moted to the rank of Major-General in the 
 English Army, and after his first visit to England 
 he returned to Egypt to take up his duties again, 
 and to take his part in that organisation of 
 victory which was finally to avenge the bitter 
 evacuation policy carried out after Gordon's 
 death. It is said that someone enquired of the 
 Sirdar when the final attempt on Khartoum was 
 to be made, and that he repHed that it would 
 be in thirteen months time. " Thirteen months, 
 that is a long while," exclaimed his friend. 
 
BEGINNING OF THE RECONQUEST. 123 
 
 " Some of us have waited for it for thirteen 
 years," retorted Kitchener grimly. Whether 
 the story be actually true or not, it is thoroughly 
 in character as illustrating the careful pre- 
 paration and planning of things before pro- 
 ceeding to action, which has again and again 
 
 been noted as the peculiarity of Kitchener's 
 genius. 
 
 It was in February, 1897, that a Cabinet 
 Minister, speaking in the House of Commons, 
 declared that " Egypt could never be held to be 
 permanently secure so long as a hostile power was 
 in occupation of the Nile valley up to Khar- 
 toum," and further stated that the duty of 
 destroying the " Baleful power of the KhaHfa " 
 must fall upon England ; but, as Lord Cromer 
 pointed out, the British Government was before 
 that pronouncement practically and irrevocably 
 committed to an offensive policy. The pushing 
 forward of the desert railway was the means to 
 an end — as it was happily put, " the desert con- 
 quered every invader of the Soudan, but Kit- 
 chener subdued the desert." From Wady Haifa 
 along the Nile to Kerma the railway had been 
 laid, and then it was decided to take a " short 
 cut " line from Wady Haifa across the Nubian 
 Des-ert to Abu Hamed, between which places the 
 
i2|- EARL KITCFIENER OE KHARTOUM. 
 
 river makes a great sweep to the westward, and 
 " in the existence of the railway lay all the 
 difference between the extempore scrambles of 
 Wolseley's campaign and the machine-like pre- 
 cision of Kitchener's." And two-thirds of this 
 railway had been completed even before Abu 
 Hamed, its objective, had been occupied ! Well 
 might Lord Cromer say that he was haunted 
 by the idea that the Dervishes might make a 
 raid that should cut the railway. They did not 
 attempt anything of the kind, and in August, 
 1897, the Sirdar determined upon the occupation 
 of Abu Hamed, which was duly accomplished, 
 the whole Dervish force that had held it being 
 destroyed. 
 
 Ill the building of this railway, the Sirdar, 
 relying upon his own judgment, ran counter 
 to the advice alike of engineer and military 
 advisers. As Mr. Churchill has neatly put it • 
 " Eminent railway engineers in England were 
 consulted. They replied with unanimity, that 
 having due regard to the circumstances, and 
 remembering the conditions of war under which 
 the work must be executed, it was impossible to 
 construct such a line. Distinguished soldiers 
 were approached on the subject. They replied 
 that the scheme was not only impossible, but 
 
BEGINNING OF THE RECONQUEST. 125 
 
 absurd. Many other persons who were not 
 consulted volunteered the opinion that the whole 
 idea was that of a lunatic, and predicted ruin 
 and disaster to the expedition. Having received 
 this advice, and reflected on it duly, the Sirdar 
 ordered the railway to be constructed without 
 more delay.*' Men had to be got and trained, 
 and their provisioning arranged for, materials 
 had to be secured for a line 230, miles in length 
 across a barren desert, but the Sirdar and Lieu- 
 tenant Girouard, his right hand man in all rail- 
 way matters, set to work vigorously and con- 
 fidently and in due time the " impossible '' was 
 achieved. " Everybody knows that the railway 
 from Haifa across the desert to Abu Hamed was 
 an impossibihty," said George Steevens, " until 
 the Sirdar turned it into a fact," and as the same 
 picturesque writer said, '' the battle of the 
 Atbara was won in the workshops of Wady 
 Haifa." The line across the unsurveyed desert 
 was actively begun at the beginning of 
 May, 1897, and on November i following it had 
 reached Abu Hamed, and two days later 
 Sir Herbert Kitchener had the satisfaction of 
 journeying in sixteen hours a distance which had 
 previously required ten days, and of knowing once 
 more that his confident daring had been justitied. 
 
126 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 It had been believed that above Abu Hamed 
 the Nile was regularly navigable, but this was 
 soon found to be an error, and it was decided 
 that the desert railway must be continued another 
 hundred and fifty miles to where the Atbara 
 river flows into the Nile. As soon as possible 
 this further task was entered upon and prosecuted 
 with untiring energy, and on July 3, 1898, it 
 was finished, and the '^ impossible " railway ran 
 for 384 miles south of Wady Haifa, to the con- 
 fusion of the experts and the lasting credit of 
 the Sirdar and his wonderful staff of helpers. 
 And a wonderful staff of officers he had, men 
 whom he seemed to inspire with his own quahties, 
 or whom he had selected for the possession of 
 those qualities. For many stories are told of 
 his independence in the appointment of members 
 of his staff. One such, told by an officer who 
 had himself served on Kitchener's staff may be 
 given as representative : 
 
 " No one knows, no one perhaps will ever fully 
 kno\y, the extent to which Kitchener was im- 
 plored, beseeched, cajoled by the highest in the 
 land to employ A, B, or C on his staff, or anywhere. 
 Kitchener was adamant to such requests. I 
 remember one case of a really first-rate officer 
 who came out armed with a letter from a very 
 
BEGINNING OF THE RECONQUEST. 127 
 
 illustrious personage, almost amounting to a 
 command, that the officer should be employed. 
 The letter was duly deUvered : whether it was 
 answered or not I cannot say, but Kitchener 
 chose his own men and not other people's, and 
 the officer in question, after kicking his heels in 
 Cairo for several weeks returned to London 
 without hearing a word about employment. 
 This happened in hundreds of cases. Kitchener 
 was not then the power he is now, and his im- 
 placable disregard of the pets of society argues 
 a strength of character which has always seemed 
 to me one of the greatest proofs of his fearless 
 independence."* 
 
 As Steevens said, it was part of the Sirdar's 
 luck — " the luck that goes with genius," — that 
 he always secured the best of subordinates. He 
 looked for men with something of his own quality, 
 " unafraid of responsibility and equal to it." 
 The same story was told by all who accompanied 
 the expedition for the reconquest of the Soudan. 
 As in other matters of preparation, the Sirdar left 
 nothing to chance in the selection of the men 
 who were to carry out his plans ; he had an 
 eye for character and the men he chose were 
 generally the right men for doing that which he 
 
 * Blackwood's Maga^ne. 1902. 
 
128 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM, 
 
 wanted done, though it is said that he showed 
 unbending severity to all who failed in any way 
 — " if no chief ever acknowledged more fully and 
 generously good work well done, no one was also 
 ever more unforgiving of failure, to no matter 
 w^hat cause the failure might be due." Himself 
 a master of the art of overcoming difficulties he 
 expected his subordinates to be equally ready — 
 and equally successful, whatever the circum- 
 stance. This is illustrated in another of the 
 many capital stories recorded by the " Staff 
 Officer " already quoted. When Commander 
 Keppel was making a river reconnaisance with 
 a gunboat it was aground for seventeen hours 
 on the falling Nile, with Dervishes around, and 
 a hundred miles from the army outposts. There 
 were no small boats so a raft was made, of odds 
 and ends, and the anchor, weighing about a ton, 
 was ferried on to a sandbank by forty stalwart 
 " gippies " — Egyptian soldiers — working up to 
 their necks in water, the gunboat being success- 
 fully warped off. A member of the party told 
 a portion of the story to Kitchener on his 
 return, '' ' And how did you get the anchor 
 to the sandbank ? ' he asked. ' Oh,' I answered, 
 ' on« of the crew swam across with the anchor 
 in his mouth/ ' Oh, really,' was all Kitchener 
 
BEGINNING OF THE RECONQUEST. 129 
 
 said, as if it was the most natural thing in the 
 world. If we had been in a worse plight, I 
 really think he would have expected Keppel to 
 swim back with the gunboat in his mouth, 
 and would only have said, * Oh, Keppel, I 
 want you kindly to start again in half-an- 
 hour. . . / ''• 
 
 Thanks to his own daring and resourcefulness 
 the months of preparation had been so well 
 employed, so loyally and completely had all 
 worked that it could be said confidently that 
 when the railway reached the Atbara the Dervish 
 power was broken, though months were to pass 
 before the victory of Atbara, and yet more 
 months before the crowning success of Omdurman. 
 After the estabUshment of the camp at the rail- 
 head at Atbara, preparations for the final advance 
 went steadily and methodically forward. The 
 Sirdar knew of all that had to be done ; he 
 was organising victory not merely preparing for 
 a spectacular display, and was not the man to 
 strike if he could help it before the right moment 
 had arrived. 
 
 The stories that are told of a distinguished man 
 may not always be in detail true but their cur- 
 rency generally shows them to be illustrative 
 
 * Blackwood's Maganne. 1902. 
 
130 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 of his character. One such concerning the pre- 
 parations that preceded the Battle of the Atbara 
 may be taken thus as well found if not historically 
 well founded. It runs to the effect that the Sirdar 
 had applied to the Home Government for some 
 particular kind of guns, and by way of reply got 
 a suggestion that another kind should be sent. 
 He answered that he preferred those for which 
 he had asked, but was shortly informed that the 
 others were being sent ! On learning this 
 he sent a politely sarcastic message to the Home 
 authorities that they could keep their guns, as 
 he could throw stones at the Dervishes himself ! 
 After that the guns which he had asked for were 
 duly forwarded. 
 
 It was known at the close of 1897 that the 
 Dervishes were contemplating taking the offen- 
 sive, and on the first day of 1898 the Sirdar sent 
 to Lord Cromer what the latter terms an historic 
 telegram : '^ General Hunter reports confirming 
 news of a Dervish advance. I think that British 
 troops should be sent to Abu Hamed, and that 
 reinforcements should be sent to Egypt in case 
 of necessity. The fight for the Soudan would 
 appear to be likely to take place at Berber.'* 
 And Lord Cromer adds : '^ Four British bat- 
 talions were at once sent up the Nile. The Cairo 
 
BEGINNING OF THE RECONQUEST. 131 
 
 garrison was increased. Manifestly, the curtain 
 had gone up on the last scene in the drama, 
 which commenced with the destruction of General 
 Hick's army fifteen years previously/' How 
 well the Sirdar knew how to adapt his means 
 to his ends is well illustrated, as the same writer 
 points out, by the fact that the force of British 
 troops, which at the beginning of 1898 Kitchener 
 said would be necessary, was precisely the force 
 which in the autumn took part in the final 
 advance on Khartoum. 
 
 At the end of March a forward move was 
 made. Reconnaissances had shown that the 
 Dervishes under Mahmud, a brave Heutenant 
 of liie Khalifa's, were strongly entrenched in a 
 large zeriba or camp on the right bank of the 
 Atbara river. As Mahmud did not venture 
 forth to give battle to the " Turks " the Sirdar 
 resolved upon attacking him in his zeriba. 
 The Anglo-Egyptian force had but about a 
 dozen miles to go to the enemy's position when, 
 at sunset on April 7, they began marching forward 
 to a point about half-way, and there they halted 
 for four hours, the men lying down in their 
 squares. At one o'clock the slow and silent 
 march was resumed, and at sunrise the army 
 was within 900 yards of the Dervish camp, the 
 
132 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 bombardment of which began at a quarter past 
 six. Within a couple of hours the struggle was 
 won, the troops had stormed the zeriba, broken 
 through its terrible thorn defences and in hand- 
 to-hand encounter, slain, captured or driven off 
 the forces of Mahmud and made that leader 
 himself a prisoner. 
 
 " Remember Gordon ! " is said to have been 
 the Sirdar's final appeal to his army before the 
 battle began, and the troops may well have done 
 so as they destroyed the stronghold of one of 
 the worst of Mahdiist leaders, and killed and 
 scattered all his fanatical adherents. The 
 battle was a triumph aUke for the troops which 
 took part in it, both British and Egyptian, and 
 for the leader who had justified the unquestion- 
 ing confidence which Lord Cromer reposed in 
 him. It is recorded that the Sirdar, stern and 
 undemonstrative as a rule, was moved by the 
 ringing cheers of his troops as they acclaimed 
 him after the fight ; as an officer present 
 whimsically put it " he was quite human for a 
 quarter of an hour." 
 
 '* A Staff Officer '' has described an incident 
 which happened when the Sirdar and his staff 
 rode through the Dervish camp : " Lord E. 
 Cecil (the Sirdar** aide-de-camp) joined us and 
 
BEGINNING OF THE RECONQUEST. 133 
 
 presently Kitchener pulled up among the charred 
 corpses on the burning ground to make some 
 enquiries. Cecil made a grimace and pointed 
 to the ground : it was strewn with Dervish 
 shells, lying all under our horses' hoofs and the 
 hoofs of the chiefs horse, with the grass on fire 
 all around them. Neither of us spoke, but 
 kismet, destiny, or whatever it is that sits behind 
 the crupper, impelled Kitchener to move on, 
 and a few minutes later a column of smoke shot 
 up into the air — the shells had exploded. But 
 Lord Kitchener had passed on, for his hour had 
 not struck — destiny had need of him still.'** 
 A ridiculous incident is also associated with the 
 Battle of the Atbara, concerned with a long- 
 standing feud between Kitchener's and General 
 Hunter's coloured standard bearers. After the 
 conflict Hunter's flag was tattered and torn, 
 much to the annoyance of the bearer of the 
 Sirdar's undamaged flag, who at once took steps 
 to reduce the flag he bore also to tatters. This 
 being pointed out to the Sirdar he smiled at the 
 man's zeal — and ordered a new flag. 
 
 The victory had been won with comparatively 
 small loss to the Anglo-Egyptian force, but the 
 severity of the defeat suffered by the Dervishes 
 
 * Blackwood's Magazine. 1902. 
 
134 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 was such that it was for a time hoped that it 
 might have the effect of disheartening the 
 Khalifa's followers and thus lead to a peaceful 
 re-occupation of Khartoum. But that was not 
 to be. Though Mahmud had been captured, 
 the elusive Osman Digna, who was also within 
 the zeriba, once more managed to escape. The 
 late Mr. Bennet Burleigh has told the story of 
 the way in which the Dervish leader came before 
 his conqueror. Kitchener was writing his de- 
 spatches when the prisoner was brought in. 
 *' He held his head up and scowled at his guard. 
 The Sirdar and General Hunter wheeled round 
 and Mahmud was brought before them. I was 
 an onlooker. ' This is the Sirdar,' said General 
 Hunter, indicating Sir Herbert Kitchener. 
 General Hunter spoke quite angrily, for he was 
 vexed at the Baggara leader's assumed in- 
 difference ; besides he held in fine contempt the 
 brutal and cruel Taisha chief. Mahmud paid 
 no special attention. * Sit down,' quietly said 
 the Sirdar to him, which, in Eastern parlance, 
 was rather an ominous beginning for Mahmud — 
 an omen of death. * Why have you come into 
 my country, to burn and to kill,' said the Sirdar. 
 * I have to obey the Khalifa's orders as a soldier 
 without question, as so must you the Khe- 
 
BEGINNING OF THE RECONQUEST. 135 
 dive's,' replied Mahmud, speaking for the first 
 
 time."* 
 
 The army marched back to the camp whence 
 it had made its strikingly successful night march, 
 and later there was something of a triumplial 
 procession through Berber, when the Sirdar rode 
 through the town followed by the wretched 
 Mahmud as a prisoner, with his hands bound 
 and preceded by an enormous banner inscribed 
 in Arabic, " This is Mahmud who said he would 
 take Berber." 
 
 For this Kitchener has been criticised, but it 
 may well be beheved that it was not done in any 
 liking for spectacular display, for such is not the 
 character of the man ; it was done because he 
 knew the eifect that such evidence of the Dervish 
 downfall would have on those who witnessed it, 
 and was therefore fully justified. 
 
 After the Battle of Atbara the different portions 
 of the Anglo-Egyptian army went into various 
 summer quarters, while the Sirdar himself set 
 about perfecting the arrangements for the next 
 and final step in the reconquest of the Soudan. 
 These arrangements included the putting to- 
 gether of three new gunboats which had been 
 sent out from England in pieces, and from which 
 ♦ * Sirdar and Khalifa." By Bennet Burleigh. 
 
136 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 much was expected in the final phase of that 
 expedition, which though it might seem long 
 drawn out to the onlooker, and to those who 
 were impatiently waiting for the new command 
 to advance, was a triumph of orderly arrange- 
 ment and careful planning. 
 
 From the fifteen newspaper correspondents 
 who accompanied the expedition we had many 
 accounts of its achievements, in some of the 
 books in which those accounts were finally given 
 to the world we have works of rare excellence, 
 notably Mr. Winston Churchill's "The River 
 War,'' and G. W. Steevens' "With Kitchener to 
 Khartoum." But it was not only England that 
 was interested in the story of the avenging of 
 Gordon ; among the correspondents was one who 
 represented the Allahabad Pioneer^ and in a small 
 book which he published is to be found a striking 
 tribute to and description of the Sirdar, in words 
 that> are the more notable when we remember 
 that one of the distinctive periods of service 
 which Kitchener devoted to the Empire was to 
 be spent in India. The Pioneer correspondent, 
 who remained anonymous when he republished 
 the messages to his paper wrote : 
 
 " Louis XIV. said of France : UEtat c'est 
 moil The Sirdar could use those words of the 
 
BEGINNING OF THE RECONQUEST. 137 
 
 Soudan with much more truth. Consequently, 
 in speaking of the causes which have led to the 
 success of the Soudan expedition I find myself 
 compelled to speak of what, as I think, are the 
 causes which have led to the success of the 
 Sirdar : for the Sirdar is the Soudan, and the 
 Sirdar was the Expedition. 
 
 ** South of Assouan there is absolutely no 
 civilian government. Steamboats and saihng 
 craft, railway and telegraph, are under the sole 
 control of the Sirdar. The steamboats are 
 under the orders of his subordinate officers ; the 
 railway is worked and repaired by his ' railway 
 battaUon ' ; the telegraphs and post offices are 
 manned by privates of the Royal Engineers. 
 Even those merchants who have no regular con- 
 tract to supply the army and who are enter- 
 prising enough to penetrate to the Soudan on 
 private commercial ventures, nust needs apply 
 for leave to the Sirdar before passing Assouan, 
 Unless they obtain the sanction of the Sirdar 
 neither they nor any other civiHan can enter 
 into his kingdon of the Soudan. The civilian 
 population being therefore so limited, and there 
 being few women even in Haifa, I think the 
 question of the administration of civil justice 
 dQM not arise at aU. But, anyhow, there is a 
 
138 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 large and fully occupied military prison at Wady 
 Haifa. The Sirdar has his own postage stamps, 
 and his own telegraph stamps. Money there is 
 little need for. Life in the Soudan is so simple, 
 and is cut and dried like everything military. 
 Your expenses are either deducted from your 
 pay, or, in the case of transactions with the few 
 civilian merchants in the Soudan, settlement is 
 made by a cheque on Cairo. Otherwise, I have 
 no doubt that the Sirdar would have his own 
 coinage. You will see from this how every 
 department of the Soudan State comes com- 
 pletely under the Sirdar's control ; his will is 
 law. And this is so not only in public, but also 
 in private life. No officer, unless he is very 
 senior, is allowed to marry. He signs a pro- 
 missory document to that effect before he enters 
 the Egyptian Army. 
 
