Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
Encyclopedia
Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG
Order of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...

, KP, GCB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

, OM
Order of Merit
The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...

, GCSI
Order of the Star of India
The Most Exalted Order of the Star of India is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1861. The Order includes members of three classes:# Knight Grand Commander # Knight Commander # Companion...

, GCMG
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

, GCIE
Order of the Indian Empire
The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1878. The Order includes members of three classes:#Knight Grand Commander #Knight Commander #Companion...

, ADC
Aide-de-camp
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...

, PC
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...

 (24 June 1850 – 5 June 1916), was an Irish-born British Field Marshal and proconsul
Proconsul
A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...

 who won fame for his imperial campaigns and later played a central role in the early part of the First World War, although he died halfway through it.

Kitchener won fame in 1898 for winning the Battle of Omdurman
Battle of Omdurman
At the Battle of Omdurman , an army commanded by the British Gen. Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad...

 and securing control of the Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, after which he was given the title "Lord Kitchener of Khartoum"; as Chief of Staff (1900–02) in the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...

 he played a key role in Lord Roberts' conquest of the Boer Republics, then succeeded Roberts as commander-in-chief – by which time Boer
Boer
Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer, which came to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th century, as well as those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to settle in the Orange Free State,...

 forces had taken to guerrilla fighting and British forces imprisoned Boer civilians in concentration camps. His term as Commander-in-Chief
Commander-in-Chief, India
During the period of the British Raj, the Commander-in-Chief, India was the supreme commander of the Indian Army. The Commander-in-Chief and most of his staff were based at General Headquarters, India, and liaised with the civilian Governor-General of India...

 (1902–09) of the Army in India saw him quarrel with another eminent proconsul
Proconsul
A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...

, the Viceroy Lord Curzon, who eventually resigned. Kitchener then returned to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 as British Agent and Consul-General (de facto administrator).

In 1914, at the start of the First World War, Lord Kitchener became Secretary of State for War
Secretary of State for War
The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...

, a Cabinet Minister. One of the few men to foresee a long war, one in which Britain's victory was far from secure, he organised the largest volunteer army that Britain, and indeed the Empire, had seen and a significant expansion of materials production to fight Germany on the Western Front. His commanding image, appearing on recruiting posters demanding "Your country needs you!
Lord Kitchener Wants You
A 1914 recruitment poster depicting Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War, above the words "WANTS YOU" was the most famous image used in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I. It has inspired many imitations.-Origins:...

", remains recognised and parodied in popular culture to this day. He was blamed for the shortage of shells in the spring of 1915 – one of the events leading to the formation of a coalition government – and stripped of his control over munitions and strategy.

He died in 1916 near the Orkney Islands
Orkney Islands
Orkney also known as the Orkney Islands , is an archipelago in northern Scotland, situated north of the coast of Caithness...

 when the warship taking him to negotiations in Russia was sunk by a German mine.

After his death Kitchener was often dismissed as a great poster but not a great administrator. He was criticised by Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

 – who may have taken credit for some of Kitchener's achievements in the field of munitions – in his War Memoirs and by others. After many years' experience of commanding relatively small forces in imperial campaigns, Kitchener had made his reputation worse by his habit of secrecy, unwillingness to explain his actions to his colleagues, and reluctance to organise and delegate.

However, since 1970, new records have opened and historians have to some extent rehabilitated Kitchener's reputation, one historian writing that he consistently rose in ability as he was promoted. Some historians now praise his strategic vision in World War I, especially his laying the groundwork for the expansion of munitions production and his central role in the raising of the British army in 1914 and 1915
British Army during World War I
The British Army during World War I fought the largest and most costly war in its long history. Unlike the French and German Armies, its units were made up exclusively of volunteers—as opposed to conscripts—at the beginning of the conflict...

, which provided an army capable of meeting Britain's continental commitment.

Early life

Kitchener was born in Ballylongford near Listowel, County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...

, in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, son of Lt. Col. Henry Horatio Kitchener (1805 – 1894) and Frances Anne Chevallier-Cole (d. 1864; daughter of The Rev.
The Reverend
The Reverend is a style most often used as a prefix to the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. The Reverend is correctly called a style but is often and in some dictionaries called a...

 John Chevallier and his third wife, Elizabeth, née
NEE
NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...

Cole). The family was of a notable Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...

 background: his father had only recently bought land in Ireland under a scheme to encourage the purchase of land after the recent potato famine. The year his mother died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

, they had moved to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 in an effort to improve her condition; the young Kitchener was educated there and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Pro-French and eager to see action, he joined a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 field ambulance unit in the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

. His father took him back to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 after he caught pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

 after ascending in a balloon to see the French Army of the Loire in action. He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....

 on 4 January 1871. His service in France had violated British neutrality, and he was reprimanded by the Duke of Cambridge
Prince George, Duke of Cambridge
Prince George, Duke of Cambridge was a member of the British Royal Family, a male-line grandson of King George III. The Duke was an army officer and served as commander-in-chief of the British Army from 1856 to 1895...

