Herbert Kitchener, First Earl Kitchener

British military leader and politician

• Born: June 24, 1850
• Birthplace: Near Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland
• Died: June 5, 1916
• Place of death: Off the Orkney Islands, Scotland

Kitchener held many military and imperial positions throughout the Middle East between 1874 and 1899. He was commander in chief of British forces in the Boer War. He served as the secretary of state for war during World War I and was the architect for Great Britain’s victory, and he was regarded as a symbol of Britain’s will to victory.

Early Life

Lord Kitchener was born near Listowel, County Kerry, in Ireland. His father, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Horatio Kitchener, had retired from the military because of his wife’s failing health. The family lived a solitary life, and the children were educated by private tutors. From his father, a martinet, the young Kitchener learned a code of discipline and honor that would guide him for the rest of his life. His father also taught him to believe in English superiority to other groups and races. Kitchener was thirteen when his mother’s health necessitated a move to the Alps. There, for the first time, he attended a formal school where, through hard work, he excelled in mathematics and French.

Kitchener’s military career began in 1868 when he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, England. He was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1871, and three years later he was posted to the Middle East. His various postings and tasks included the surveying of Palestine (1874-1878), the surveying of Cyprus (1878-1882), military command and action with the Egyptian army (1882-1883), the surveying of the Sinai Peninsula (1883), action against the Sudanese (1884-1885), governor-generalship of the Eastern Sudan (1886-1888), and adjutant generalship in Egypt (1888-1892).

During these formative years, Kitchener developed the talents that made him the leader he became. His early assignments were often lonely and dangerous, yet his honor required that he perform tasks to the best of his ability. Kitchener was fascinated by the peoples of the Middle East; his linguistic facility enabled him to learn Arabic and to work closely with natives, particularly Egyptians. He was courageous and never asked his men to do anything that he would not himself do. Indeed, Kitchener often disguised himself as a native to obtain intelligence for military needs. On the negative side, he seldom took others into his confidence and was rarely willing to delegate authority. Still, his successes ensured Kitchener’s reputation as an authority on Arabic customs and as a brave and able soldier.

Life’s Work

In 1892, Kitchener was appointed sirdar (commander in chief) of the Egyptian army; under his leadership, it became a credible fighting force. When the British government learned of French interests in the upper Nile region, Kitchener was ordered to invade the Sudan. For two and a half years, Kitchener’s Anglo-Egyptian army methodically moved up the Nile. Finally, in September, 1898, he and his army arrived at Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum. In a fierce battle, the Sudanese forces were annihilated, thereby ending the River War. With a strong detachment of troops, Kitchener continued southward along the Nile to Fashoda, where Major Jean-Baptiste Marchand had raised the French flag. There, in December, he diplomatically dealt with Marchand, thereby allowing London and Paris to defuse the international crisis. For his various military successes, he was created Baron Kitchener, of Khartoum, and was appointed governor-general of the Sudan.

Following the outbreak of the Boer War in October, 1899, British forces suffered numerous military disasters at the hands of the Boers. Field Marshal Sir F. S. Roberts was appointed commander in chief of the British forces sent to the area. Kitchener was appointed his chief of staff. His prodigious energy swiftly resulted in the reorganization of the transport system, which increased the mobility of the British forces. Within a year, Roberts and Kitchener defeated the organized Boer forces and occupied the major Boer cities. Roberts, believing the war to be won, returned to London, leaving Kitchener to end it.

In reality, the war had only entered a new phase. The major Boer leaders were still at large, and the loss of their major cities freed them from the restraints of conventional warfare. Kitchener immediately appreciated the task facing him. He believed that guerrilla warfare could be combated only through denial of supplies to the guerrillas. He therefore ordered all Boer women and children to be collected in secure camps (called concentration camps), all farms and supplies to be burned or destroyed, defensive positions to be constructed across the veldt, and mobile columns to pursue without pause the Boer commandos. For eighteen months, this bitter and ugly phase of the war continued; the Boers were finally forced to surrender. Nevertheless, as brutal as he had been in warfare, his patience and moderation in the peace negotiations led to the successful Peace of Vereeniging in May, 1902. Kitchener was now regarded by the average Briton as a national hero.

On his return to England from South Africa, Kitchener was awarded a viscountcy and then was posted to India. As commander in chief of British forces in India, Kitchener reorganized the Indian army. As in Egypt, his changes transformed a moribund colonial army into a vital military force. This was to prove invaluable, as India was to provide substantive military assistance to Great Britain during World War I. Kitchener departed India in 1909 and was promoted to field marshal. After serving as a member of the Committee of Imperial Defense, he was appointed consul-general of Egypt (1911-1914), where he devoted himself to social reforms and economic development. He received an earldom in 1914.

With the outbreak of World War I , Kitchener was appointed secretary of state for war. There was no one more qualified or who commanded more public respect than he. His awareness of the military capabilities of the British Empire was second to none, and his lifetime of military experience had prepared him for the necessities of mobilizing an army. Although few agreed with him, he believed that the war would last at least three years, and he worked to triple the size of the army and to provide for it. As he had spent most of his life away from Great Britain, however, he was ill-prepared either to work with government departments or to relate to politicians. Kitchener preferred to keep his own counsel and to oversee everything. This was to result in his undertaking too much responsibility, as well as friction with those in power. Moreover, his methods often lacked system. Kitchener knew what had to be done, but frequently he did not know how to do it (then again, no one else did, either).