 '' You probably know well the appearance of 
 the Sirdar. He stands over six feet, and he 
 carries his head high, as if he was thinking of 
 other things and people than those he sees about 
 him in everyday life. His constitution, I should 
 say, is as hard as his disposition. He knows 
 exactly what men he can trust to do the work 
 which he requires. If they do it, he rewards 
 them in just such a way as ensures their con- 
 
BEGINNING OF THE RECONQUEST. 139 
 
 tinuing to do more work of the same sort. If 
 they fail once, he gets rid of them ; if they go 
 sick, he gets rid of them too. He has no weakly 
 or incapable men in the whole of the Soudan. 
 He has an army of admirers ; but I do not 
 think he has many personal friends, nor do 
 I believe that the Sirdar has ever felt excessive 
 joy or sorrow. He is free of those ups and 
 downs to which the spirits of ordinary men 
 are subject : nothing would superlatively please 
 or pain him. His work is so great and so 
 absorbing that he has no time to bind himself 
 with those ties of friendship or affection 
 which trammel common humanity. The death 
 of any man or woman, most closely connected 
 with him, would not distress him greatly. I 
 cannot help being reminded of those lines — 
 
 ' WhlU hands cling to the tightentd rein. 
 Slipping the spur from the booted heel 
 
 Tenderest voices cry — ' Turn again ! ' 
 Red Ups tarnish the scabbarded steel. 
 
 High hopes faint on a warm hearthstone, 
 He travels the fastest who travels alone. 
 
 ' One may fall, but he falls by himself ; 
 
 Falls by himself with himself to blame. 
 One may attain, and to him is the pelf. 
 
 Loot of the city in gold or fame ; 
 Plunder and earth shall be all his own 
 
 Who travels the fastest and travels alone.' 
 
140 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 " The Sirdar travels alone, and is travelling 
 fast. Although he has every appearance of 
 trusting his subordinates, he trusts no one until 
 he sees for himself. He rises very early, and his 
 energies and power of work are indefatigable. 
 He has a wonderful knowledge of human nature 
 which not only leads him to choose just the most 
 suitable men as the heads of his departments, 
 but also gives him an instinctive knowledge of 
 what his enemies are thinking and doing. Just 
 as a good captain of a cricket team should be a 
 good all-round player, so I think the Sirdar is a 
 fine general because he is contented to perform 
 the duty of supreme control and supervision 
 without interfering with any particular forit. 
 He is careless of his personal appearance, as are 
 those who do not come into frequent contact 
 with women ; and I believe that what Napoleon I. 
 falsely and boastfully said of himself is true of 
 Sir Herbert Kitchener — * that all the fairest 
 women in the world could not beguile him into 
 sacrificing one hour of important work ! ' " 
 
 Another of the correspondents with the ex- 
 pedition describing the preparations that went 
 forward said " and there with the hardest worked, 
 you sec the tall white-clad Sirdar working — now 
 breaking a man's heart with curt censure, now 
 
BEGINNING OF THE RECONQUEST. 141 
 
 exalting him to heaven with curt praise. Now 
 antedating a movement, now hastening an 
 embarkation, now increasing the load of a barge 
 — for where the Sirdar is there every man and 
 every machine must do a Uttle better than his 
 best." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RE-CONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN COMPLETED. 
 
 It has been said that time was on the side of 
 the Sirdar in his great work of re-conquering the 
 Soudan by civiHzation, where time had been 
 dead against Lord Wolseley in the campaign of 
 thirteen years before, and that this was so is 
 evident to any student of the two campaigns. 
 The desert was a greater enemy than the Der- 
 vishes and time and genius were both needed 
 to overcome it. The Battle of the Atbara had 
 been won in April of 1898, but there was no 
 precipitation in trying final conclusions with the 
 enemy. " The main quaUty required to meet 
 these difficulties was a good head for business. 
 By one of those fortunate accidents which have 
 been frequent in the history of Anglo-Saxon 
 enterprise, a man was found equal to the occasion. 
 Lord Kitchener of Khartoum won his well 
 deserved peerage because he was an excellent 
 man of business ; he looked carefully after every 
 important detail, and enforced economy.*'* 
 
 *" Modtrn Ejypt. " By Thi Earl oi Crom«r. 
 142 
 
RECONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 1.43 
 
 During the summer of 1898 the " organising 
 of victory " went steadily forward, and in August 
 the advance was begun, the new point of con- 
 centration being Wad Hamed, more than a 
 hundred miles further south than the point 
 where the Atbara flows into the Nile, and less 
 than sixty miles from where Khartoum stands 
 at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, 
 Early in August the Sirdar had suggested that 
 the great fight would take place about the ist 
 of September and *^ his calculations of time 
 were never once at fault," By the 26th of 
 August the concentration of troops and material 
 had been completed, and the force of about 
 25,000 British and Egyptian soldiers on that 
 day began the final advance on the stronghold 
 of the KhaHfa, to which the Mahdiist leader had 
 retired all his forces. Following the story of the 
 advance in detail it seems surprising that the 
 Dervishes did not dispute the progress of the 
 Sirdar's army miles before Omdurman was 
 reached, but fanatic courage rather than military 
 skill was their most notable asset, and believing 
 the visions of their leader they looked forward 
 to overwhelming the '" Turks " when they should 
 arrive at their very gates. 
 
 The Dervish forces of Omdurman arc csti- 
 
144 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 mated to have been about 55,000 in number, 
 or just double that of the attacking army, 
 including the body of Arab irregulars which 
 proceeded along the right bank of the Nile. The 
 difference of equipment, however, more than 
 outbalanced the numerical inferiority of the 
 attackers. 
 
 From his camp at Tamaniat — some twenty 
 miles short of Omdurman — the Sirdar addressed 
 the following letter to the Khalifa on August 
 30, though probably scarcely expecting that his 
 advice would be taken : 
 
 " To Abdula, son of Mohammed El-Taaishi, 
 Head of the Soudan. Bear in your mind that 
 your evil deeds throughout the Soudan, 
 particularly your murdering a great number 
 of the Mohammedans without cause or excuse, 
 besides oppression and tyranny, necessitated 
 the advance of my troops for the destruction 
 of your throne in order to save the country 
 from your devilish doings and iniquity. In- 
 asmuch as there are many in your keeping for 
 whose blood you are held responsible — innocent, 
 old, and infirm women, and children and others 
 — abhorring you and your government, who are 
 guilty of nothing ; and because we have no 
 dtsirt that th«y should suffer the Uast harm, 
 
RECONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 145 
 
 we ask you to have them removed from the 
 dem to a place where the shells of guns and 
 bullets of rifles shall not reach them. If 
 you do not do so the shells and bullets cannot 
 recognise them and will consequently kill 
 them, and afterwards you will be responsible 
 before God for their blood. Stand firm, you 
 and your helpers, only in the field of battle 
 to meet the punishment prepared for you by 
 the praised God. But if you and your Emirs 
 incHne to surrender to prevent blood being 
 shed, we shall receive your envoy with due 
 welcome, and be sure that we shall treat you 
 with justice and peace. 
 
 '^ Kitchener, 
 *' Sirdar of the Troops in the Soudan." 
 Whether any answer to this was vouchsafed 
 cannot be said, but the successor of the Mahdi 
 was little likely to think of submitting, indeed 
 it is scarcely conceivable that the fanatical horde 
 which looked to him as its spiritual head, would 
 have followed him to the point of submission. 
 They had been told that the Mahdi had appeared 
 in a vision to the Khalifa telHng him that the 
 enemy would be defeated and driven into the 
 Nile, and they were eager for the fray. 
 
 Camp by camp the Anglo-Egyptian force 
 
146 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 steadily advanced to the field on which it was to 
 be proved whether the Khalifa's " vision ** or 
 the Sirdar's organisation was to triumph, and 
 on September i it was fixed within sight of the 
 massed Dervishes on the river but a short 
 distance from the outskirts of Omdurman. 
 ^' The Sirdar led the march in person/' says 
 one of the chaplains who accompanied the army, 
 '^ and the sight of his strong masterful figure, 
 seated on his Arab charger was in itself a source 
 of inspiration. As I overheard a man in the 
 ranks say, ' He looks as if he means business 
 and it 'ud take a dozen nigger Khalifa's to get 
 the best o' him.' "* 
 
 With the coming of the light on September 2 
 the long waited-for battle began, and by noon 
 it was over, the vast army of the Khalifa had 
 been defeated, and in large measure destroyed. 
 The massed tens of thousands with all their 
 frenzy of barbaric courage were unable to with- 
 stand all that European science could bring into 
 the field. It is not necessary to tell the story 
 of the conflict in detail, though it may be said 
 that there was one ugly moment when the 
 Sirdar's army was moving on Omdurman itself, 
 
 *" With Kitchener's Army." By the Rev. Owen Spencer 
 Watkins. 
 
RECONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 147 
 
 and the enemy made a sudden attack, seeking 
 to regain what they had lost in the first phase of 
 the battle. New dispositions were immediately 
 effected by the commander, and what appeared 
 to be a threatening situation was converted into 
 an emphasising of the victory. Describing this 
 incident, Mr. Churchill in his fascinating and 
 detailed history of ** The River War " says : 
 " Thus the long line moved forward in irresistible 
 strength. In the centre, under the red Egyptian 
 flag, careless of the bullets which that conspi- 
 cuous emblem drew, and which inflicted some 
 loss among those around him, rode the Sirdar, 
 stern and sullen, equally unmoved by fear or 
 enthusiasm." 
 
 On the completion of the defeat of the Khalifa's 
 army, the Sirdar marched his forces into Om- 
 durman, and was received cordially by the 
 inhabitants, though here and there implacable 
 Dervishes made a futile but indomitable stand 
 against the conquerors. The Sirdar interpreted 
 the acclamation with which he was received as 
 expressing the gratitude of the inhabitants at 
 being relieved from the intolerable tyranny of 
 the Khalifa, but a critic has declared that the 
 gratitude of the people was for having their 
 lives spared. Other criticism was directed 
 
148 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 against the destruction of the Mahdi*s tomb and 
 against the killing of wounded Dervishes. As 
 to the former action it seems thoroughly justi- 
 fied by all the circumstances, and as to the 
 latter it appears to have been greatly exaggerated 
 and in part to have been necessary owing to the 
 frequency with which the wounded Dervishes 
 wielded their rifles or spears, refusing to be 
 " put out of action/' Though the Khahfa es- 
 caped, with many thousands of his adherents, to 
 the south, and the action was therefore not as 
 conclusive as was hoped, it was a memorable 
 victory. For another year the Khalifa was to 
 be at large before being finally destroyed by 
 Kitchener's successor, but the Battle of Omdur- 
 man was the climax to the reconquest of the 
 Soudan. 
 
 A correspondent has given us a thumbnail 
 sketch of the close of the day : " Soon it was 
 pitchy night ; where the bulk of the army 
 bivouacked I know not, neither do they. I 
 stumbled on the Second British Brigade, which 
 had had a relatively easy day, and there, by a 
 sohtary candle, the Sirdar, flat on his back, was 
 dictating his despatch to Colonel Wingate, flat 
 on his belly." 
 
 Just across the broad Nile was the ruined 
 
RECONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 149 
 
 town of Khartoum where Gordon had waited 
 thirteen years earher for that relief which came 
 not, and now at long last he was " avenged." 
 
 Two days after the Battle of Omdurman, 
 on September 4, detachments of officers and 
 men representing all the regiments, both British 
 and Egyptian which had been engaged were 
 taken in the steamers across the river to the 
 ruins of what had been Khartoum, and there 
 the British flag was raised and a movingly simple 
 service in memory of Gordon was performed by 
 the chaplains attached to the expedition. It 
 must have been a most touching and impressive 
 scene, and one that to Kitchener himself must 
 have had a very special significance, as he could 
 not fail to recall the fruitless attempt of the 
 Relief Expedition in which he had himself taken 
 part, to think of the disappointment with which 
 he had been sent back to Korti before the fight- 
 ing at Abu Klea, or to remember that sense of 
 failure which fell over all when the little steamers 
 that had got within hail of the walls of Khartoum 
 returned to say that they were too late ! That 
 during the years which had elapsed since then 
 he had ever looked forward to the moment at 
 last arrived, it is easy to gather from his own word 
 " some of us have waited for thirteen years." 
 
150 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 *' It would be difficult/' wrote a Staff Officer 
 who was present at the scene, " to imagine a 
 greater contrast between Kitchener in the saddle, 
 with work still remaining to be done and the 
 same man, his task completed, standing under 
 the shadow of the great tree on the river front 
 before Gordon's ruined palace on the 4th Sep- 
 tember. He was softened, gentle, almost af- 
 fectionate to all ; and those — there were many — 
 who had often misjudged and misunderstood 
 him, must at last have realised that down — 
 deep, deep down — in the often forbidding and 
 always stern self-reliant nature, there was a soft 
 spot and a human sympathy, a something which 
 throbbed and felt and suffered and rejoiced in 
 reasonable resemblance to the ordinary heart, 
 of an ordinary man." 
 
 The memorial service, in which Roman Catholic 
 Church of England, and Nonconformist chap- 
 lains took part was followed by the gunboats 
 firing a salute (of live shells, for they had no 
 blank ammunition), the bands playing a dirge, 
 the Highland pipers waiUng a long " lament," 
 and the Sirdar's caUing for three cheers for Her 
 Majesty the Queen. Possibly it was then that 
 Kitchener musing over the dead hero, whose 
 memory they were honouring, first thought of 
 
RECONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 151 
 
 making of that memory a living force by the 
 establishment of a centre for educating the 
 Soudanese. How he translated thought into 
 action will be seen in a later chapter. 
 
 Omdurman was won, the Dervish power was 
 destroyed at its very centre, the British and 
 Egyptian flags flew again over Khartoum, and 
 the organiser of victory might well be pardoned 
 a feeling of elation over the success which he 
 had achieved. Then but five days after the 
 battle, a disturbing incident happened. A small 
 steamer, the Tewfikeyeh, arrived at Omdurman 
 from the far south to claim support from the 
 KhaHfa against a black force commanded by 
 white officers flying a strange flag which was 
 occupying Fashoda, and had dared to fire on 
 the Dervish steamer. Seeking the Khalifa the 
 men on the steamer arrived to find him defeated 
 and fled and the Sirdar in possession of the 
 centre of the Soudan. Fashoda lay on the White 
 Nile, over 450 miles to the south, but the day 
 after this disquieting news reached him, General 
 Kitchener set off with five steamers carrying 
 troops and guns to enquire into this trespass. 
 Ten days later he arrived at Fashoda where he 
 found the brave French Major Marchand, and 
 his seven compatriots, with a force of 120 black 
 
152 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUxM. 
 
 soldiers. Marchand had arrived there on July 
 10, after heroic journeyings during two years 
 and had with his inadequate little company, 
 taken formal occupation of the Soudan. It was 
 a ticklish situation, which the Sirdar handled 
 with considerable tact. When he landed, Major 
 Marchand, attended by a guard of honour, came 
 to the gunboat to meet him, and the two cor- 
 dially shook hands. '^ I congratulate you on all 
 you have accomplished," said the Sirdar. '' It 
 is not I, but these soldiers who have done it," 
 answered the Frenchman, indicating the troops 
 that accompanied him, and the Sirdar in re- 
 counting the incident is reported to have said, 
 " Then I knew he was a gentleman." Kitchener's 
 own despatch concerning the incident, was 
 written on board the Dal, " White Nile, Sept. 
 21," and sent down to Cairo ; from it we learn 
 that leaving Omdurman on September lo, with 
 five gunboats and a goodly company of troops 
 (about 2,ooo) he had an encounter with Dervishes 
 on the iSth, which resulted in his capturing a 
 steamer and eleven large boats. On reaching 
 the old governm.ent building where the French 
 flag was flying, M. Marchand came on board, 
 when Kitchener protested in the strongest 
 terms against the hoisting of the French flag in 
 
RECONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 153 
 
 thc^dominions of the Khedive. M. Marchand 
 declared that he had but carried out his orders — 
 and must await further orders. *' I then said 
 to him : ' Do I understand that you are author- 
 ised by the French Government to resist Egypt 
 in putting up its flag and re-asserting its authority 
 in its former possessions — such as the Mudirich 
 of Fashoda ? ' M. Marchand hesitated, and then 
 said that he could not resist the Egyptian flag 
 being hoisted. I repUed that my instructions were 
 to hoist the flag, and that I intended to do so." 
 Kitchener's message suggested a certain degree 
 of stiftness between the parties, and before 
 leaving he gave a written protest against the 
 French action. A false move on Kitchener's 
 part might have led to his Nile Expedition 
 having an appaUing sequel in a European war, 
 but he left the matter to be dealt with by diplo- 
 macy, and though there were for a brief while 
 such strained relations between the two countries 
 concerned as made a conflict possible, the matter 
 was finally arranged. Here we are only con- 
 cerned with the part that the Sirdar played in 
 the " Fashoda incident," and may close with 
 the admirable tribute which he pafd to Major 
 Marchand in concluding the despatch which he 
 sent to Lord Cromer : 
 
IS4 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 " It is impossible not to entertain the highest 
 admiration for the courage, devotion, and in- 
 domitable spirit displayed by M. Marchand's 
 expedition, but our general impression was one 
 of astonishment that an attempt should have 
 been made to carry out a project of such magni- 
 tude and danger by the despatch of so small 
 and ill-equipped a force, which, as their com- 
 mander remarked to me — was neither in a 
 position to resist a second Dervish attack, nor 
 to retire ; indeed, had our destruction of the 
 Khalifa's power at Omdurman been delayed for 
 a fortnight, in all probability he and his com- 
 panions would have been massacred. 
 
 " The claims of M. Marchand to have occupied 
 the Bahr-el-Ghazal and Fashoda provinces with 
 the force at his disposal would be ludicrous did 
 not the sufferings and privations his expedition 
 endured during their two years' arduous journey 
 render the futility of their efforts pathetic." 
 