, the commander-in-chief. He served in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, and Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

 as a surveyor, learned Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

, and prepared detailed topographical maps of the areas.

Survey of Western Palestine

In 1874, at age 24, Kitchener was assigned by the Palestine Exploration Fund
Palestine Exploration Fund
The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society often simply known as the PEF. It was founded in 1865 and is still functioning today. Its initial object was to carry out surveys of the topography and ethnography of Ottoman Palestine with a remit that fell somewhere between an expeditionary...

 to a mapping-survey of the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

, replacing Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, who had died of malaria. Kitchener, then an officer in the Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....

, joined fellow Royal Engineer Claude R. Conder, and between 1874 and 1877 they surveyed what is today Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

, and Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...

, returning to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 only briefly in 1875 after an attack by locals in the Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...

, at Safed
Safed
Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...

.

Conder and Kitchener’s expedition became known as the Survey of Western Palestine because it was largely confined to the area west of the Jordan River (Hodson 1997). The survey collected data on the topography and toponomy of the area, as well as local flora and fauna. The results of the survey were published in an eight-volume series, with Kitchener’s contribution in the first three tomes (Conder and Kitchener 1881–1885).

This survey has had a lasting effect on the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

 for several reasons:
  • The ordnance survey serves as the basis for the grid system used in the modern maps of Israel
    Israel
    The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

     and Palestine
    Palestine
    Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

    .
  • The collection of data compiled by Conder and Kitchener are still consulted by archaeologists and geographers working in the southern Levant
    Levant
    The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

    .
  • The survey itself effectively delineated and defined the political borders of the southern Levant. For instance, the modern border between Israel
    Israel
    The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

     and Lebanon
    Lebanon
    Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

     is established at the point in the upper Galilee
    Galilee
    Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...

     where Conder and Kitchener’s survey stopped.

Egypt, Sudan, and Khartoum

Kitchener later served as a Vice-Consul in Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...

, and in 1883, as a British captain with the Turkish rank bimbashi
Binbashi
Binbashi or Bimbashi is a major in the Turkish army, of which term originated in the Ottoman army. The title was also used for a major in the Khedivial Egyptian army as Bimbashi...

 (major), in the occupation of Egypt. Egypt, still in theory a self-governing part of the Ottoman Empire, became a British puppet state. Its army was led by British officers from 1883 until technical independence in 1936; substantial British influence and military presence continued until the evacuation of the Suez Base in 1954. In 1884 Kitchener was an aide-de-camp during the failed Gordon
Charles George Gordon
Major-General Charles George Gordon, CB , known as "Chinese" Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, was a British army officer and administrator....

 relief expedition in the Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

. According to verbal reports from William Forde, who was his batman, Kitchener was revered by his men for his leadership and fair treatment of subordinates. With his command of Arabic, Kitchener was able to mingle with the local people. At this time his fiancée, and possibly the only female love of his life, Hermione Baker (daughter of Valentine Baker
Valentine Baker
Valentine Baker , British soldier, was a younger brother of Sir Samuel Baker.-Biography:...

 pasha), died of typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...

 in Cairo. He subsequently had no children, but he raised his young cousin Bertha Chevallier-Boutell, daughter of Kitchener's first cousin Sir Francis Hepburn de Chevallier-Boutell.

Major Kitchener served in the 1884-85 Nile Campaign as an intelligence officer. He was present at Abu Klea. In the late 1880s, he was Governor of the Red Sea Territories (which in practice consisted of little more than the Port of Suakin
Suakin
Suakin or Sawakin is a port in north-eastern Sudan, on the west coast of the Red Sea. In 1983 it had a population of 18,030 and the 2009 estimate is 43, 337.It was formerly the region's chief port, but is now secondary to Port Sudan, about 30 miles north. The old city built of coral is in ruins...