Despite Kitchener’s efforts to supply the needs of the army, there were numerous shortages in France. This led to a waning of his influence in the War Cabinet. His authority over war production was shifted to others in 1915, and his control over strategy was removed in 1916. Although privately made the scapegoat for the military failures of those years, Kitchener himself continued to behave with dignity and purpose. He offered to resign and to return to field command, but the politicians realized that public opinion would never have permitted it. Instead, his prestige was utilized to improve relations with Great Britain’s allies, especially France. In 1916, he embarked on a mission to Russia. On June 5, his ship, HMS Hampshire, struck a German mine off the Orkney Islands and sank. Kitchener was drowned.

Significance

Kitchener’s death provoked an immediate outpouring of national grief. He had been a symbol of national unity and purpose; indeed, a stylized portrait of Kitchener, replete with bushy mustache, on a recruiting poster, was the single most visible reminder to the war generation of their duty to serve king and country. As the war dragged on, however, and as the Kitchener volunteers were decimated in the trenches of Flanders, this symbolism was tarnished. After the war, the nation preferred to forget the man who had presided over the national sacrifice. Kitchener’s reputation also suffered at the hands of his political enemies. Eager to blame the appalling costs of the war on others, numerous self-serving memoirs reviled the dead Kitchener as having been a prime cause of the failures during the war. Furthermore, as the Empire crumbled, symbols of imperial greatness were also discarded. Thus, within a few years of his death, Kitchener had become at best a footnote and at worst a scapegoat. A study of Kitchener’s life, however, offers insight into the dynamic forces affecting the Great Britain of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

As one of the great builders and shapers of late Victorian British imperial greatness, Kitchener epitomized the winning and maintaining of empire. At Omdurman, he fought and won a colonial war; in South Africa, he was the architect of victory of the first modern war of the twentieth century. As a peacemaker, his efforts at Fashoda and Vereeniging demonstrated not only ability but also compassion and common sense. As an administrator in the Sudan, in Egypt, and in India, he was sincere in his desire to improve that which he found and to build a better British world. In each of these tasks, however, Kitchener was free to make decisions imperially, that is, he was accountable to no one but himself. His inability to delegate and his hesitancy to communicate were not major handicaps in areas where his word was law.

When Kitchener was chosen to administrate Great Britain’s efforts in World War I, he was a military man among politicians. His imperial demeanor led to tension and friction that ultimately undermined his effect. That he accomplished what he did is a real testament to his genius. Under his direction, Great Britain produced its first mass army of volunteers. His strategy was global in nature, while most politicians could see only the western front. Most significantly, he developed the system that provided the army with the supplies needed to fight a war of unprecedented scale. Kitchener was the architect for Great Britain’s victory in World War I. He died before the structure he designed was completed.

Bibliography

Cassar, George H. Kitchener: Architect of Victory. London: William Kimber, 1977. A balanced, comprehensive, analytical study of Kitchener. This work is particularly significant for its analysis of Kitchener’s contributions to the war effort in World War I.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Kitchener’s War: British Strategy from 1914 to 1916. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 2004. Examines how Kitchener recognized and perceived the larger issues of war facing Great Britain and the Allies, which led him to devise an effective military strategy for World War I.

Churchill, Winston S. The River War. 2 vols. London: Longmans, Green, 1899. A long, egoistic overview of the British war in the Sudan as written by a participant. Churchill was somewhat critical of Kitchener as commander, but his description of the campaign is picturesque.

Kruger, Rayne. Goodbye Dolly Gray. London: Cassell, 1959. A generally balanced overview of the Boer War. Although there have been several histories of that war published since this work, it is still the most readable available. See also The Boer War by Thomas Pakenham (1979).

Magnus, Philip. Kitchener: Portrait of an Imperialist. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1958. Primarily a chronological and favorable study of Kitchener’s life. Although it utilizes much source material, the work is lightly footnoted and lacks a bibliography.

Pollock, John Charles. Kitchener: Architect of Victory, Artisan of Peace. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001. Pollock describes the strengths and weaknesses of Kitchener’s character as a military leader and as a peacemaker.

Robertson, Sir William. From Private to Field Marshal. London: Cassell, 1921. Provides an inside look at managing the war effort. Robertson, a chief of the British General Staff during World War I, was well qualified to discuss Kitchener’s talents in his own autobiography.

Royle, Trevor. The Kitchener Enigma. London: Michael Joseph, 1985. A clear, concise, well-documented biography of an extraordinarily complex man. Although the public life of Kitchener is well studied, the forte of this work is its analysis of the man himself.

Scholtz, Leopold. Why the Boers Lost the War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Scholtz, a South African journalist and historian, analyzes the most important strategic decisions and military theories of both the Boers and the British to determine why Britain emerged victorious.

Spies, S. B. Methods of Barbarism? Capetown, South Africa: Human and Rousseau, 1977. A study of Kitchener’s strategy and its impact on civilians in the second phase of the Boer War. The work is particularly concerned with the conduct of the war according to then-accepted rules of war.