 The heat engendered during the stress of the 
 Fashoda incident led to many charges and 
 exaggerations, so that it is pleasant to find that 
 the Sirdar himself paid such instant homage to 
 the heroism of Marchand. In some writings by 
 compatriots of the gallant Frenchman it is said 
 that the wounded on the field of Omdurman, 
 
RECONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 155 
 
 to the number of many thousands, were killed 
 " by order of the Sirdar," which is certainly 
 false. The Dervishes' religion demanded that 
 they should die fighting, and the knowledge of 
 the Egyptian troops that the " Fuzzy-wuzzy ** 
 is '' generally shamming when 'e's dead," that 
 when at the last gasp he would seek to stab or 
 shoot, may well have led to the killing of some 
 of the wounded at the hands of those to whom 
 reprisals seemed a fair incident of warfare. The 
 most that can be said by fair-minded critics of 
 the Sirdar is that he did not repeat before 
 Omdurman the order which he issued before 
 Atbara to the effect that those of the enemy 
 who cried quarter should be spared — a very 
 different matter from the ordering that the 
 wounded should be killed. 
 
 With regard to these charges the straight- 
 forward, and emphatic denial of the Sirdar him- 
 self may well be given in extenso, for it is 
 notoriously difficult to catch up with exaggerated 
 statements once set afloat, and even now, nearly 
 twenty years later, these statements are some- 
 times repeated as though they had never been 
 met. Lord Kitchener wrote from Omdurman 
 to Lord Cromer on February i, 1899 : 
 
 '^ My Lord, — It seems to me scarcely necessary 
 
i;6 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 to enter at length into the cruel, and, to my 
 mind, disgraceful charges brought against the 
 troops under my command by Mr. Bennett in 
 the ' Contemporary Review,' and somewhat 
 modified in his subsequent explanation. 
 
 " Had such enormities really been committed, 
 it would hardly have been left to Mr. Bennett, 
 a somewhat irregular correspondent, to bring 
 them before the public more than three months 
 after their supposed occurrence. 
 
 " As regards the charges against myself per- 
 sonally, I can only say that, considering the 
 condition of the troops and the means at my 
 disposal, I did all that I could to relieve suffering 
 amongst the enemy. 
 
 " As regards the troops, I was proud of their 
 conduct and discipline during the battle and the 
 subsequent occupation of Omdurman, and agree 
 entirely with Mr. Bennet Burleigh's statement, 
 that great humanity was displayed by them 
 under trying circumstances. 
 
 " I hardly think it likely that Mr. Bennett 
 will find an exponent of his views in ParHament, 
 but should he do so, I categorically deny the 
 following charges : — 
 
 " That I ordered, or gave it to be understood, 
 that the Dervish wounded were to be massacred. 
 
RECONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 157 
 
 " That the troops under my command, whether 
 British, Egyptian, or Soudanese, wantonly killed, 
 wounded or unarmed Dervishes when no longer 
 in a position to do us injury. 
 
 '* That Omdurman was looted for three days 
 after its occupation. 
 
 '' That, when we were rapidly advancing 
 upon the town, fire was opened by the gun- 
 boats on mixed masses of fugitives in the streets. 
 
 " I would add that my action regarding the 
 tomb of Mohamed Ahmed, the so-called Mahdi, 
 was taken after due deUberation, and prompted 
 solely by political considerations. 
 
 '' I have, etc., 
 " Kitchener of Khartoum."* 
 
 Several matters that have come to be regarded 
 as features of any plan of campaign undertaken 
 by Kitchener were first prominently noted 
 during the course of this Nile Expedition, which 
 he had brought to a successful close. His '' im- 
 perfect svmpathy" with the newspaper corres- 
 pondent was one of these, and this may be 
 looked upon as but a necessary corollary of that 
 secrecy which, as it has been said, was his guiding 
 principle as it has been that of all good mihtary 
 commanders. If war correspondents had come 
 
 * Parliamwitary Papers — Egypt, 1899. 
 
iS8 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 to be regarded as necessary camp followers they 
 should at least be kept within bounds, he 
 appears to have decided ; and one of their 
 number has given an amusing illustration of this 
 in his story of the Nile campaign : 
 
 " Wc fifteen correspondents were summoned 
 before the Sirdar this morning. The conver- 
 sation was humourously guarded. 
 
 " The Sirdar : * Well, I am glad (?) to see you 
 have all arrived safely. Your number is rather 
 larger than it ever was before. Is there anything 
 I can do to help you ? ' 
 
 '' Some rather nervously expressed and 
 muttered thanks were our answer. Then one 
 of us asked : ' Can we go on to Wad Bishara ? ' 
 '' Sirdar : ' Not till I have gone on the 27th.' 
 " ' Can we start any time, however early, on 
 the 27th ? ' 
 
 '' Sirdar : ' Yes, I think you may.' 
 " One of us : ' How are you going, General, 
 by boat or marching ? ' 
 
 '* Sirdar : ' You may go either way you please.' 
 " The answer was so evasive that we all felt 
 that laughing was permissible, and even not 
 altogether unexpected from us.''* 
 
 *" With the Sirdar to Khartoum." By the Pioneer's Special 
 War Corrtspoadtat, AUahAbAd,_i898. 
 
RECONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN. 159 
 
 The Sirdar's first stand against the ubiquity of 
 war correspondents — he refused to let one of 
 them accompany him from Khartoum to Fashoda 
 — has since been emphasised by other generals, 
 until the journalist has come to be relegated 
 more and more to the position of a mere camp 
 follower reduced to picking up such scraps of 
 news as he can in the rear instead of watching 
 the battle front. Not unconnected with the 
 " guiding principle of secrecy " too was his 
 method of attaining his end, *' all patience for a 
 month, all swiftness when the day comes/* 
 As the " Staff Officer " who has already been 
 cited put it, " from an instinct of self-preser- 
 vation nobody ever slept with more than one 
 eye shut when Kitchener was with the army,'* 
 and he goes on to tell a story that was current 
 of a somewhat deaf and somnolent old general 
 who woke to find that the camp had been struck 
 and an army of 20,000 moved silently off at the 
 whisper of the word " Dervishes ! ^' 
 
 Another notable feature of the campaign was 
 that it was something of a triumph for tem- 
 perance, for the Sirdar seems early to have 
 resolved that in the organising of victory alcohol 
 is one of the most treacherous of allies. In this 
 connection. Lady Elizabeth Biddulph, addressing 
 
i6o EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 a meeting in London told an interesting story. 
 She was in Cairo at the time that part of the 
 British force was leaving for the front, and there 
 was talk to the effect that Sir Herbert Kitchener 
 had sent back all the beer that had been 
 forwarded with the supplies. Speaking of thi% 
 matter to Lord Cromer, Lady Ehzabeth Bid- 
 dulph was told that if beer was allowed in the 
 camp there might not be much work done. 
 " But what about the Nile water ? " she ob- 
 jected. *^ We have Pasteur filters in the camp/' 
 was the reply, " and plenty of good tea and 
 coffee, which you will find our troops will be 
 able to fight on." " They had fought," added 
 the narrator, '^ and what was the result ? A 
 great temperance as well as a great and brilliant 
 military victory. A Greek merchant contrived 
 to smuggle some spirits of an inferior quality, 
 which she believed was manufactured in Ger- 
 many at five shillings per dozen, into the camp. 
 The matter was brought before the notice of the 
 Sirdar, who at once called the men together, 
 and in their presence poured the liquor on the 
 sands." The beginning thus made is having a 
 notable sequel in the gigantic contest of the 
 present time, when other commanders have 
 recognised the wisdom of the Sirdar's decision and 
 have dealt yet more drastically with the problem. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Til VICTOR or OMDURMAN. 
 
 Leaving the British and Egyptian flags neigh- 
 bouring that of France at Fashoda, and a deU- 
 catc situation, which he for his part had dealt 
 with in most tactful fashion, to be cleared up by 
 diplomacy, the Sirdar returned down the Nile. 
 Passing the successive scenes at which after 
 months of careful preparation he had made his 
 swift forward movement he may well have felt 
 thankful that to him, one of the disappointed 
 of 1885, it had been granted to sweep away the 
 engulfing barbarism, to win back the Soudan for 
 civilisation, and thus to avenge Gordon in the 
 only way in which he could properly be avenged. 
 General Kitchener left Egypt for Marseilles 
 in the mail steamer Senegal^ arriving at the French 
 port in the early hours of October 26. In the 
 French books which were written for the idol- 
 ising of the brave Major Marchand it is to be 
 
 feared that th« writers drew upon their imagina- 
 
 161 w 
 
i62 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 tion for their facts. Because Captain Baratier, 
 bearing Marchand's report for his Government, 
 travelled by the same steamer, long conver- 
 sations between him and Kitchener on board 
 are recorded, the authenticity of which may be 
 gauged from the statement supposed to be made 
 by the Sirdar that for his victory at Omdurman 
 the Queen had rewarded him with a peerage 
 and a sum of ^^30,000. Yet the peerage was not 
 gazetted until October 31, and the Parliamentary 
 grant was not made until seven months later ! 
 
 Those of us who remember the blank feeling 
 of despair with which the news of the tragedy 
 of Khartoum affected England, nearly thirty 
 years ago, cannot fail to recall also the sense of 
 elation which attended on that other news that 
 the patience and forcefulness of Sir Herbert 
 Kitchener had won through, that the Mahdiist 
 horde was scattered, that the British flag 
 flew again over the place where Gordon fell. 
 It is not too much to say that there had been 
 something of a feeling of national shame over 
 the tragedy of 1885, and that this had its effect 
 in producing the sense of national relief over 
 the Sirdar's triumph of 1898. He returned to 
 England to find himself at once something of a 
 popular idol, his name on everyone's lips, and 
 
THE VICTOR OF OMDURMAN. 163 
 
 he himself the subject of many proffered honours 
 for the Crown, from cities, boroughs, and 
 universities. Thus did the nation seek to requite 
 the organiser of victory. He reached London 
 at the end of October and the London Gazette, 
 October 31, announced that he had been raised 
 to the peerage. In selecting his title as Baron 
 Kitchener of Khartoum and of Aspall, in the 
 county of Suffolk, he associated the place 
 where he had won to this new dignity and the 
 place in East AngUa at which his mother was 
 born. As Lord Kitchener he obeyed the com- 
 mand of Queen Victoria and on the very day 
 on which his title was announced, journeyed 
 to Balmoral as a guest of Her Majesty. He was 
 received by the Queen immediately on his 
 arrival, and was included in Her Majesty's 
 dinner party on that and the following evening. 
 From Sir Sidney Lee*s biography of Queen 
 Victoria we learn that Kitchener's campaign 
 had been a source of immense gratification to her 
 and that " she proved the alertness of her 
 memory by reminding him of incidents in former 
 Soudan campaigns which had passed from his 
 recollection." 
 
 On November 2, Lord Kitchener left Balmoral 
 and an amusing story is told of his journey. 
 
i64 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 His only travelling companion on the first part 
 of the way was a railway director who fell into 
 talk with him without knowing who he was, 
 and when they reached Edinburgh was surprised 
 to find a small gathering headed by the Lord 
 Provost awaiting the arrival of the train. The 
 Lord Provost was wishing to obtain Lord 
 Kitchener's approval of the fixing of a date for 
 his visit to Edinburgh, to receive the freedom 
 of the borough. Quite a crowd had gathered, 
 when someone, thinking that the train was about 
 to start, called for " Three cheers for Lord 
 Kitchener '' — and the call was readily res- 
 ponded to, the recipient acknowledging the 
 compliment with a smiling salute. Having 
 entered the railway carriage. Lord Kitchener was 
 taking leave of the Lord Provost when a small 
 newsboy kept hovering near, trying to draw the 
 distinguished soldier's attention to his wares. 
 Lord Kitchener ignored the zealous youth, who, 
 however, resolved not to be ignored, and ad- 
 vancing to the carriage door, stretched a book 
 upward until it actually touched the general, 
 who, glancing downward read the name of the 
 volume — it was " With Kitchener to Khartoum," 
 by G. W. Steevens ! 
 
 Returning to London Lord Kitchener had to 
 
THE VICTOR OF OMDURMAN. 165 
 
 submit to being lionised on the great scale. 
 Banquets, presentations, and receptions in 
 many parts of the country, followed each other 
 rapidly, with private gatherings and visits to 
 country houses in between. It is not necessary 
 to chronicle all the ways in which his country- 
 men sought to express their appreciation of his 
 achievement, but a few of the representative 
 gatherings may be noted, more especially those 
 at which the honoured guest spoke of past 
 and future work in the ancient land in which 
 he had established his fame. On November 3, 
 he was given the freedom of the Fishmongers' 
 Company — and this was but the first of the 
 honours accorded him in the City of London. 
 On the following day there was a gathering in 
 civic state at Guildhall, when the City of London 
 presented him with a superb sword of honour, 
 richly decorated with gold and jewels. It is 
 amusing to find that the Sirdar's over-punctuality 
 — ^he arrived a quarter-of-an-hour before the 
 expected time — caused a little embarrassment 
 to his civic hosts. In acknowledging the magni- 
 ficent gift. Lord Kitchener paid tribute to those 
 who had so loyally served under him, and also 
 to the man whose name is writ large in the 
 history of modern Egypt — Lord Cromer. " All 
 
i66 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 I can say is that every one worked with the 
 utmost resolution during the two and a-half 
 years we were engaged towards the great end 
 we had before us, and it was due to that oneness 
 of purpose and cheerful determination that, I 
 think, the success of the campaign was greatly 
 due. . . . For a great enterprise a master mind 
 is necessary. Lord Cromer was our master 
 mind. It was due to his able direction that the 
 re-conquest of the Soudan was accomplished.** 
 
 On the evening of the same day there was a 
 banquet at the Mansion House — one of those 
 wonderful assemblages of notable people that 
 the chief city of the world can bring together to 
 do honour to a great man — and the toasts gave 
 occasion for some memorable words concerning 
 the Sirdar, both as a soldier and as an organiser. 
 
 Lord Rosebery, in the course of his speech 
 proposing the toast of the Army and Navy, 
 said : " We celebrate to-night a campaign, the 
 most consummate that has occurred in the annals 
 of EngHsh military history for eighty years ; one 
 more far-reaching and beneficent in its results 
 than any, perhaps, of which history has record. 
 It has been accompUshed without much loss of 
 life to the Army that has been victorious. It 
 has added lustre even to the immemorial fame of 
 
THE VICTOR OF OMDURMAN. 167 
 
 the British arms. More than all that, it has 
 paid off a debt which for thirteen years has lain 
 near the heart and conscience of every English- 
 man. We have not spoken of it. We have not 
 liked to think of it. But deep, deep down that 
 memory has lain by us, and we thank the Sirdar 
 and his gallant comrades for removing it for 
 ever from us." 
 
 The toast of the evening " the health of the 
 Sirdar,** was proposed by the late Marquess of 
 Salisbury (the Prime Minister), who, after paying 
 tribute to " the Egyptian Army as it has issued 
 from the hands of Sir Evelyn Wood, Sir Francis 
 Grenfell, and the Sirdar," went on to indicate 
 some of the special qualities of the man whom 
 they were met to honour. " It is one of the great 
 qualities of the Sirdar that he has been able to 
 attract the races that are under him, to make 
 them effective and loyal soldiers, to attach them 
 to himself, and to ensure their good conduct on 
 the field of battle. He has many other qualities 
 upon which I might dilate if time permitted. . , . 
 Lord Cromer is in the habit of saying that the 
 Sirdar has almost missed his vocation, and that 
 if he was not one of the first generals in the world, 
 he would be one of the first Chancellors of the 
 Exchequer. ... It is a hazardous thing to say, 
 
i68 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 but I am almost inclined to believe that the 
 Sirdar is the only general who has fought a 
 campaign for 3^300,000 less than he originally- 
 promised to do it/' 
 
 Lord Kitchener in reply paid fresh tribute to 
 the army which had enabled him to be victorious, 
 and pointed out that if the two and a-half yearg' 
 campaign had cost two and a half millions of 
 extra military credit, " against this large expendi^ 
 turc we have some assets to show ; we have, or 
 wc shall have, seven hundred and sixty miles of 
 railway, properly equipped with engines, rolling 
 stock, and a track with bridges in good order. 
 I must admit that the railway stations and wait- 
 ing rooms are somewhat primitive, but then wc 
 don't wait long in the Soudan. . . . We have 
 two thousand miles of telegraph line, six new 
 gun-boats, besides barges, sailing craft, and — 
 the Soudan.'' 
 
 This tersely summed up the fact that the 
 Sirdar had waged a constructive war as well as 
 a destructive war — the very means which he had 
 employed to destroy barbarism remained as a 
 valuable line of communication for the progress 
 of civilization, and this alone would give to the 
 expedition an important place in the story of 
 British achievements abroad. 
 
THE VICTOR OF OMDURMAN. 169 
 
 Wherever he went Lord Kitchener was at 
 this time the recipient of public addresses of 
 welcome and was acclaimed as a popular hero. 
 It is not necessary to follow the story of his 
 successive orations, but one or two episodes 
 may be mentioned. At Cambridge after having 
 been given the freedom of the borough and 
 granted the honorary degree of LL.D. of the 
 University he was also made a member of 
 the Union Society, at the gathering of which 
 he said : ** I am sorry that owing to the want 
 of a University training, I did not have the 
 chance of exercising eloquence in a society 
 such as this in my early years, and I am not very 
 good at speaking. As this house is the first in 
 which I have spoken, and as I have now been 
 graciously placed in another House, where I 
 may have to speak — I hope I may meet a great 
 many of you there — all that I can say is that 
 this warm and enthusiastic reception you have 
 given me shows that soldierly spirit and en- 
 thusiastic patriotism still exist in the young 
 generation that is growing up to hold the Old 
 Country together. I only wish I had some of 
 you with me in the Soudan." 
 
 At the end of November Lord Kitchener 
 visited the Prince and Princess of Wales at 
 
170 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Sandringham, and thence went to Dalmeny 
 to stay with Lord Rosebery. On November 29 
 he and Lord Dufferin together received the free- 
 dom of Edinburgh, and in acknowledging the 
 compliment Kitchener said that it was greatly 
 due to the gallant deeds of the Camerons and 
 Seaforths who were with him at Atbara and 
 Omdurman that he himself owed the honour 
 which was done him. At the banquet in the 
 evening, Lord Rosebery in proposing the toast 
 of " the youngest Burgesses," said of the Sirdar 
 that he had been barely a month at home, but 
 all the time he had been '^ occupied in the proud 
 duty of receiving from every class and sect of 
 his countrymen, from the Sovereign down to the 
 humblest man in the street, the homage due to the 
 great services which he had rendered,'' adding 
 " if I were to sum up all that I could say in 
 praise of the Sirdar himself it would be this — 
 that he has written a new page of British history 
 and that he has blotted out an old one/' In 
 those words Lord Rosebery crystallised in his 
 felicitous fashion a sentiment which all were 
 feeling. 
 