) with the brevet
Brevet (military)
In many of the world's military establishments, brevet referred to a warrant authorizing a commissioned officer to hold a higher rank temporarily, but usually without receiving the pay of that higher rank except when actually serving in that role. An officer so promoted may be referred to as being...

 rank of Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

. He was severely wounded in the jaw during a skirmish, and recuperated in England. He also served at the Battle of Toski (1889). Having become Sirdar
Sirdar (Egypt)
Sirdar - a variant of Sardar, a long-standing of Indo-Aryan rank - was assigned to the British Commander-in-Chief of the nineteenth century Egyptian Army...

 of the Egyptian Army in 1892 - with the rank of brigadier-general and then major-general in the British Army — in 1896 he led his British and Egyptian forces up the Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

, building a railway
Northern Africa Railroad Development
Northern Africa Railroad Development started in the 1850s. In Egypt, a rail line between Alexandria and Cairo had been completed in 1856, three years before work began on the Suez Canal. On May 14, 1858, a rail carriage ferry on this line played a decisive role in Egyptian history...

 to supply arms and reinforcements, and defeating the Sudanese at the Battle of Omdurman
Battle of Omdurman
At the Battle of Omdurman , an army commanded by the British Gen. Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad...

 on 2 September 1898, near Khartoum.

Kitchener's second tour in the Sudan (1886–1899) won him national fame, and he was made Aide de Camp to Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

 and appointed a Knight Commander of the Bath (KCB). However, this campaign also made his brutality infamous, an aspect of his tactics that became well known after the Boer War. After victory in the Battle of Omdurman
Battle of Omdurman
At the Battle of Omdurman , an army commanded by the British Gen. Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad...

, the remains of the Mahdi
Mahdi
In Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi is the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will stay on Earth for seven, nine or nineteen years- before the Day of Judgment and, alongside Jesus, will rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny.In Shia Islam, the belief in the Mahdi is a "central religious...

 were exhumed and scattered.
Kitchener quite possibly prevented war between France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 when he dealt firmly but non-violently with the French military expedition, under Captain Marchand, intending to claim Fashoda, in what became known as the Fashoda Incident
Fashoda Incident
The Fashoda Incident was the climax of imperial territorial disputes between Britain and France in Eastern Africa. A French expedition to Fashoda on the White Nile sought to gain control of the Nile River and thereby force Britain out of Egypt. The British held firm as Britain and France were on...

.

He was created Baron Kitchener, of Khartoum
Khartoum
Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...

 and of Aspall in the County of Suffolk
Aspall, Suffolk
Aspall is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 52. The village is about 15 miles north of Ipswich, and 12 miles south of Diss....

, on 31 October 1898 as a victory title
Victory title
A victory title is an honorific title adopted by a successful military commander to commemorate his defeat of an enemy nation. This practice was first used by Ancient Rome and is still most commonly associated with the Romans, but it has also been adopted as a practice by many modern empires,...

 commemorating his successes, and began a programme of restoring good governance to the Sudan. The programme had a strong foundation, based on education at Gordon Memorial College
Gordon Memorial College
Gordon Memorial College is an educational institution in Sudan. It was built between 1899 and 1902 as part of Lord Kitchener's wide-ranging educational reforms....

 as its centrepiece—and not simply for the children of the local elites: children from anywhere could apply to study.

He ordered the mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...

s of Khartoum rebuilt, instituted reforms which recognised Friday — the Muslim holy day — as the official day of rest, and guaranteed freedom of religion to all citizens of the Sudan. He attempted to prevent evangelical Christian missionaries from attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity.

Kitchener rescued a substantial charitable fund which had been diverted into the pockets of the Khedive
Khedive
The term Khedive is a title largely equivalent to the English word viceroy. It was first used, without official recognition, by Muhammad Ali Pasha , the Wāli of Egypt and Sudan, and vassal of the Ottoman Empire...

 of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, and put it to use improving the lives of ordinary Sudanese.

He also reformed the debt laws, preventing rapacious moneylenders from stripping away all assets of impoverished farmers, guaranteeing them 5 acres (2 ha) of land to farm for themselves and the tools to farm with. In 1899 Kitchener was presented with a small island in the Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

 at Aswan
Aswan
Aswan , formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate.It stands on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract and is a busy market and tourist centre...

 in gratitude for his services; the island was renamed Kitchener's Island
Kitchener's Island
Kitchener's Island is a small, oval-shaped island in the Nile at Aswan, Egypt.-History:...

 in his honour.

The Boer War

During the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...

 (1899–1902), Kitchener arrived with Lord Roberts on the RMS Dunottar Castle
RMS Dunottar Castle
The RMS Dunottar Castle was built at Govan Shipyards in 1889 by the Fairfield Ship Building & Engineering Co. for the Castle Line, passing to the Union Castle Line in 1900. This steam ship became famous in the 1890s for reducing the voyage time from Southampton, England, to Cape Town, South Africa,...

 and the massive British reinforcements of December 1899. Officially holding the title of chief of staff, he was in practice a second-in-command, and commanded a much-criticised frontal assault at the Battle of Paardeberg
Battle of Paardeberg
The Battle of Paardeberg or Perdeberg was a major battle during the Second Anglo-Boer War. It was fought near Paardeberg Drift on the banks of the Modder River in the Orange Free State near Kimberley....

 in February 1900.