 In his reply Lord Kitchener showed how 
 closely his thoughts ran to the organising of 
 peace a$ the desirable sequel to necessary warfare, 
 
THE VICTOR OF OMDURMAN. 171 
 
 and propounded a scheme which he had been 
 cogitating to that end during this month that his 
 countrymen had been honouring him as a 
 successful soldier. He pointed out some of the 
 things that had to be done towards civilising 
 the Soudan now that it was re-conquered. ^* We 
 shall have to organise a police force. There is a 
 great civilizing power in the policeman.'* He 
 went on to propose the erection at Khartoum 
 of a Gordon Memorial College, which should be 
 conducted on English lines and by English 
 masters, where the children of the poor people 
 who had been oppressed for thirteen years might 
 be educated. For this purpose he wished to 
 raise a sum of j([i 00,000 and he appealed towards 
 that end with special confidence to Scotsmen, 
 asking them to " Remember Livingstone, re- 
 member Moffat, remember Gordon.'* 
 
 Before thus announcing the scheme which he 
 had prepared, Lord Kitchener had evidently 
 consulted with many friends and despite much 
 encouragement had feared that the proposal 
 might not prove successful. A hundred thousand 
 pounds seemed a large sum to ask for, and he had 
 resolved that anything short of that amount would 
 be inadequate. One who was a fellow-guest with 
 him at a country mansion has recorded that : 
 
172 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 *^ He wanted 3^100,000, and he doubted whether 
 he should get it. In vain his friends urged him 
 to make his appeal. 
 
 " * No,' said Lord Kitchener, ' nothing less 
 than £100,000 will be of use. It is a large sum. 
 I should not like to fail, and if they gave me only 
 part of the amount, to have to return it.' 
 
 '' He was told that his name would be enough. 
 It was the psychological moment. Delay would 
 only injure his chances. Lord Glenesk offered 
 Lord Kitchener 3(1,000 across the dinner table, 
 and other sums were offered there and then, and 
 the support of two powerful newspapers was 
 promised. Still he hesitated, and still he re- 
 peated, ' I should not like to fail.' At last one 
 of the company said, 
 
 " ^ Well, Lord Kitchener, if you had doubted 
 about your campaigns as you do about this you 
 would never have got to Khartoum.* 
 
 " His face hardened, and his reply was 
 characteristic of the man : 
 
 " * Perhaps not ; but then I could depend on 
 myself, and now I have to depend on the British 
 public' "* 
 
 That he could safely depend upon the British 
 public a short time was to make plain. 
 
 *" Anglo-American Memories." By G. W. SmaUey. 
 
THE VICTOR OF OMDURMAN. 173 
 
 On the very day that he announced at Edin- 
 burgh his proposal for the establishment of a 
 centre of education at Khartoum which should 
 serve also as a memorial to General Gordon, Lord 
 Kitchener issued his appeal through the press, 
 and was able to announce that Queen Victoria 
 had become Patron, and the Prince of Wales Vice- 
 Patron of the movement, and that it had won 
 cordial support from a number of prominent 
 publicists. The greater part of this appeal may 
 well be quoted as an illustration of the writer's 
 views on the business of peace made possible 
 by war ; its simple directness would be spoiled 
 by paraphrase : 
 
 '* I trust that it will not be thought that I am 
 trespassing too much upon the goodwill of the 
 British public, or that I am exceeding the duties 
 of a soldier, if I call your attention to an issue 
 of very grave importance arising immediately 
 out of the recent campaign in the Soudan. That 
 region now lies in the pathway of our Empire, 
 and a numerous population has become practi- 
 cally dependent upon men of our race. 
 
 " A responsible task is henceforth laid upon 
 us, and those who have conquered are called 
 upon to civilize. In fact, the work interrupted 
 since the death of Gordon must now be resumed. 
 
174 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 '' It is with this conviction that I venture to 
 lay before you a proposal which, if it met with 
 the approval and support of the British public 
 and of the English-speaking race, would prove 
 of inestimable benefit to the Soudan and to 
 Africa. The area of the Soudan comprises a 
 population of upwards of three million persons 
 of whom it may be said that they are wholly 
 uneducated* The dangers arising from that 
 fact are too obvious, and have been too painfully 
 felt during many years past, for me to dwell 
 upon them. In the course of time, no doubt, 
 an education of some sort, and administered by 
 some hands, will be set on foot. But if Khartoum 
 could be made forthwith the centre of an edu- 
 cation supported by British funds and organised 
 from Britain there would be secured in this 
 country indisputably the first place in Africa as 
 a civilizing power, and an effect would be created 
 which would be felt for good throughout the 
 central regions of that continent. I accordingly 
 propose that at Khartoum there should be founded 
 and maintained with British mioney, a college 
 bearing the name of the Gordon Memorial 
 College, to be a pledge that the memory of Gordon 
 is still alive among us, and that his aspirations 
 are at length to be reaUsed. 
 
THE VICTOR OF OMDURMAN. 175 
 
 " Certain questions will naturally arise as to 
 whom exactly we should educate, and as to the 
 nature of the education to be given. Our 
 system would need to be gradually built up. 
 We should begin by teaching the sons of the 
 leading men, the heads of villages, and the heads 
 of districts. They belong to a race very capable 
 of learning, and ready to learn. The teaching, 
 in its early stages, would be devoted to purely 
 elementary subjects, such as reading, writing, 
 geography, and the EngHsh language. Later, 
 and after these preUminary stages had been 
 passed, a more advanced course would be in- 
 stituted, including a training in technical subjects 
 specially adapted to the requirements of those 
 who inhabit the Valley of the Upper Nile. The 
 principal teachers in the college would be British, 
 and the supervision of the arrangements would 
 be vested in the Governor-General of the Soudan. 
 I need not add that there would be no interference 
 with the religion of the people. 
 
 ** The fund required for the establishment of 
 such a college is 3^100,000. Of this ,^10,000 
 would be appropriated to the initial outlay, while 
 the remaining ^^90,000 would be invested, and 
 the revenue thence derived would go to the 
 maintenance of the College, and the support of 
 
176 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 the stajff of teachers. It would be clearly im- 
 possible at first to require payment from the 
 pupils ; but as the college developed and the 
 standard of its teaching rose, it would be fair to 
 demand fees in respect of this higher education, 
 which would thus support itself and render the 
 college independent of any further call upon the 
 public. It is for the provision of this sum of 
 j(i 00,000 that I now desire to appeal, on behalf 
 of a race dependent upon our mercy, in the name 
 of Gordon, and in the cause of that civilization 
 which is the life of the Empire of Britain." 
 
 Although less than ten days elapsed from the 
 issue of this appeal before the Sirdar set out on 
 his return to Egypt, it was long enough to show 
 that there would be ample response ; indeed, 
 the amount finally subscribed was 3^120,000. 
 
 At a Mansion House meeting of men repre- 
 senting banks and mercantile interests of the 
 City called to consider the proposal, Lord 
 Kitchener said that by giving the people of the 
 Soudan this College the British would be making 
 their flag a sign that where ever it waves the 
 people there would have friends here. 
 
 Besides such public gatherings as have been 
 indicated. Lord Kitchener found time for meeting 
 with old Service and other friends ; he visited 
 
THE VICTOR OF OMDURMAN. 177 
 
 Woolwich, and dined at the " shop," the Royal 
 Military Academy, from which he had emerged 
 as a lieutenant more than a quarter of a century 
 earlier ; he dined with the Royal Engineers both 
 at Chatham and at Aldershot, and on December i 
 he attended a luncheon arranged in his honour 
 by the Drury Lane Lodge of Freemasons, of 
 which he was one of the founders, when, as Mr. 
 Thomas Catling tells us in " My Life*s Pilgrim- 
 age," he expressed a wish to remain a subscribing 
 member " and greeted all who were introduced 
 to him with a handshake they could not readily 
 forget." A few days later and the Sirdar left 
 London — a little tired it may well be beUeved of 
 the weeks of being Konised — and his departure 
 was the occasion of a pleasant Httle incident, 
 when a daring young school-girl achieved that 
 which many of her elders would probably have 
 liked to do. This girl approached Lord Kit- 
 chener^s aide-de-camp, Lord Edward Cecil, and 
 requested permission to present the Sirdar with 
 a bunch of violets that she had brought for his 
 buttonhole. Lord Kitchener accepted the gift 
 with a smile, and thanking the donor, at once 
 decorated himself with the flowers. 
 
 On December 30, Lord Kitchener was back at 
 Khartoum, and there with Lord Cromer on 
 
 w 
 
178 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 January 5, 1899, he laid the foundation stone of 
 the Gordon Memorial College, little more than a 
 month after he had published his appeal for funds 
 to make that college possible, and but four 
 months after Khartoum had been recovered 
 from the baleful power of the Khahfa. Lord 
 Kitchener had now been appointed Governor- 
 General and Commander-in-Chief of the Soudan, 
 and at once took up that constructive work of 
 which he has shown himself a master, and of 
 which the college was but an item. Khartoum 
 began to grow again, a new Khartoum more 
 worthy of the renewed Soudan, and the railway 
 that had proved so serviceable an adjunct to 
 military progress was pushed on to the revived 
 city as a pioneer of civilization. A year after 
 the foundation stone of the Memorial College 
 was laid the first through train ran from Cairo 
 to Khartoum. 
 
 It was in June, 1899, that the House of Com- 
 mons voted a grant of 3^30,000 to Lord Kitchener 
 for his services in the Soudan — a grant that was 
 not made without some echo of the charges that 
 had been brought against the Sirdar in relation 
 to his campaign, charges which he had already 
 expUcitly refuted in the document which has 
 already been quoted. 
 
THE VICTOR OF OMDURMAN. 179 
 
 Mr. Balfour, in moving the grant, said that his 
 fellow countrymen should realise what it was 
 that the Sirdar had done for the Soudan, for 
 Egypt, and for England, and should not think 
 of him merely or chiefly as he was before the 
 lines at Atbara or on Omdurman plain ; they 
 should think of him through those long months 
 and years of patient, arduous anxious pre- 
 paration ; th^y should think of him as the man 
 whose foresight was never at fault — ^who never 
 turned his eye from the object which he had 
 in view, who immersed himself with unwearied 
 and almost superhuman industry in every detail 
 which could secure the final triumph, who never 
 even amidst the utmost complexity of detail, 
 allowed himself to lose sight of the final object 
 towards which every measure was intended to 
 converge. 
 
 " The large, strong mouth, heavily covered 
 with the typically military and brush-like mous- 
 tache ; the strong square jaw ; the tremendously 
 heavy brows ; the strange, glittering eyes, and 
 even the red-brick complexion — the complexion 
 that told so many tales of hard rides for many 
 hundreds of miles under blazing Egyptian suns, 
 through wild and treacherous Egyptian sands ; 
 all the features of a strong, fierce dominant 
 
i8o EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 nature were really brought out into greater relief 
 by that occasional smile. . . . Through it all 
 the face seemed strangely familiar to me. , . . 
 In the end it all at once struck me why — it was 
 the typical face of the Irish Resident Magistrate.*' 
 Thus did Mr. T. P. O'Connor describe the victor 
 of Khartoum as he sat in the Peers Gallery of 
 the House of Commons listening to the debate 
 on the grant. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 It has been said that Lord Kitchener was back 
 in England in the summer of 1899, and at a 
 dinner of the Fishmongers* Company he indi- 
 cated the progress that was being made in the 
 Soudan, by pointing out that whereas in Gordon's 
 time the journey from Cairo to Khartoum 
 occupied twenty-five days, it could be easily 
 done in less than a fifth of that time, and by 
 saying that since he had dined with his fellow 
 freemen in the previous November the Soudan 
 telegraphs — civilization's slenderest but surest 
 links — had been extended for 450 miles up the 
 Blue Nile to the frontier of Abyssinia, and up 
 the White Nile half-way to Fashoda. On July 
 25 — introduced by Lord Roberts and Lord 
 Cromer — he took his seat for the first time in 
 the House of Lords, and in the autumn was back 
 again in Egypt.] 
 
 In the summer of this year of 1899 the long 
 muttcrings of trouble in South Africa became 
 
 i8z 
 
1 82 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 ever more ominous, but Kitchener can have had 
 little idea that he, whose fame had been won 
 at the north end of the one-time Dark Continent, 
 would be called upon for service in the South. 
 It is not necessary to tell anew the old story of 
 South African discontent nor even of the long 
 and bitter war that was waged, except in so far 
 as it is part of the story of Lord Kitchener's life. 
 When it was seen that war was inevitable. Sir 
 Redvers Buller was sent out as Commander-in- 
 Chief, and when he arrived at the Cape on 
 October 30, the first significant battles of the war 
 had been fought. Then came a period of trial ; 
 it began to be recognised that in entering upon 
 the war the British had — it is a common fault — 
 under-estimated the strength of the enemy, that 
 the conflict was a more serious one than had been 
 believed, and that Sir Redvers Buller who had 
 been sent in complete command had sufficient 
 to engage him in the Natal field of operations 
 alone. 
 
 When early December came, and the " black 
 week " of successive reverses, it was decided that 
 Lord Roberts should be sent out in supreme 
 command, and that Lord Kitchener should be 
 appointed Chief of his Staff. This decision was 
 come to on December 16, and Kitchener was at 
 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 183 
 
 Khartoum when the telegram summoning him 
 to the new field of action was received. He at 
 once started down the Nile, and journeying with 
 all haste joined Lord Roberts, who left England 
 on December 23, at Gibraltar. They arrived at 
 Capetown on January 10, 1900, when the 
 situation was rendered serious by the fact that 
 Kimberley, Ladysmith, and Mafeking were all 
 being besieged, the troops that had been sent to 
 reHeve them being reduced to acting on the de- 
 fensive. New and comprehensive command was 
 urgently needed, and it has been said that one 
 of the first duties that Lord Roberts had to 
 perform was to create an army out of the 
 " tangle of units " in Cape Colony, while the 
 state of the transport is suggested in a story told 
 of Lord Kitchener, who was asked on his arrival 
 whether he intended to reorganise the transport. 
 '^ 2^^-organise it ? " he is said to have echoed, 
 and then added drily, '' I shall organise it ! " 
 
 Another story of the method of the Chief of 
 the Staff at this time runs : " Before Lord 
 Roberts left Cape Town he called into his office 
 a certain Colonel, and charged him with a certain 
 mission. ' Now,' said the chief, ' how soon can 
 you put this through ? I know you'll do the 
 best you can.' ' Well,' replied the Colonel, 
 
1 84 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 ' rU try to do it in a fortnight.' ' Well/ Lord 
 Roberts replied, ' I know you will do the best 
 you can/ and with a pleasant smile he dismissed 
 the officer. Outside the door he met Lord 
 Kitchener. * Well ? ' said Kitchener, with busi- 
 ness-like abruptness. ^ Oh/ said the Colonel, 
 ^ I have just seen the Chief ; he wants me to do 
 so and so.' ^ When are you going to get it 
 through ? ' ' Well,' said the Colonel, ' I promised 
 to try and do it in a fortnight.' ^ Now, Colonel,' 
 was Kitchener's retort, ' if this is not done 
 within a week we shall have to see about sending 
 you home ! ' And done it was ! " 
 
 Yet a further story of the Kitchener way is to 
 the effect that Lord Kitchener came into a room 
 where a group of young officers were engaged 
 playing cards. He rapidly glanced over the 
 men, and then informed them that a train left 
 Cape Town for the front the next morning, and 
 a ship would sail for England in the afternoon — 
 those who did not take the one would take the 
 other ! In such stories, as has been said, we 
 may not have veritable history, but we have in 
 their currency a light upon the character of the 
 man of whom they are told. 
 
 After nearly a month of preparatory planning 
 and organisation, Lord Roberts was ready for 
 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 185 
 
 his forward movement; and began that progress 
 which soon had a marked effect on the future 
 of the war. Sweeping up to the north he soon 
 came in touch with the large force of Boers 
 under Cronje, and engaging them, gave oppor- 
 tunity for the reUef of Kimberley (February 15), 
 and also helped to diminish the pressure on 
 Ladysmith. The final contest with Cronje's 
 force took place at Paardeberg on February 27 
 — the nineteenth anniversary of the disaster 
 of Majuba — when upwards of four thousand 
 Boers surrendered with their commander. The 
 day after, Buller at last succeeded in relieving 
 Ladysmith, and though the stubborn resistance 
 of the Boers was by no means broken, the tide 
 had made a definite turn. A fortnight later the 
 British occupied Bloemfontein, the capital of 
 the Orange Free State, and there was something 
 of a pause in the operations while suppHes were 
 made good and transport arrangements com- 
 pleted for the next advance. In May the Free 
 State was formally annexed, Johannesburg was 
 occupied, and President Kruger fled from his 
 threatened capital of Pretoria, into which the 
 British marched on June 5. 
 
 Any hope that the capture of the two capitals 
 of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State 
 
1 86 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 would bring the war to a close were soon seen to 
 be fallacious. Fighting went on in all parts, 
 while the mobile companies of Boers under their 
 ** slim '' leaders proved remarkably elusive, 
 attacking and disappearing in the most skilful 
 fashion. On October 25, the Transvaal was 
 formally annexed, and President Kruger left an 
 East African port for Europe, possibly with the 
 idea of obtaining support from one of the 
 Powers, but in effect as it has been bluntly put, 
 deserting the countrymen whom his obstinacy 
 had visited with war. In November, Lord 
 Roberts, who had been appointed Commander- 
 in-Chief at home, handed over the command in 
 South Africa to Lord Kitchener on the last day 
 of that month, it being believed that the war 
 was virtually over. Immediately on his arrival 
 home. Lord Roberts took the first opportunity 
 of paying a tribute to his assistant — become his 
 successor — a generous tribute which did honour 
 alike to the man who spoke and the man spoken 
 of: 
 
 " As Chief of the Staff of the Army in South 
 Africa, Lord Kitchener has been my right-hand 
 man throughout the campaign, and I am glad 
 to take this opportunity of publicly expressing 
 how much I owe to his wise counsels and ever- 
 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 187 
 
 ready help. No one could have laboured more 
 incessantly or in a more self-effacing manner 
 than Lord Kitchener has done, and no one could 
 have assisted me more loyally without a thought 
 of self-aggrandisement." 
 
 It was by no means an easy task with which 
 Lord Kitchener found himself faced when left 
 in sole command in South Africa ; it is true 
 that the two Boer states had been formally 
 annexed and had nominally become colonies, 
 but Boer forces were scattered all about them, and 
 it was soon recognised that more troops would 
 be necessary for the rounding up of these many 
 bodies of active enemies. There are said to 
 have been as many as ninety active columns of 
 the enemy at one time ! Here once more it was 
 that Lord Kitchener's gifts as an organiser were 
 brought into play. Marching and counter- 
 marching in search of such an elusive enemy 
 over so vast a tract of country might have gone 
 on indefinitely, and the British commander 
 realised that something more than the pursuit 
 by brave troops of a brave enemy was necessary 
 to bring the guerilla warfare to a close. Thus 
 it was that he came to devise his two systems 
 of concentration camps for the Boer women and 
 children, and chains of blockhouses. The system 
 
1 88 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM 
 
 of concentration camps was greatly criticised by 
 sentimentalists at home, but Lord Kitchener 
 is too strong and self-reliant a man to trouble 
 about such a matter. On him rested the duty of 
 bringing the war to a successful termination 
 as speedily as possible, and he has never failed 
 to realise that war is a grim business which must 
 be pursued grimly. When there was some 
 public impatience at the slow progress in South 
 Africa, Lord Kitchener offered to resign the 
 command (October, 1901) but the Government 
 refused to accept it. 
 
 If the gathering of the women and children 
 into camps relieved the Boers of the responsi- 
 biUty of providing for them, it also removed from 
 those Boers many bases for the supply of food 
 and of information. The farmsteads were at 
 once a danger to the British and a help to the 
 enemy, and it was but the necessary ruthlessness 
 of warfare that they should be destroyed. For- 
 tunately, Lord Kitchener's courage is of a kind 
 that ignores popularity or unpopularity, and 
 works steadily to the completion of the task set. 
 Undeterred by the criticism of sentimentaUsts 
 he pursued the course which he had mapped out, 
 pursued it steadily and relentlessly month after 
 month. To watchers at home, in their impatience 
 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 189 
 
 for decisive results, it may have seemed long 
 drawn out. Once more, however, the patience 
 of the commander was to prove patience well 
 employed ; it was not the patience that sits 
 with folded hands waiting for things to happen, 
 but the patience that works with set deter- 
 mination to attain its end. 
 
 For eleven months as Lord Roberts' " right 
 hand " Lord Kitchener had played his part in 
 strong but unobtrusive fashion in what was of 
 necessity the more spectacular part of the war — 
 the part which saw the relief of the beleaguered 
 garrisons, the fighting of definite battles — and 
 for eighteen months he was engaged in bringing 
 to an end a war that had already been " virtually 
 won.'' The second part of the task was less 
 showy, but it was no less difficult, and was only 
 achieved by firmness of purpose and by con- 
 summate organisation of means to an end. To 
 reverse the familiar saying and apply it to a 
 system of concentration camps and block- 
 houses it may be said that it was war if it was 
 not magnificent. It was a means, if not of a 
 spectacular kind, to the desired end, and a means 
 that was to prove successful. Peace negotiations 
 in the spring of 1901 came to nothing, and it was 
 a year later, when Kitchener's tactics had 
 
190 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 narrowed the field in which the mobile columns 
 of Boers could operate, that they were re-opened 
 with a more hopeful prospect. The Boers had 
 made a brave stand, as it were a forlorn hope 
 carried through months, with the desire that 
 when the settlement came their repubHcs should 
 retain some measure of independence ; but the 
 majority at length came to recognise the futility 
 of continuing that stand, and in the spring of 
 1902 negotiations were opened anew. 
 
 On the last day of November, 1902 (Lord 
 Kitchener had taken over the chief command, 
 on the last day of May, 1902), he had the satis- 
 faction of seeing the Boer leaders sign the articles 
 of peace at Pretoria. And the terms of peace 
 were such as should enable the late combatants 
 to work together in the future with as little as 
 possible of smouldering feelings of resentment. 
 It is said that when De Wet, who was one of the 
 negotiators, looked doleful over some part of the 
 terms. Lord Kitchener gave him a clap on the 
 back, saying, " Come now, old chap, don't be 
 sulky." 
 
 In all the circumstances it cannot be said that 
 the terms imposed erred on the side of harsh- 
 ness, and self-government was led up to within 
 a period which at the time of the establishing 
 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 191 
 
 of peace would have seemed short to the most 
 optimistic. 
 
 The story of the peace negotiations, and of 
 the final signing of the terms of peace is told most 
 impressively at the close of a very interesting 
 book by the Chaplain to President Steyn.* 
 There we are made to feel something of the 
 intense sadness which came over the Boers at 
 having to recognise that, however they pro- 
 longed their resistance, there was no possibiHty 
 of retaining their independence. Mr. Kestell 
 tells how the Boer " Governments " visited 
 Lord Kitchener at his house in Pretoria, on 
 April 12, and how President Steyn began by 
 indicating that the Republics were serious in 
 their wish for peace, if they could attain the 
 object for which they still fought. 
 
 " Here Lord Kitchener interrupted President 
 Steyn with a question which seemed to express 
 great astonishment. He drew up his shoulders, 
 threw his head forward to one side, and asked, 
 * Must I understand from what you say that 
 you wish to retain your Independence ? ' 
 
 " President Steyn : ' Yes, the people must 
 not be reduced to such a condition as to lose 
 
 * ' Through Shot and Flame." By J. D. Kestell, Chaplain to 
 President Steyn and General Christian De Wet. 
 
192 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 their self-respect^ and be placed in such a position 
 that they will feel themselves degraded in the 
 eyes of the British.' 
 
 " Lord Kitchener : ' But that could not be ; 
 it is impossible for a people that has fought as 
 the Boers have done to lose their self-respect ; 
 and it is just as impossible for Englishmen to 
 regard them with contempt. What I should 
 advise you is, that you should submit to the 
 British flag, and should now take the oppor- 
 tunity to obtain the best terms in regard to 
 self-government and other matters. 
 
 " President Steyn : ' I would like to know 
 from Your Excellency what sort of self-govern- 
 ment it would be ? Would it be like that in 
 the Cape Colony ? ' 
 
 " Lord Kitchener : ' Yes, precisely so.' 
 
 " President Steyn : ' I thank Your Excellency. 
 I put the question merely for information.' 
 
 " Loi:d Kitchener then proceeded to say that 
 one should bear in mind the British Colonists. 
 * The Colonists/ he said, ' were proud of their 
 own nationaHty. If anyone, for instance, asked 
 a Colonist in Australia whether he was an 
 Englishman, then his answer would be, " No, 
 I am an Australian." And yet such a man felt 
 himself to be one with the British nation, and 
 was proud of being a British subject.' " 
 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 193 
 
 When President Steyn sought to introduce 
 the Irish question, Lord Kitchener " said that 
 he himself was an Irishman, and therefore better 
 able to judge in Irish affairs." 
 
 Up to the end of May the negotiations went 
 on, the final British terms having been given to 
 the delegates with the limit of midnight of May 
 3 1 St for their acceptance. It wanted a few 
 minutes more than an hour of that time when 
 the delegates arrived at Lord Kitchener's house ; 
 it was five minutes past eleven when Acting 
 President Burger signed the fateful document,' — 
 " after him the other members of the government 
 of the South African Republic ; then Acting 
 President De Wet, and after him the other 
 members of the Free State Government. Lord 
 Kitchener followed, and Lord Milner signed the 
 last of all." 
 
 As the delegates rose to depart Lord Kitchener 
 passed from one to the other shaking hands with 
 all, " We are good friends now ! " he said, and 
 the describer of the scene adds " he spoke as a 
 soldier should to a brave enemy who had been 
 forced to give up his sword ; and the members 
 of the Governments strove to take what he said 
 in the spirit in which it was spoken. But their 
 hcarti wcr^ broken." 
 
194 EARI. KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 One of the principal signatories to the treaty 
 of peace was General De Wet, the leader whose 
 elusiveness in the field had been one of the 
 remarkable features of the " Three Years' War '* 
 of which he later wrote the story. The closing 
 words of his book have a curious significance 
 to-day. He wrote as a brave man, defeated but 
 not dishonoured : " It was a never-to-be-for- 
 gotten evening. In the space of a few short 
 minutes that was done which never could be 
 undoTae. A decision arrived at in a meeting 
 could always be taken into re-consideration, 
 but a document solemnly signed, as on that 
 night, by two parties, bound them both for ever. 
 Everyone of us who put his name to that docu- 
 ment knew that he was in honour bound to act 
 in accordance with it. . , . To my Nation I 
 address one last word. Be loyal to the new 
 Government ! Loyalty pays best in the end. 
 Loyalty alone is worthy of a nation which has 
 shed its blood for Freedom ! '' 
 
 For the reputc^tioii of General De W :, i.: is - 
 pity that he lived to stultify those brave words 
 by becoming the traitor of 1914. 
 
 The long war having been brought to an end, 
 Lord Kitchener prepared to leave South Africa 
 and on June 17 was present at a great farewell 
 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 195 
 
 banquet at Johannesburg, when he addressed 
 a telegram to Generals Botha, Delarey, and Dc 
 Wet, highly complimenting them on their un- 
 flagging energy and unfaiHng tact in promoting 
 the loyal fulfilment by the burghers of the agree- 
 ment to surrender. 
 
 Before leaving South Africa, Lord Kitchener 
 issued an address to the troops which is interest- 
 ing, for its tribute to the soldiers whom he had 
 commanded, its happy prophecy of the friend- 
 ship that was to be between Boer and Briton, 
 and as a characteristic utterance : 
 
 ** The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief 
 wishes to express his best thanks to all general 
 oflBcers, officers, non-commissioned officers and 
 men for the excellent service they have rendered 
 since he first took the command eighteen months 
 ago. The period in question offered few oppor- 
 tunities for those decisive engagements which 
 keep up the spirit of an army and add brilliance 
 and interest to its operations. On the other 
 hand, officers and men have been called upon for 
 increasing and ever-increasing exertions, in the 
 face of great hardships and other difficulties, 
 against dangerous and elusive antagonists. 
 
 " The conduct of the troops under these trying 
 circumstances has been beyond all praise. Never 
 
196 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 has there been the smallest sign of slackness or 
 impatience. It seems to Lord Kitchener that 
 the quaUties of endurance and resolution they 
 have displayed are much more valuable to a 
 commander than any dashing or short-lived 
 effort whereby some hard-fought actions may 
 be won in a campaign of ordinary duration. 
 
 " The Commander-in-Chief also has special 
 pleasure in congratulating the Army on the 
 kindly and humane spirit by which all ranks 
 have been animated during this long struggle. 
 Fortunately for the future in South Africa, the 
 truth in this matter is known to our late enemy 
 as well as to ourselves ; and no misrepresen- 
 tations from outside can prevail in the long run 
 against the actual fact that no war has ever yet 
 been waged in which the combatants and non- 
 combatants on cither side have shown so much 
 consideration and kindness to one another. 
 
 " This message would be incomplete if re- 
 ference were not made to the soldierly quaUties 
 displayed throughout the campaign by our 
 quondam enemies, and to the admirable spirit 
 displayed by them in carrying out the surrender 
 of their arms. Many Boer leaders, who, at an 
 earlier date recognised the futility of carrying 
 on the devastating conflict beyond a certain 
 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 197 
 
 point, have already for some time served with 
 us in the field, and the help which they rendered 
 us will not be forgotten. Many, also, of those 
 who continued to struggle to the end have 
 expressed the hope that on some future occasion 
 they may have an opportunity of serving side 
 by side with His Majesty's forces, from whom 
 Lord Kitchener can assure them they will 
 receive a very hearty welcome." 
 
 Britain was just breathing with reKef over the 
 convalescence of King Edward VII., when Lord 
 Kitchener returned to England, and his arrival was 
 made the occasion of a great demonstration of 
 popular enthusiasm. When he reached London 
 he was met at Paddington by the Prince of 
 Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of 
 Connaught, Lord Roberts, and the Head-quarters 
 Staff, and it was through vast cheering crowds 
 that he drove to St. James's Palace, where he 
 lunched with the Prince of Wales. Later in the 
 day he proceeded to Buckingham Palace, where 
 he was decorated by King Edward with the newly 
 instituted Order of Merit. Other honours im- 
 mediately accorded him were mihtary promotion 
 to the full rank of General, peerage promotion 
 to a Viscountcy — as Viscount Kitchener of 
 Khartoum, of the Vaal in the Colony of the 
 
1 98 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Transvaal, and of Aspall in the county of 
 Suffolk, with special remainder to his brothers 
 and their children — the thanks of ParHament 
 and a grant of 3^50,000. In the debate in the 
 House of Commons Sir Henry Campbell Banner- 
 man said that Lord Kitchener had shown himself 
 a great soldier, and more than that a great 
 administrator, a master of the art of organisation, 
 a tactful negotiator, and a large-minded man. 
 
 As on his return as *' the avenger of Gordon " 
 so on his return as '" the pacificator of South 
 Africa " Lord Kitchener had to submit to a long 
 course of lionisation. There were banquets to 
 be attended and presentations to be received, 
 but only one or two of the events need be men- 
 tioned especially. On the last day of July he 
 was the principal guest at the annual South 
 African dinner, when the Lord Mayor, on behalf 
 of the Cape Town Corporation, presented him 
 with a sword of honour, in acknowledging which 
 Lord Kitchener expressed the confident hope 
 that in South Africa at any rate the sword 
 might never again have to be drawn from its 
 scabbard. A week later he and Lord Roberts 
 were guests of the City at Guildhall, when they 
 were presented with illuminated addresses and 
 plate ; and during the next two months ho had 
 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 199 
 
 many similar experiences. In September he 
 visited Ipswich, and received the freedom of the 
 borough — his immediate predecessor on the roll 
 of honorary burgesses being the great Duke of 
 Wellington, for the honour was one which 
 Ipswich had not granted since 1 821. Earlier 
 honorary burgesses had been Lord Nelson and 
 the Duke of Marlborough. After the ceremony 
 and Kitchener's speech, in which he noted his 
 family association with East Anglia, he drove 
 out to Aspall Hall, the home of his maternal 
 ancestry, whence he afterwards made a tour 
 through the county from which he takes hie 
 English title. 
 
 At the end of the month, after receiving the 
 freedom of Sheffield, Lord Kitchener was a guest 
 at the famous Cutlers' Feast, where he made a 
 speech, in the course of which he emphatically 
 refuted charges which had been brought against 
 the British Army in South Africa. " It is perhaps 
 fitting on this occasion that I should briefly 
 allude to the conduct of the troops in the war. 
 It was to be regretted that while the war was in 
 progress certain unfounded charges were brought 
 against the good conduct of our men. Those 
 accusations, however, were repudiated by the 
 people of this country and of the colonies^ 
 
200 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 including the civilian population of South Africa 
 among whom we were fighting. This was a 
 source of great satisfaction to us at the time ; 
 and I should now like to tell you that from the 
 commencement of the year 1900 to the end of 
 the war every case of serious crime by a soldier 
 was brought before me, with the result that I 
 can conscientiously state that, very high as my 
 opinion previously was of the conduct of the 
 British soldier, it is far higher now that I know 
 how well our men behaved in circumstances of 
 great temptation during the war." 
 
 Again and again, in the speeches which Lord 
 Kitchener made in various parts of the country 
 he emphasised the necessity of the youths of this 
 country receiving some miUtary training, as it 
 was " the bounden duty and high privilege " 
 of every man to defend his country, and to train 
 himself for so doing. 
 
 Lord Kitchener has shown himself so strongly 
 possessed of the power of concentration, of 
 devoting all his attention to the particular 
 business which he has in hand, that we may 
 probably trace to this invaluable characteristic 
 the reputation which he has for aloofness, and 
 relentless severity. Not all who have had the 
 privilege of knowing him have carried away thi^ 
 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 201 
 
 impression ; indeed, an officer who met him 
 in Pretoria in this year in which the South 
 African war was brought to a close, described 
 him as a tall, frank, genial man, ** no hide-bound 
 ascetic, as he has been pictured; fully ready to 
 have a talk or a glass of wine with any duly 
 authorised person." Mr. G. W. Smalley, whose 
 " Anglo-American Memories " have been already 
 referred to, met Viscount Kitchener at a country 
 house dinner party at this time, and give* this 
 further impression : 
 
 ** As Lord Kitchener sits there talking at 
 luncheon, the hardness of the face softens. The 
 merciless eyes grow kindly and human ; you 
 may forget, if you like, the frontal attack at 
 Paardeberg, and the corpse-strewn plains of 
 Omdurman, and remember only that an English 
 gentleman, who has made a study of the science 
 of war, sits there devoting himself to the enter- 
 tainment of two English ladies. It is a picture 
 which has a charm of its own. And it is a 
 Kitchener of whom you hear none too often. 
 That is why you hear of him in these social 
 circumstances from me. Most men have a 
 human side to them. Even * K.' has, and some- 
 times allows it to be seen.*' 
 
 Another writer-*th« late Mgjpr Arthur 
 
202 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Griffiths — said : " No doubt he is an iron man ; 
 hard, unemotional, at least upon the surface, 
 with seemingly no weaknesses, caring little for 
 the softer influences and graces of Hfe. This, 
 coupled with his persistent bachelorhood and 
 known refusal to allow the officers of the 
 Egyptian army to marry, has gained for him the 
 reputation of being a misogynist, It is alto- 
 gether an erroneous impression, for no one can 
 make himself more agreeable in general society 
 or more charming to ladies/' In this connection 
 it is interesting to recall too, the words of 
 Queen Victoria after Lord Kitchener had visited 
 Balmoral in 1898 : '' They say he hates women. 
 I can only say he was very nicc^^^to^mc.'' 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 IN INDIA. 
 
 The news which followed close upon the ter- 
 mination of his work in South Africa that 
 Viscount Kitchener had been appointed Com- 
 mander-in-Chief in India, was received with 
 mixed feelings. Though it was recognised that 
 he was eminently suited for the high command 
 it was suggested that there was other and yet 
 higher work awaiting him. Lord Rosebery, 
 indeed, frankly condemned the appointment, 
 on the grounds that it was a mistake to send our 
 most valuable mihtary asset to do work which 
 many other generals could do, adding that there 
 was only one Lord Kitchener, and that he 
 ^■^ would not have shrunk from recommending 
 him for the position of Secretary of State for 
 War." Another critic of the appointment 
 declared, " There is one post to which Kitchener 
 is suited, and which is suited to him — namely, 
 the Chief of Staff, call it by what name you will, 
 the sole solitary and exclusive duty of preparation 
 for war." On the other hand it was pointed 
 
 20g 
 
204 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 out that Lord Kitchener had proved himself a 
 really great organiser, and that it was precisely 
 such that was at the moment required in India. 
 
 Shortly after his return from South Africa, 
 Lord Kitchener went down to Hampton Court, 
 where in the park, the Indian troops who had 
 come to take part in the pageantry of King 
 Edward's Coronation, were encamped, and there 
 he made the acquaintance of representatives of 
 some of those regiments belonging to his new 
 command. 
 
 On October 17, Lord Kitchener turned his 
 back on all the social functions of which he had 
 been the centre, and succeeded in leaving London 
 in an unostentatious fashion for Paris, where he 
 stayed for two or three days. He persistently 
 refused to be interviewed by French journalists, 
 but one of the papers neatly announced his arrival 
 in the French capital, by glancing at his brief 
 period of service in 1870, in saying that there 
 was in Paris one ex-French soldier the more, his 
 name being Kitchener, and his address the British 
 Embassy. Continuing his journey by way of 
 Rome, he reached Alexandria just ten days 
 after setting out. At Cairo, Lord Kitchener 
 met with a very hearty reception. A few days 
 later he started with Sir Reginald Wingatc, his 
 
IN INDIA. 20S 
 
 successor as Sirdar, up the Nile for Khartoum, 
 where he was to open the Gordon College. The 
 great reservoir works at Assouan were inspected 
 on the way, and on November 5 the party 
 reached Khartoum — the new city which was 
 rapidly growing where four years earlier ruins 
 had been found by the victors at Omdurman. 
 
 It was on November 8 that the impressive 
 ceremony of declaring the Gordon Memorial Col- 
 lege open was perforned, and the seal thus put 
 to the winning back of the Soudan, to the hopes 
 of Gordon, and the achievement of Kitchener. 
 Sir Reginald Wingate having extended a welcome 
 to the man whose ideas gave birth to the College, 
 Lord Kitchener responded in a speech which 
 emphasised the object with which the place had 
 been founded : 
 
 '* Your Excellency and Gcntlcmen,^-I dtsire 
 to thank the Sirdar for the words of welcome 
 he has addressed to me in the name of so many 
 old friends in the Soudan. I assure everybody 
 that I have been much touched by the way in 
 which I have everywhere been greeted, and by 
 the tokens of affectionate remembrance which 
 I have received from those with whom I was so 
 closely associated formerly. When I was sum- 
 moned from the Soudan to South Africa I had 
 
zo6 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 to leave to the Sirdar's care the scheme for giving 
 the Soudanese a higher education which the 
 liberality of the British people had enabled me 
 to formulate. One of my greatest pleasures on 
 returning was to find how well advanced are 
 the steps taken for attaining that object, and 
 how energetically and ably the original design 
 has been interpreted and carried out. I quite 
 agree with the Principal of the college, Dr. 
 Currie, that time is still required for the com- 
 plete development of the project, but I never 
 anticipated or hoped for more rapid progress 
 than has been made, and I feel sure that 
 if the same spirit which has hitherto di- 
 rected the destinies of Gordon College is 
 continued, there is no fear that the result 
 will not fully equal, if not greatly exceed, 
 what I originally hoped for in my most sanguine 
 anticipations. 
 
 "" We now sec the Soudan people of all classes, 
 anxiously desirous of education for their child- 
 ren, also that the steps which we have taken for 
 their future in this respect meet entirely with 
 their approval, and that they encourage us by 
 every means to push forward the scheme. In 
 the Soudan primary schools we find excellent 
 material to work on. During the short time that 
 
IN INDIA, 207 
 
 they have been established, I am informed that 
 they have become already fully equal in efficiency 
 to the primary schools of Egypt ; therefore, we 
 cannot fail now to recognise that there is no lack 
 of room for developing education in the Soudan, 
 nor of youths eager to learn and capable of 
 learning. I am delighted to see those who are 
 here to-day. They are an excellent type, and 
 clearly show the fruitful field there is here for 
 work which, if developed, will surely result in 
 making this country a prosperous centre of 
 civilization instead of what we all remember it 
 to have been formerly. 
 
 " But, though great steps have been made, we 
 must still look forward for the actual realisation 
 of the original scheme. This memorial to 
 General Gordon has not been called a college 
 without due consideration. It was hoped, and 
 fully foreseen, that it would in the future become 
 the head and centre of secondary and more 
 advanced scientific training and education of 
 the youths of the Soudan in literary and technical 
 knowledge. Here they will be brought up and 
 taught so as to be able to go out into the world 
 equipped to fill many posts for which they are 
 already required in this country. I, for one, 
 am quite willing and happy to wait patiently 
 
2o8 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 for that rcfult, which it undoubtedly the future 
 of the institution, 
 
 '^ I quite agree, in the meantime, that the 
 funds of the college should be used to hasten 
 this result by advancing primary education in 
 the Soudan, and, as the principal, Dr. Currie 
 has remarked, I hope that after five years in 
 India I shall return to find that the establish- 
 ment of the college on the hues originally con- 
 ceived hag been attained. Glancing ahead, we 
 confidently hope to sec the institution support- 
 ing 300 students, with a proper staff of English 
 masters, with whom they will be so closely 
 associated during their four or six years of 
 residence that their native views of life will be 
 greatly modified and gradually moulded to a 
 morally higher and more efficient standard, 
 while their intellect and knowledge will be so 
 developed and increased as to open to them 
 careers either in the army, in civil life, or in 
 technical work, thus raising them to the level of 
 others who have long enjoyed the benefits of 
 civilization and progress.*' 
 
 Lord Kitchener went on to say that while the 
 endowment fund of one hundred thousand pounds 
 with which the College started might hardly 
 jive sufficient acumal funds for the work to be 
 
IN INDIA. 209 
 
 done, he hoped that such endowment would be 
 strictly maintained for all time and that money 
 for increasing requirements would be forth- 
 coming in *the form of Government grants or 
 private donations, and thus the place be a 
 lasting centre for the development of education 
 in the Soudan. 
 
 It was for the opening of the College that Lord 
 Kitchener had paid this visit to the country 
 from which he had been so suddenly called to 
 South Africa three years earUer. On November 
 19 he left Cairo for Ismailia to catch the steam- 
 ship Egypt on which he was to journey to 
 Bombay ; and on the 28th he arrived at the 
 last-named port where he met with a cordial 
 reception, despite the fact that some weeks 
 earlier the Corporation had rejected a proposal 
 to present him with an address of welcome. 
 
 Then he began six and a-half years of steady 
 work which was to have a marked effect on the 
 army administration of our Indian Empire. 
 Less " showy " than war service the service of 
 organising an army that shall be prepared for 
 any emergency that may befall is no less neces- 
 sary, and though Lord Kitchener's new task 
 was not to assist in the creating of an army as 
 in Egypt, it was the no less difficult one of bring- 
 
 AA 
 
^10 KARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 ing antiquated administrative machinery up-to- 
 date. In India, as the familiar saying puts it, 
 he found himself " up against '* an anomalous 
 position in which the Commander-in-Chief, occu- 
 pying a supreme position in theory, was in 
 practise the victim of a hampering dual control 
 shared with the MiUtary Member of Council. 
 As he put it, though responsible for the military 
 efficiency of the army, all his plans, instead of 
 being explained directly to the supreme authority, 
 the Indian Government, had to be "filtered" 
 through the lips of another military officer. 
 He insisted that if he was to carry out the trust 
 put upon him he must be allowed to put his plans 
 before the Government to which he was res- 
 ponsible without the employment of any inter- 
 mediary. It was on this matter that the 
 Commander-in-Chief and the Viceroy, Lord 
 Curzon, came to join issue in a controversy, 
 which, though carried out with fitting dignity, 
 was not altogether an edifying spectacle as 
 between two public men placed in such prominent 
 positions. Here we need not go into the details 
 of the controversy, suffice it to say at the moment 
 that in the long run the Commander-in-Chief 
 attained his end and the Viceroy resigned. 
 
 Before these matters came to a head however, 
 
IN INDIA. 211 
 
 Lord Kitchener had met with a serious accident 
 that might have put an early termination to his 
 work in India. He had been there not quite a 
 year (November 15, 1903) when, riding near 
 Simla, his horse became restive in passing through 
 a small hillside tunnel, and dashed him against 
 the side with such violence that he received 
 severe injuries, including a compound fracture 
 of one of his legs. 
 
 It was in 1905 that the fact that there were 
 strained relations between the Commander-in- 
 Chief and the Viceroy over matters concerning 
 the military administration of India came to be 
 known ; and at Simla on May 17, the Viceroy's 
 private secretary issued the following state- 
 ment : " Lord Kitchener has represented to 
 the Viceroy that he desires it to be known that 
 the statements to which currency has been 
 given that there is, or has been, any disagree- 
 ment with the military poUcy in general which 
 he has recommended to the Government of 
 India, or that his proposals for the re-organi- 
 sation and strengthening of the Indian Army 
 and the defences of India have been refused or 
 thwarted by the Government, are destitute oi 
 foundation. The question now under examina- 
 tion with Hi8 Majesty's Government is exclusively 
 
212 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 concerned with the administrative management 
 of the Indian Army/' This was sufficient to 
 show that there was at least some reason for 
 the rumours that were afloat. Indeed, Kit- 
 chener's own remarkable Minute indicating this 
 difference was dated January i, 1905, a few 
 months earlier, and a few mxonths later Lord 
 Curzon resigned. It should, however, be noted 
 that the Viceroy supported many of Lord 
 Kitchener's plans for the re-organizing of the 
 Indian Army. It was as to the continuance or 
 termination of the old system of dual control that 
 they were diametrically and irreconcilably 
 opposed ; as Lord Curzon put it. " He and I 
 differed on a grave constitutional and adminis- 
 trative issue which had nothing to do with army 
 organization." 
 
 Lord Kitchener bluntly declared that under 
 the then existing system " the army can only 
 with difficulty be brought to a state of efficient 
 training, and even preparatory training for war 
 is interfered with." Peace routine, he said, had 
 overshadowed preparation for war, and though 
 admitting that he wrote strongly, he insisted 
 that his remarks appKed to the system, and in no 
 way to individuals. His lengthy Minute — which 
 Lord Curzon described as " a sustained indict- 
 
IN INDIA. 213 
 
 mcnt of the military administration of India 
 during the last forty years/' — is a very notable 
 piece of clear thinking and plain speaking. As 
 he said at the outset : 
 
 ** This question is an Imperial and not merely 
 an Indian one, except in so far as the maintenance 
 of the solidarity of the Empire is incumbent 
 alike on its each and every part. For these 
 reasons I consider it essential that the system of 
 our army administration in India and the co- 
 ordination of the work of the army with the 
 directing powers at headquarters, should now 
 be discussed, and that changes to place it on a 
 sounder basis should if necessary be introduced. 
 I feel that it is my im.perative duty to state my 
 conviction that the present system is faulty, 
 inefficient, and incapable of the expansion 
 necessary for a great war in which the armed 
 might of the Empire would be engaged in a life 
 and death struggle. . . . The time for action 
 has arrived ; unless, indeed, hke the natives of 
 the country we live in, we are satisfied with 
 the fatalist formula ' Whatever is, is best.' No 
 one dislikes change more than I do ; but if 
 necessary I do not fear it. I would certainly 
 not continue a rotten system because I was afraid 
 to stretch out my hand and take a sound one." 
 
2T4 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 That liOrd Kitchener objected — to use his 
 own happy phrase — to the '' paper-logging " 
 of the soldier's way with unnecessary " orders *' 
 and reports is amusingly shown by the Staff 
 Officer who contributed reminiscences of the 
 Khartoum campaign to Blackwood's Magazine, 
 and Lord Kitchener himself pointed out 
 how the dual control which he sought to do 
 away with, resulted in '^ paper-logging '^ of the 
 offices of both the Commander-in-Chief and the 
 MiHtary Member of Council. He continued his 
 protest in these terms : 
 
 ** One of the chief faults of the Indian system 
 is the enormous delay and endless discussion 
 which it involves. It is impossible to formulate 
 or carry out any consistent miUtary policy. No 
 needed reform can be initiated, no useful measure 
 can be adopted, without being subject to vexa- 
 tious, and, for the most part, unnecessary 
 criticism — not merely as regards the financial 
 effect of the proposal, but as to its desirability 
 or necessity from the purely military point of 
 view. The fault hes simply in the system, which 
 has created two offices which have been trained 
 to unfortunate jealousy and antagonism, and 
 which, therefore, duplicate work, and in the 
 duplication destroy and defeat the true ends of 
 
IN INDIA.; 215 
 
 military efficiency. The system is one of dual 
 control and divided responsibility. It is a 
 system of ' want of trust ' such as that which 
 has recently been condemned and abolished in 
 the army at Home."* 
 
 There were, of course, not wanting those who 
 thought that the unfortunate position arose 
 rather from Lord Kitchener's dominating in- 
 dividuality than from anything inherent in the 
 situation. One critic bluntly declared : '' We 
 have placed a square man in a round hole which 
 he is too big for. But while the man will go the 
 hole will remain, and before we set about en- 
 larging and altering the hole to shape the man, 
 and perhaps make it too big for his successor 
 adequately to fill, might we not appeal to the 
 strong good sense and feehng of the man to 
 contract his straight and square angularities 
 for a time till a square hole for him can be 
 found ? " The writer of those words can have 
 but Httle understood the man of whom he was 
 writing ; for it may safely be assumed that Lord 
 Kitchener was thinking more of the future effi- 
 ciency of the Indian Army than of any personal 
 discomfort to the occupant of his post. As it 
 
 *" Correspondence Regarding the Administration of the Army 
 in India." 1903. 
 
2i6 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 has been said change was already " in the air " 
 when he took up the command in India, and 
 it was well, therefore, that the changes could 
 be effected under the auspices of one so efficient 
 and self-confident. When his term of service 
 came to a close, it was admitted that he had 
 carried out not only many administrative 
 reforms, but a complete reorganization and 
 redistribution of the British and native forces 
 that would be found of real strategical value 
 in the event of war. 
 
 In October, 1906, Lord Kitchener suffered 
 from an attack of fever at Simla, and on re- 
 covering from it went for a change of air to 
 Umballa, whence he started on a tour to Nepal, 
 following the example set by Lord Roberts 
 fourteen years earher of visiting Khatmander, 
 the capital, which continued to be jealously 
 guarded against ordinary travellers. There Lord 
 Kitchener reviewed nearly 20,000 Nepalese troops 
 and attended a Durbar held in his honour by 
 the Maharaja. The Prime Minister of Nepal 
 gave an address of welcome in which he said 
 that nothing could be so dear to the heart of 
 the true Gurkha as the sight of a man who had 
 been the hero of a hundred fights, and added 
 that though it had not been the good fortune 
 
IN INDIA. 217 
 
 of troops maintained by the Nepal Durbar to 
 participate directly in the glories of a British 
 campaign, it was a great satisfaction to know 
 that there had not been for nearly a century a 
 single war fought by the Indian Army in which 
 Gurkha regiments had not taken part. The 
 speaker could not have guessed that in 19 14 the 
 Gurkhas would have the '' good fortune '* of 
 fighting side by side with British troops on the 
 Continent of Europe. 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1909 that Lord 
 Kitchener's term as Commander-in-Chief in 
 India came to an end, and it was recognised that 
 the period formed an epoch in the development 
 of the Indian Army, no less noteworthy than 
 that in which Lord Roberts had held the com- 
 mand* An anonymous critic in Blackwood's 
 Magazine, summing up the work achieved by 
 Lord Kitchener in India said that " when all 
 justice had been done to those who paved the 
 way for Lord Kitchener's reforms, the fact 
 remains that without his reorganisation their 
 work would have been incomplete, and with- 
 out him the reorganisation would hardly 
 have been attainable. His scheme recognised 
 for the first time in the history of our 
 Indian Army the fact that no organisation 
 
 BB 
 
2i8 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 can be efficient which is not an organisation 
 for war/' 
 
 If the firm and resolute line which Lord Kit- 
 chener took in India aroused some opposition 
 it has generally come to be recognised that his 
 work was of great and abiding value ; that he 
 left the army in India far more efficient as a 
 fighting machine than he found it, while his 
 efforts in the direction of establishing a Staff 
 College at Quetta, and in organising the manu- 
 facture of military suppHes were also planned 
 with something of statesmanlike consideration 
 ot the future. 
 
 The need for the establishment of a Staff 
 College appears to have struck Lord Kitchener 
 soon after his arrival in India ; as he had put it 
 in his official *' Memorandum on the Higher 
 Training and Military Education of Officers/' of 
 April II, 1904, *' nothing was more essential for 
 complete preparation in peace and for successful 
 operation in war than that an army should have 
 a thoroughly trained and highly educated general 
 staff. . . . 
 
 " We must follow a system of training for 
 war suited to the vastly changed conditions of 
 the present day, and steadfastly eliminate all 
 obsolete traditions. In all ranks, from the 
 
IN INDIA. 219 
 
 private soldier to the General Officer, each step 
 up the ladder requires a corresponding increase 
 in knowledge, in self-reliance, in the power of 
 initiative, in the habit of readily accepting 
 responsibility, and in the faculty of command, 
 qualities which can be attained only by un- 
 remitting study combined with constant practise. 
 
 " It is recognised that it is the duty of a com- 
 manding officer to educate and train his men in 
 all branches of soldiering, but hitherto it has 
 not been so generally understood that this holds 
 equally true as regards the education and train- 
 ing of the officers serving under him. The plea 
 that teaching is a difficult art, which it is given 
 to few to acquire is one which cannot be accepted. 
 The whole secret of preparing for w^ar is a matter 
 of training and instruction, and commanding or 
 other officers who profess or show their incapacity 
 as instructors, and their inability to train and 
 educate those under him for all the situations 
 of modern war, must be deemed unfit for the 
 positions they hold. 
 
 " The system at present in force in India, 
 whereby officers are sent to garrison classes to 
 prepare for their promotion examinations, is 
 particularly faulty. Knowledge thus crammed 
 up in the course of a few weeks, only to be for- 
 
220 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 gotten as soon as the examination is passed, is 
 in no sense education. In future the military 
 education of officers m.ust be imparted within 
 their regiments ; it must com.mence from the 
 day they join, and continue until they leave the 
 service.'* 
 
 In the course of this Memorandum, Lord 
 Kitchener laid stress upon the need for educating 
 all ranks in intelligence, and he concluded by 
 saying, in words that are worth recalling at the 
 present time : '^ Last, but not least, comes 
 the preservation and maintenance of discipHne, 
 which distinguishes the army from an armed 
 mob, and without which all other training is of 
 small value. The true combination of discipline, 
 with a proper exercise of individual intelligence 
 and initiative cannot fail to give the army in 
 which these quaHties have been inculcated a 
 decided superiority over one in which they 
 have been neglected.'' 
 
 On August 20, 1909, Lord Kitchener made a 
 farewell speech at Simla on relinquishing the 
 command, in the course of which he said that the 
 object of his efforts had been " to raise the level 
 of the army administration, not merely for a 
 few years, but continuously ; to leave the 
 army in India with improved organisation, more 
 
IN INDIA. '221 
 
 efficient, healthier, and more ready to take the 
 field at a moment's notice, and thus to leave 
 India permanently stronger and safer from 
 attack and better able to confront the dangers 
 and the vicissitudes of the future. How far I 
 have attained this I must leave to the test of 
 time." When this speech duly reached England 
 it was promptly pointed out by means of 
 ** deadly parallels ** that Lord Kitchener had 
 in drily humorous fashion taken Lord Curzon's 
 description of his civil administration of nearly 
 four years earlier and applied it *' word for 
 word, and point for point " to the measures of 
 army re-organisation ; '' to have put his answer 
 (after a long and dignified silence) in this par- 
 ticular form is a delightful stroke of irony." 
 The neatness with which the words of the retiring 
 Viceroy were adapted to other ends by the 
 retiring Commander-in-Chief can only be ap- 
 preciated by those who have compared the two 
 speeches, and it must be said that such com- 
 parison reveals an unsuspected kind of grim 
 humour in Lord Kitchener. 
 
 Before the end of Lord Kitchener's service in 
 India it had become known that on reHnquishing 
 his post he proposed to make an extended tour, 
 and it was announced that the Australian 
 
222 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Commonwealth Government desired to obtain 
 his advice generally on the organising of its 
 mihtary forces. After a surfeit of banquetings 
 and farewell gatherings he had a great " send 
 off " on his departure from Simla on September 
 6, and was described as being visibly affected 
 by the remarkable demonstration of popular 
 feeling. Saigon, Pekin, Port Arthur, Mukden, 
 Korea were visited, and in early November Lord 
 Kitchener reached Japan where he attended the 
 mihtary manoeuvres. From Japan he passed 
 to Australia, where he had something of a 
 triumphal progress, studied the problems of 
 military defence that might face the island 
 continent, and embodied the results of his 
 observations and impressions in a report, in the 
 course of which he said that he found that the 
 Commonwealth had good fighting material (he 
 had seen something of the value of that material 
 in South Africa), but went on to say that 
 " excellent fighting material and the greatest 
 zeal, although of course indispensable adjuncts 
 to the creation of an army, are not in these days 
 of themselves enough to enable a force to take 
 the field against thoroughly trained regular 
 troops with any chance of success.*' 
 
 Australia's attempt to carry out some modi- 
 
IN INDIA. 223 
 
 fication of Lord Kitchener's proposals — the 
 Commonwealth's Defence Bill had been passed 
 just before his arrival — cannot so far be said 
 to have been crowned with success ; though the 
 present situation emphasising the value of those 
 proposals may not be without its permanent 
 effect on the popular attitude towards them. 
 Here, however, the larger questions of com- 
 pulsory as against voluntary miUtary training 
 need not be considered, we are only concerned 
 with them in so far as they are dealt with in 
 Lord Kitchener's report. In the course of that 
 document he said that : 
 
 " The first and imperative principle of the 
 enrolment and maintenance of an efficient 
 citizen force is that the nation as a whole should 
 take a pride in its defenders, insist upon the 
 organisation being designed for war purposes 
 only, and provide the means for properly 
 educating, training, and equipping their officers 
 and men. Unless these requirements be met, 
 no military system can be devised which will 
 be other than an illusion and a source of waste 
 of public funds." 
 
 In February and March, 1910, Lord Kitchener 
 was in New Zealand, where he proved a most 
 popular visitor, it being noted that he "' always 
 
224 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 did and said the right thing." On March i6 
 he sailed thence for England, via Tahiti and San 
 Francisco, and just a month later was the guest 
 at a banquet in New York. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 BACK TO EGYPT. 
 
 At about the time that Lord Kitchener left 
 India he was promoted to the highest rank 
 attainable, that of Field-Marshal. It had been 
 pointed out in the House of Commons in 1902 
 that in eight years Colonel Kitchener had passed 
 through all the grades to that of full General, 
 leaving but a single step in rank open to him. 
 Another seven years passed and that step had 
 been taken, and it was as Field-Marshal Lord 
 Kitchener that he went on the extended tour 
 indicated in the previous chapter. His position 
 in India had been one of the very highest mili- 
 tary posts in the Empire, and there was something 
 of a sense of disappointment to many people 
 on learning that on relinquishing it he had 
 accepted the position of Commander-in-Chief 
 and High Commissioner in the Mediterranean in 
 succession to the Duke of Connaught. This was 
 a somewhat anomalous place in which to put our 
 " chief military asset," and that Lord Kitchener 
 did not see in it sufficient scope for his energies 
 
 223 •€ 
 
226 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 may be gathered from the fact that in the spring 
 of 1910 it was stated that he had declined to 
 take up the appointment, the duties of which 
 were more of an inspectorial than administra- 
 tive character. In the autumn it was announced 
 that Lord kitchener had been appointed a 
 member of the Imperial Defence Committee, a 
 position for which his gifts and his experience 
 alike eminently fitted him. 
 
 Towards the end of the year Lord Kitchener 
 took one of his rare holidays, and went to 
 Egypt up the Nile, the scene of his triumphs 
 of a dozen years earlier. The last ten days of 
 the year were spent in a shooting trip up the Blue 
 Nile, and at the end of December he returned 
 to Khartoum. On January 2, 191 1, he rode 
 through Omdurman and had a great reception 
 from the inhabitants whom he had been the 
 means of rescuing from the Khalifa's tyranny. 
 Twelve years had wrought as it were magical 
 changes in these Soudan towns and the victor 
 of Omdurman may well have felt a thrill of pride 
 at realising the part which he had borne in making 
 those changes possible. A holiday to him must 
 have been a fairly strenuous experience for 
 between the 3rd and 7th of January he had 
 visited Suakin and returned to Khartoum, and 
 
i 
 
 
 7 
 
 1 
 
 
 05 1 tl 
 
 ^ 
 
 i 
 
 ^- 1 
 
 1 
 
 O 
 
BACK TO EGYPT. 227 
 
 then on the next day after reviewing the Egypt- 
 ian Army he set off up the Nile to visit Uganda. 
 By way of sequel to this trip, it may be, came the 
 acquisition of land, near the Uganda Railway and 
 about forty miles from the Victoria Nyanza, 
 which it was said Lord Kitchener designed to 
 utilise for rubber growing. At about the same 
 time that it was announced that he was buying 
 land in Uganda came news also that he had 
 purchased an estate in England. 
 
 Nearly mid-way between Canterbury and 
 Dover at the south-eastern end of Barham 
 Downs, where the roads from Dover and Folke- 
 stone meet is the beautiful old estate of Broome 
 Park, noticeable for its fine beeches, and notable 
 for its connection with the " Legends *' of 
 " Thomas Ingoldsby ** whose " Tappington '* 
 is but a brief distance to the south. In April, 
 191 1, it became known that Lord Kitchener 
 had purchased Broome Park — the fine old 
 mansion of which is sometimes said, inaccurately, 
 to be Tappington itself — and there he has 
 established his country seat in a lovely part of 
 the Garden of England, though it may well be 
 beUeved that his public service has as yet given 
 him but little time to spend in it: 
 
 At the coronation of King George V., in the 
 
228 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 summer of 191 1, Lord Kitchener was bearer of 
 the Third Sword, or the Pointed Sword of 
 Temporal Justice, and was in chief command of 
 the troops assembled in London for the pageantry 
 of that occasion. 
 
 While he had been on his Colonial tour during 
 the preceding year Lord Kitchener had been 
 appointed High Steward of the Borough of 
 Ipswich, and it was as holder of that office that 
 at the beginning of June 191 1, he attended the 
 Suffolk Agricultural Show, and at the luncheon 
 delivered a speech, which is particularly interest- 
 ing as touching a personal note rare in his public 
 utterances. Having reminded his hearers of 
 his family associations with their county he 
 said that some of them might remember 
 that he was a grandson of Dr. ChevaUier, of 
 Aspall, who introduced the famous ChevaUier 
 barley ; " several years ago, whilst I was in 
 India, some of my previous Boer opponents, 
 who have since become warm friends, wrote to 
 me stating that their wheat in South Africa 
 was suffering greatly from ' rust,' and, having 
 heard that Thibetan wheat possessed certain 
 peculiar properties which rendered it immune 
 from this disease, asked me if I could assist them 
 by obtaining a sample of some grown in that 
 
BACK TO EGYPT. 229 
 
 country. During the expedition to Thibet, 
 which took place whilst I was in command, I 
 was able to do this, and sent them some dozen 
 sacks. These they gratefully acknowledged, 
 and I heard nothing more on the subject. Last 
 March, when I was at Nairobi, in East Africa, 
 which is a grand country, with a magnificent 
 climate, now entering the number of the wheat 
 exporting countries of the world, I naturally 
 visited the Government agricultural farm, and 
 was there shown a small plot of growing corn, 
 and told that this was * Kitchener ' wheat, and 
 that it possessed the satisfactory peculiarity of 
 being unaffected by ' rust,' and was being 
 successfully used to blend with other samples 
 of wheat in East Africa. It transpired that this 
 wheat had been obtained from South Africa, 
 some 2,000 miles away, and was a product of 
 blending by my Boer friends of the wheat I had 
 sent them with their own wheat, to which, with- 
 out my knowledge, they had given my name. 
 So as my grandfather's name has been handed 
 down in connection with barley, mine is now- 
 attached to a special kind of wheat. If any of 
 my friends here would like a sample of * Kit- 
 chener ' wheat I have no doubt it could be 
 procured." 
 
230 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Lord Kitchener was in Ireland when early on 
 July 13 came news of the death of Sir Eldon 
 Gorst, who had succeeded Lord Cromer in 
 Egypt ; at once he crossed to England, and 
 before the day was over had had a long inter- 
 view at the Foreign Office. It was generally 
 recognised that he was the most fitting successor 
 to Sir Eldon Gorst, and the announcement was 
 soon made that the new British Agent and 
 Consul-General in Egypt would be Field-Marshal 
 Lord Kitchener. If there was some criticism of 
 the appointment, owing to a national prejudice 
 against the placing of military officers in civil 
 employments, it was more or less silenced by 
 the Foreign Minister's frank recognition that 
 Lord Kitchener was the best man available for 
 the work. As he said in the House of Commons : 
 
 " I am confident that the qualities possessed 
 by Lord Kitchener, his special knowledge and 
 experience in Egyptian affairs, and his im- 
 partiality and capacity make the appointment 
 one which will command general confidence. 
 He has shown great capacity, not only as a 
 soldier. The appointment in Egypt is an 
 exceedingly difficult one to fill, as everybody 
 knows. It requires special knowledge, specia 
 experience, and special qualities. I do not 
 
BACK TO EGYPT. 231 
 
 know of anyone who possesses that special 
 knowledge and experience and those qualities 
 in so high a degree/' 
 
 It is not too much to say that in a very special 
 sense Lord Kitchener was the only man for the 
 post at the time ; the man whose long, varied 
 and highly successful work in Egypt and the Sou- 
 dan made him peculiarly acceptable to many, 
 and one whose power as an organiser was well 
 tried and well known. 
 
 The strong line which he had taken ever since 
 his experiences in South Africa in emphasising 
 the need of some training for the young manhood 
 of the nation must have made him watch with 
 interest the growth of the Boy Scout movement, 
 and it is not surprising that he agreed to become 
 the president of a detachment of these earnest 
 lads. This detachment was the First North 
 London Boy Scouts, and in presenting prizes 
 to some of them in July he said that he was glad 
 to know that they were to spend a week in camp 
 in Broome Park, and told them that he had 
 postponed a visit to Scotland so as to be at 
 home when the troop arrived, that he might 
 welcome them there in August. When, on 
 September 17, he left Liverpool Street on his 
 w»y to take up his new work in Egypt, the 
 
232 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Scouts turned up at the Station to bid him fare- 
 well, and he made them just such a little speech 
 of recognition, kindliness, and encouragement 
 as they were most likely to appreciate : '* Now, 
 my boys, it is very good of you to come to see 
 me off to Egypt, and I am glad to see you. I 
 hope you will all work hard, and keep the scout 
 law while I am away. When I come back I 
 hope to see you again at my home at Broome 
 Park, and I trust you will again be able to have 
 some sport with the rabbits. Once again, I am 
 glad to see you a 11.^' 
 
 Reaching Egypt at the end of September, Lord 
 Kitchener duly presented his credentials to the 
 Khedive, and is reported to have said in the 
 course of the interview that he was particularly 
 pleased with the prospect of being called upon 
 to maintain the deep sympathy which animated 
 his predecessor in his relations with His Highness, 
 and that he hoped that such sympathy, added 
 to sixteen years of friendship for Egypt, would 
 facilitate his task. He added that he had 
 watched with profound pleasure the progress of 
 the country, and that all his wishes and efforts 
 would be towards the maintenance and further- 
 ing of that progress. How well his work was done 
 the record of Egypt during the following two 
 
BACK TO EGYPT. 233 
 
 and a-half years plainly shows, and may be gath- 
 ered in detail from the periodical reports on that 
 country presented to Parliament. An American 
 critic declared that " Sir Eldon Gorst's mild and 
 tolerant rule was breeding anarchy. The hour 
 called for a strong man,'* In Lord Kitchener 
 that strong man was found. 
 
 Some remarkable stories were told about the 
 appointment a few months after it had been made 
 notably that by arrangement between England 
 and Italy the latter country did not send her 
 ultimatum to Turkey in the matter of Tripoli 
 until Lord Kitchener had arrived in Cairo. 
 The story had probably nothing more of truth in 
 it than an assumption based on the fact that the 
 day after the arrival of the new British Consul- 
 General at his post, Italy did send an ultimatum 
 to Turkey. Various anecdotes were repeated 
 indicating his tactfulness in dealing with the 
 situation that arose when Turkey — then suzerain 
 power over Egypt — ^was at war with Italy ; one 
 may be cited as a specimen. 
 
 A deputation of Bedouin chiefs is said to have 
 waited on Lord Kitchener to prefer a request 
 that they might raise their tribes and go to 
 Tripoli and fight against the Italians. Lord 
 Kitchener is reported to have complimented 
 
234 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 them on their courage, and then to have pointed 
 out that their tribes being nomadic had hitherto 
 not been called upon for military service, but that 
 if they were so anxious for fighting he would 
 sec that in future they were made subject to 
 the conscription law ; a hint that sufficed to 
 make them refrain from pressing their request. 
 These stories, which appeared in an article in 
 one of the leading reviews, two months later 
 received a very direct contradiction in an 
 article by Sir George Arthur*, in which he 
 declared emphatically that " not one of the 
 spurious anecdotes cited in supposed illustration 
 of the arbitrary tendency attributed to the 
 British Consul-Gencral, is significant of any- 
 thing but the gullibility that credits them, and 
 the irresponsibility that gives them currency." 
 Of Lord Kitchener's work as Administrator, 
 Sir George Arthur said, " Lord Kitchener is of 
 those who think the end more important than 
 the means — who believe that the work to be 
 done matters more than the particular machine 
 to be employed in doing it. His long and 
 intimate knowledge of Egypt and the Egyptians 
 assures him that the prosperity of the country 
 depends, not on a pedantic and indiscriminate 
 * Fortnightly Rntino, Jmly, zoza. 
 
BACK TO EGYPT. 235 
 
 adherence to any particular dogma or formula, 
 but on the continuous application of a well- 
 tried policy of enlightened administration and 
 constructive social effort/' That policy worked 
 with considerable success, and despite the 
 Turko-Italian war Egypt remained quiet but for 
 more or less insignificant episodes, and the pros- 
 perity and progress of the country continued in 
 a gratifying fashion. 
 
 In the early part of the new year (191 2) Lord 
 Kitchener journeyed to Khartoum, where he 
 had a most cordial reception, and delivered a 
 speech, in which he was able to speak confidently 
 of the future of the Soudan. There, too, he 
 must have felt much gratification at learning 
 how his confidence had been justified in the 
 matter of the Gordon Memorial College, for in 
 the annual report for 191 1 it was stated that 
 over five hundred students had passed out of 
 the College and become employed by the Soudan 
 Government and not more than ten per cent, 
 had failed to give complete satisfaction ! 
 Eloquent testimony this to the statesmanlike 
 view which the victor of Omdurman had at once 
 taken of the rc-conquercd Soudan and its 
 possibilities. 
 
 In May of 191 2, Lord Kitchener travelled 
 
236 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 to Malta to meet the Prime Minister (Mr. 
 Asquith) and the First Lord of the Admiralty 
 (Mr. Winston Churchill), when much gossip was 
 rife as to the meeting and its significance, despite 
 the fact that it was stated to be of a merely 
 private character. Shortly after there was 
 published the first report in which the British 
 Consul-General reviewed the position of affairs 
 in Egypt ; a report which showed that much 
 was going forward both in the establishing of 
 public works which should be aids to future 
 prosperity and in the amelioration of the con* 
 dition of the people, no less important a factor 
 in that prosperity. To the latter end, as might 
 be gathered from his record in connection with 
 the Khartoum College, Lord Kitchener has 
 always laid stress upon the value of a wisely 
 planned system of education. In one of the 
 tours of the Egyptian provinces that he made 
 in these early months of his Consulship, Lord 
 Kitchener may well have appreciated the ap- 
 preciation shown in an inscription that met him 
 in one of the towns — ** Hail ! Friend of the 
 Fellaheen/' 
 
 Though there was not wanting among the 
 mixed populations of Cairo and the other chief 
 towns some of that political agitation which has 
 
BACK TO EGYPT. 237 
 
 long been a feature of Egyptian life, the influence 
 of Lord Kitchener had a steadying effect, and 
 that though he relaxed the drastic laws against 
 agitators. Despite this fact, however, in the 
 summer of 191 2 — just as the British Agent was 
 about to return to England for a brief holiday — 
 a plot was discovered which had for its effect 
 the assassination of the Khedive, the Egyptian 
 Premier and Lord Kitchener. Three of the 
 conspirators were arrested and shortly brought 
 to trial, the ringleader being sentenced to 
 fifteen years hard labour, and the other two 
 each to fifteen years imprisonment. 
 
 At the end of September Lord Kitchener 
 returned to Egypt, and for the succeeding nine 
 months was continuing his steady work in the 
 organising of a country's prosperity ; he visited 
 the Soudan to see the progress of certain agri- 
 cultural tests, the results of which gave sufficient 
 encouragement to start on a development scheme 
 on a large scale ; he inaugurated the new town 
 drainage works planned for Port Said, and went 
 on a tour through Lower Egypt. In issuing 
 his second report (1913) he was able to draw 
 attention to the lessening of party feeling and 
 the growing confidence in the Egyptian Govern- 
 mcnt which augured well for the future ; he 
 
ajg SARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 touched upon the attitude of the Egyptians 
 in the Balkan Wars, and showed how neutrality 
 was maintained despite the fact that only a 
 few of the people had any real idea of the 
 deterioration sapping the power of Turkey ; 
 he pointed out that financially the prosperity 
 of Egypt depended upon the price of cotton, thus 
 rendering the country peculiarly liable to alter- 
 nations of inflation and depression ; and further 
 he stated that the completion of the Assuan 
 Dam in the preceding December would provide 
 for considerable addition to the existing culti- 
 vated area, and that other irrigation schemes 
 in hand and proposed for further increasing the 
 cultivable area of the Delta and the Upper Nile 
 included the erecting of a new dam at a point on 
 theWhite Nile about forty miles above Khartoum. 
 While thus helping forward in all ways the 
 prosperity of the country in which he held so 
 powerful and responsible a position, Lord 
 Kitchener it had been noted did not neglect 
 those tactful, personal things which helped to 
 strengthen the tics between the occupying 
 power and the people of the country occupied. 
 He appointed a native aide-de-camp, and he 
 made himself as far as possible accessible to 
 those wishing so consult him. 
 
BACK TO EGYPT. 239 
 
 When at home during the autumn of 1913 
 Lord Kitchener stayed for several days with 
 King George at Balmoral Shortly after his 
 return to Egypt there were rumours that the 
 health of Lord Hardinge, Viceroy in India, 
 might make it necessary for him to resign, and 
 it was suggested that Lord Kitchener might 
 be appointed so succeed him, one newspaper 
 correspondent going so far as to state that he 
 was known to desire the appointment. After 
 long years of service in Egypt, he had returned 
 to that country as occupant of the highest 
 post it offered, and there would have seemed 
 something peculiarly happy in his repeating 
 that proud experience in India — but destiny 
 had other work in store for him. 
 
CHAPTER XIL 
 
 THE GREAT WAR. 
 
 Since, in 1902, Lord Rosebery had suggested 
 that the most fitting position which the great 
 master of military organisation could be called 
 upon to fill should be one that would give him 
 the opportunity of remodelling our War Office, 
 the view had been repeated by several critics. 
 But, as one of them put it Lord Kitchener's 
 hour had not struck, It was to strike with 
 wholly unexpected suddenness during the 
 summer of 1914, and at a moment when men 
 of the most diverse views should realise that 
 with the hour he was the only possible man. 
 The events of the past few months are, however, 
 ^o fresh in men's memories, that it will not 
 be necessary here to enlarge upon them. 
 
 It may be regarded as something of a piece 
 of national luck that during those closing days 
 of July, when the madness of Germany was seen 
 to be making the coming of war on a stupendous 
 scale inevitable, that the British Agent and 
 
THE GREAT WAR. 241 
 
 Consul General in Egypt should have been in 
 England, and immediately available for occu- 
 pying the post to which British confidence 
 at once nominated him. In the very week in 
 which war was declared Lord Kitchener had 
 arranged to return to Egypt, and it is not too 
 much to say that there was something of a 
 national sigh of reUef when the Prime Minister 
 announced that in view of the crisis that had 
 arisen he had undertaken the duties of Secretary 
 of State for War. 
 
 On the evening of August 5 th it was known 
 all over the world that Great Britain was at 
 war with Germany ; on the evening of the next 
 day Mr. Asquith in the course of a magnificent 
 speech in the House of Commons announced 
 that it would no longer be right for him to 
 double the parts of Prime Minister and Secretary 
 of State for War and he added : " I am very 
 glad to say that a very distinguished soldier 
 and administrator in the person of Lord 
 Kitchener, with the great public spirit and 
 patriotism that every one would expect from 
 him, at my request stepped into the breach. 
 Lord Kitchener, as every one knows, is not a 
 politician. His association with the Govern- 
 ment as a member of the Cabinet for this purpose 
 
 ££ 
 
l\2 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 must not be taken as in any way identifying 
 him with any set of poUtical opinions. He has 
 at a great pubHc emergency responded to a 
 great public call, and I am certain he will have 
 wdth him in the discharge of one of the most 
 arduous tasks that has ever fallen "upon a 
 Minister the complete confidence of all parties 
 and all opinions. I am asking on his behalf 
 for the Army power to increase the number of 
 men in all ranks, in addition to the men already 
 voted, by no less than half a million men." 
 
 Mr. Asquith's tribute felicitously expressed 
 the national feeling, for it is not too much to 
 say that Lord Kitchener has never forfeited 
 that " blind confidence of the British public '' 
 which as it was put some years ago he gained 
 as the Sirdar ; the English public had come 
 to believe in him so thoroughly as to expect 
 him to be allowed a .free hand in carrying out 
 the work which he had undertaken. Nor has that 
 confidence only been felt at home, it was and is 
 Empire-wide ; while early in the war the way in 
 which Lord Kitchener has woA and held the 
 esteem of Egypt was illustrated by the splendid 
 gift, from the Sheikhs of Egypt and the Soudan, 
 of fifteen hundred high-bred Arab horses for 
 the use of the British Army ; a gift which was 
 
THE GREAT WAR. 243 
 
 said to be a personal offering to Lord Kitchener. 
 
 It has been recorded that during his Soudan, 
 campaign Lord Kitchener would talk openly 
 and convincingly upon the need of reforms in 
 the War Office and the Army, that his ideas as 
 to changes were frequently novel and always 
 radical, and calculated to cause considerable 
 disturbance of the equanimity of those who 
 supported the routine of things as they were. 
 Now Lord Kitchener has arrived at the War 
 Office his task is one immeasurably greater ; 
 it is not an office that he has to organise but a 
 war, and a war on a scale without any precedent 
 in our history. Of the organisation and course 
 of that war it is too early to speak though the 
 first six months have shown us much that is 
 heartening in both respects, and have served 
 to stiffen the public resolution in carrying 
 through a struggle in which the national honour, 
 and even the national existence is at stake, and 
 the public confidence in the man on whom falls 
 the duty of organising that resolution. 
 
 When in Aiigust, the first portion of the 
 British Expeditionary Army went to the Con- 
 tinent, Lord Kitchener issued to every soldier 
 a message to carry about with him, a message 
 which in its simple straightforwardness, and un- 
 
244 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 preachy insistence upon the moral attitude 
 looked for in a British soldier, is a characteristic 
 utterance which must be quoted in its entirety 
 in any story of its writer^ s life : 
 
 " You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the 
 King to help our French comrades against the 
 invasion of a common enemy. You have to 
 perform a task which will need your courage, 
 your energy, your patience. Remember that 
 the honour of the British Army depends on 
 your individual conduct. 
 
 " It will be your duty not only to set an 
 example of discipline and perfect steadiness 
 under fire, but also to maintain the most friendly 
 relations with those whom you are helping in 
 the struggle. The operations in which you arc 
 engaged, will for the most part, take place in a 
 friendly country, and you can do your country 
 no better service than in showing yourself in 
 France and Belgium in the true character of a 
 British soldier. 
 
 " Be invariably courteous, considerate, and 
 kind. Never do anything likely to injure or 
 destroy property, and always look upon looting 
 as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet 
 with a welcome and to be trusted ; your conduct 
 must justify that welcome and that trust. 
 
THE GREAT WAR. Z4S 
 
 " Your duty cannot be done unless your 
 health is sound. So keep constantly on your 
 guard against any excesses. In this new ex- 
 perience you may find temptations both in 
 wine and women. You must entirely resist 
 both temptations, and, while treating all women 
 with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any 
 intimacy. 
 
 " Do your duty bravely, 
 
 " Fear God, 
 
 " Honour the King. 
 
 Kitchener, 
 
 Field-Marshal." 
 
 It was on August 25 that Lord Kitchener, 
 on the reassembhng of Parliament, made his 
 first speech in the House of Lords, that chamber 
 of which he had been a member for sixteen 
 years ; and that " maiden ** speech was made as 
 a member of the Cabinet, thus estabHshing what 
 is probably a Parliamentary " record " quite 
 in accordance with his whole career. The War 
 Minister began by emphasising Mr. AsquitVs 
 statement of nearly three weeks earlier, dis- 
 sociating himself from any party predilections 
 with the simple words " I have no politics," 
 and he went on to class himself with the recruits 
 of what had come to be known as " Kitchener's 
 
246 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Army " ; " The terms of my service are the 
 same as those under which some of the finest 
 portions of our manhood, now so wilKngly 
 stepping forward to join the colours^ are engaging 
 — that is to say, for the war, or if it lasts longer 
 than three years, then for three years. It has 
 been asked why the latter limit has been fixed. 
 It is because, should this disastrous war be 
 prolonged and no one can foretell with any 
 certainty its duration — then after three years 
 war there will be others fresh and fully prepared 
 to take our places and see this matter through." 
 The whole speech was remarkable for its 
 straightforward, unrhetorical statement of the 
 case, of what had been and was being done in 
 the mobilising of the forces of the Empire, and 
 of what it might still be necessary to do in the 
 protracted struggle : '^ The Empires with whom 
 we are at war have called to the Colours almost 
 their entire male populations. The principle 
 which we on our part shall observe is this — that 
 while their maximum force undergoes a constant 
 diminution, the reinforcements we prepare shall 
 steadily and increasingly flow out until we have 
 an Army in the field which, in numbers not less 
 than in quaHty, will be not unworthy of the 
 power i^nd responsibiHty of the British Empire, 
 
THE GREAT WAR. 247 
 
 I cannot at this stage say what will be the limits 
 of the forces required, or what measures may 
 eventually become necessary to supply and 
 maintain them. The scale of the Field Army 
 which we are now calling into being is large, 
 and may rise in the course of the next six or 
 seven months to a total of thirty divisions 
 continually maintained in the field. But if 
 the war should be protracted, and if its fortunes 
 should be varied or adverse, exertions and 
 sacrifices beyond any which have been demanded 
 will be required from the whole nation and 
 Empire, and where they are required we are 
 sure they will not be denied to the extreme needs 
 of the State by -Parliament or the people." 
 
 The speech from which these passages are 
 cited created an admirable impression and 
 served to strengthen the national feehng towards 
 the speaker. Three weeks later Earl Kitchener 
 delivered another speech in the House of Lords 
 when he was able to say " the tide has now 
 turned " and to pay well deserved tribute to 
 Field Marshal Sir John French, the Commander- 
 in-Chief, of the British Army co-operating with 
 the French armies in the field, and to the officers 
 and men who were so finely and doggedly 
 maintaining the best traditions of the British 
 
248 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 Army in peculiarly trying circumstances. The 
 speech was listened to with the greatest interest, 
 and its spirit was of that kind which resolutely 
 recognises the difficulties of a situation and by 
 that very fact is strengthened to face them. 
 One of Lord Kitchener^s hearers on this occasion 
 said, ^' as he stood at the table, rigid and erect, 
 he impressed one as a man of unusually powerful 
 frame. His strongly marked face has a stern, 
 set look ; it is somewhat lacking in animation, 
 but power, grim power, is writ over it in indelible 
 characters.'* 
 
 In November, as a guest of the City at the 
 Lord Mayor's banquet, Earl Kitchener made a 
 further speech in which he took the opportunity 
 of rendering ^' tribute of praise, of highest 
 appreciation and of warmest gratitude '' to 
 " our gallant AUies " — French, Russian, Belgian, 
 Japanese, Serbian and Montenegrin — each of 
 whom was heroically bearing its part in the 
 struggle against the dominating, demoralising 
 and deadening cult of militarism* 
 
 On November 14 Lord Kitchener's old com- 
 rade in arms — the greatest soldier of his 
 generation, and perhaps the most widely popular 
 of all England's military heroes — Lord Roberts, 
 died suddenly while visiting the Indian troops 
 
THE GREAT WAR. 249 
 
 at the Front in France. Five days later one 
 of the pall-bearers, when all that was mortal 
 of the beloved " Bobs '' was buried at St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, was Lord Kitchener who the night 
 before had paid eloquently simple homage to 
 his old chief " the greatest soldier of our day,'* 
 saying, " I, more than most men, had occasion 
 to learn and admire his qualities of head and 
 heart ; his ripe experience and sage counsel 
 were fully and freely offered me to the end." 
 
 FF 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE TRAGIC CLOSE. 
 
 When the earlier chapters of this narrative 
 of Lord Kitchener's Hfe were written, the great 
 soldier-statesman was occupying one of the 
 most onerous positions not only in the British 
 Empire but among all the great Allies engaged 
 in the grim task of destroying the monster of 
 German miHtarism ; he was utiHsing his genius 
 for organisation and action unostentatiously 
 but powerfully, and retaining the quiet con- 
 fidence of all. Now, with the greatest part of 
 his work achieved, but with the end at which 
 that work was directed as yet unattained, 
 though, thanks to his unflagging energy and grip, 
 brought appreciably nearer, it has become sadly 
 necessary to speak of Earl Kitchener in the 
 past tense. With terrible, almost stupefying 
 suddenness, at a dramatic moment in the world 
 contest, the great figure that had commanded 
 our respect, our admiration and our trust dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 It was on the evening of June 5, 1916, in 
 
 ^30 
 
THE TRAGIC CLOSE. 251 
 
 stormy weather to the west of the Orkneys that 
 H.M.S. " Hampshire " struck a mine and dis- 
 appeared. With the news of her loss came also 
 the first intimation that the cruiser had on 
 board Lord Kitchener and his staff bound for 
 Russia, and that with the rough weather pre- 
 vaiHng at the time there was little hope that 
 any of them could have been saved. The news 
 proved to be tragically true. Of the hundreds 
 of men aboard the " Hampshire " but a raft 
 load of a dozen members of the crew came 
 safely to land. 
 
 The work achieved by Lord Kitchener during 
 the twenty momentous months of his service 
 as Secretary of State for War was of a character 
 which we shall scarcely be able to appreciate 
 to the full until the Great War is over ; then it 
 may be well believed it will be seen that his 
 great abilities were greatly used to the end. What 
 we see broadly now is that his organising and 
 administrative genius raised an army of millions 
 of men, trained, equipped, and despatched them 
 to the fronts in a fashion which would have 
 seemed impossible of achievement a few years 
 earlier. It was, indeed, a happy thing for the 
 country that it was able to command the services 
 of a man who would not recognise the word 
 
252 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 " impossible " and who had for his motto the 
 single word ^' Thorough/' Lord Kitchener knew 
 his countrymen better than they knew them- 
 selves, and his successive demands for more 
 men for training were cheerfully and readily 
 responded to, even to the acceptance of com- 
 pulsory service, when such was shown to be 
 necessary to the successful prosecution of the 
 war. This side of his work as organiser of 
 victory is known in its general result ; time 
 alone will reveal in full detail the part he played. 
 His unhasting strength, cool confidence and 
 stern resolution were shown on the rare occasions 
 on which he was called upon to report progress 
 which he did from time to time in terse direct 
 statements, which were but the more impressive 
 from their lack of any attempt at rhetorical 
 speaking for effect. 
 
 Of single episodes notable in these closing 
 twenty months of Lord Kitchener's career, 
 there are but few calling for mention in a personal 
 biography. His life story during that period 
 may be said to be part of the story of the Great 
 War itself — a story as yet unfinished, but one 
 in the course of which the name of Lord Kitchener 
 will inevitably be seen as that of a strenuous 
 single-minded worker whose genius was of in- 
 
THE TRAGIC CLOSE. 253 
 
 calculable value to his country in the time of 
 deepest trial. 
 
 Before the close of the year 1914 honour was 
 done to Lord Kitchener by his being appointed 
 to the position of Colonel-in-Chief of the Irish 
 Guards, in succession to his mourned comrade- 
 in-arms, Earl Roberts — thus associating his 
 name afresh with the land of his birth. In the 
 following year he was still further honoured by 
 the rare distinction of being made a Knight of 
 the Garter. Apart from his work at the War 
 Office, though of course connected with it, 
 Lord Kitchener's service during the War in- 
 cluded visits to the armies in the field, and to 
 the Staffs of Britain's Continental Allies. There 
 were journeys to Paris, and the front in France 
 and Flanders ; there was a momentous visit to 
 the Gallipoli peninsula, preceding the with- 
 drawal of the Allied forces from their positions 
 there ; and it was in response to an invitation 
 to confer with our Russian Allies at Pctrograd 
 that he started on that northern voyage which 
 was to have so early and tragic a close. 
 
 Only three days before setting out on that 
 fateful voyage, in consequence of a certain 
 amount of criticism which had been levelled 
 against him as War Secretary, Lord Kitchener 
 
254 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 had adopted with soldierly directness a novel 
 method of dealing with his critics. As a member 
 of the House of Lords he was unable to meet 
 the elected representatives of the people in 
 Parliament, therefore he invited the members 
 of the House of Commons to meet him privately 
 so that he might frankly discuss the situation 
 with them. The meeting took place on Friday, 
 June 2, a date which will assuredly remain 
 memorable in Parliamentary annals. Of those 
 who attended that gathering it may well be 
 beheved that many who came to criticise 
 remained to praise. That, in effect, was the 
 last public appearance of the great soldier- 
 War-Minister. On Friday he had his private 
 straight talk with members of Parhament — on 
 Tuesday came the news, sudden, appalling, 
 stunning, that he was drowned. 
 
 Speaking in the House of Commons on the 
 last day of May the Prime Minister had paid 
 ready tribute to his colleague at the War Office, 
 declaring that for Lord Kitchener's services 
 rendered since the outbreak of the War " the 
 Army, the Country, and the Empire are under 
 a debt which cannot be measured in words," 
 and it is pleasant to realise that the eulogium 
 was paid while its subject was still in the full 
 
THE TRAGIC CLOSE. 255 
 
 flush of his powers, when none could dream that 
 the end was so near. 
 
 Something of our debt to Lord Kitchener 
 may be realised by considering the extent to 
 which the personality of the master-organiser 
 had impressed itself on the imagination of the 
 people of the Empire — so that to him more 
 than to any other single individual it may be 
 said that the confidence of the most diverse 
 men was unhesitatingly and unquestioningly 
 given. From the first he had recognised that 
 the War would be a long and stubborn struggle, 
 and had steadily set himself to the perfecting 
 of his country's forces for the end in view. In 
 this, the great task to which he was called as 
 it were by acclamation, he showed those qualities 
 of concentration on the perfecting of means 
 to an end which had characterised the whole 
 of his career. Not for him the dash of hazardous 
 enterprise for a spectacular result that might 
 not be achieved, but rather that thoughtful 
 and patient preparation which is the nearest 
 we can get to commanding success by deserving 
 it. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most remarkable tributes 
 to the personality of Lord Kitchener is that 
 instead of looking, as so many did in the earlier 
 
2^6 EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM. 
 
 months of the War, for some brilliantly impos- 
 sible coup which should bring about instant 
 victory, we may say that the nation as a whole 
 has acquired something of his sternness of pur- 
 pose, something of his forceful determination 
 and grim resolution, and settled down to win 
 through by patient work whatever the cost. 
 The national confidence which called Lord 
 Kitchener to the War Office was never forfeited, 
 perhaps it may be said that essentially it was 
 but strengthened as the months passed — that 
 by the time Kitchener died the whole nation 
 had become informed with something of " the 
 Kitchener spirit.*' 
 
 In mournfully closing this story of a life thus 
 prematurely rounded off by death, it may not 
 be inappropriate to use once more those words of 
 Lord Kitchener's which may be regarded as a 
 revelation of the character of the man himself, 
 and a lesson to us all : " The development and 
 elevation of the character of a people depends 
 mainly on the growth of self-control and the 
 power to dominate natural impulses, as well 
 as on the practice of unobtrusive self-reliance 
 and perseverance, combined with reasoned 
 determination.'*