Following the defeat of the conventional Boer
Boer
Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer, which came to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th century, as well as those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to settle in the Orange Free State,...

 forces, Kitchener succeeded Roberts as overall commander in November 1900. A reconciliatory peace treaty which Kitchener had negotiated with the Boer leaders failed in February 1901 due to British cabinet veto. Kitchener subsequently inherited and expanded the successful strategies devised by Roberts to force the Boer commandos to submit, including concentration camps and the scorched earth policy.

In a brutal campaign, these strategies removed civilian support from the Boers with a scorched earth
Scorched earth
A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...

 policy of destroying Boer farms, slaughtering livestock, building blockhouses, and moving women, children and the elderly into concentration camps. Conditions in these camps, which had been conceived by Roberts as a form of control of the families whose farms he had destroyed, began to degenerate rapidly as the large influx of Boers outstripped the ability of the minuscule British force to cope. The camps lacked space, food, sanitation, medicine, and medical care, leading to rampant disease and a staggering 34.4% death rate for those Boers who entered. The biggest critic of the camps was the Englishwoman, humanitarian, and welfare worker Emily Hobhouse
Emily Hobhouse
Emily Hobhouse was a British welfare campaigner, who is primarily remembered for bringing to the attention of the British public, and working to change, the poor conditions inside the British concentration camps in South Africa built for Boer women and children during the Second Boer War.-Early...

. Despite being largely rectified by late 1901, they led to wide opprobrium in Britain and Europe, and especially amongst South Africans.

The Treaty of Vereeniging
Treaty of Vereeniging
The Treaty of Vereeniging was the peace treaty, signed on 31 May 1902, that ended the South African War between the South African Republic and the Republic of the Orange Free State, on the one side, and the British Empire on the other.This settlement provided for the end of hostilities and...

 was signed in 1902 following a tense six months. During this period Kitchener struggled against Sir Alfred Milner, the Governor of the Cape Colony
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...

, and the British government. Milner was a hard-line conservative and wanted forcibly to Anglicise the Afrikaans people (the Boers), and Milner and the British government wanted to assert victory by forcing the Boers to sign a humiliating peace treaty; Kitchener wanted a more generous compromise peace treaty that would recognise certain rights for the Afrikaners and promise future self-government. Eventually the British government decided the war had gone on long enough and sided with Kitchener against Milner. (Louis Botha
Louis Botha
Louis Botha was an Afrikaner and first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa—the forerunner of the modern South African state...

, the Boer leader with whom Kitchener had negotiated his aborted peace treaty in 1901, became the first Prime Minister of the self-governing Union of South Africa in 1910. The treaty also agreed to pay for reconstruction following the end of hostilities. Six days later Kitchener, who had risen from major-general to the brevet rank of full general
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 during the war, was created Viscount Kitchener, of Khartoum and of the Vaal
Vaal River
The Vaal River is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source in the Drakensberg mountains in Mpumalanga, east of Johannesburg and about 30 km north of Ermelo and only about 240 km from the Indian Ocean. It then flows westwards to its conjunction...

 in the Colony of Transvaal and of Aspall in the County of Suffolk.

Court martial of Breaker Morant

In the Breaker Morant case several soldiers from Australia were arrested and court-martial
Court-martial
A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...

led for summarily executing Boer prisoners, and also for the murder of a German missionary believed to be a Boer sympathiser. The celebrated horseman and bush poet Lt. Harry "Breaker" Morant
Breaker Morant
Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, poet, soldier and convicted war criminal whose skill with horses earned him the nickname "The Breaker"...

 and Lt. Peter Handcock
Peter Handcock
Peter Joseph Handcock was a Veterinary Lieutenant in the Bushveldt Carbineers in the Boer War in South Africa. Handcock and Harry "Breaker" Morant were court martialed and executed by firing squad on 27 February 1902 on murder charges for shooting Boer prisoners and a German missionary, Jacob...

 were found guilty, sentenced to death, and shot by firing squad at Pietersburg on 27 February 1902. Their death warrants were personally signed by Kitchener. He reprieved a third soldier, Lt. George Witton, who served 28 months before being released.

India and Egypt

Following this, Kitchener was made Commander-in-Chief, India
Commander-in-Chief, India
During the period of the British Raj, the Commander-in-Chief, India was the supreme commander of the Indian Army. The Commander-in-Chief and most of his staff were based at General Headquarters, India, and liaised with the civilian Governor-General of India...

 (1902–1909) – his term of office was extended by two years — where he reorganised the Indian Army
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

. While many of his reforms were supported by the Viceroy Lord Curzon of Kedleston, who had originally lobbied for Kitchener's appointment, the two men eventually came into conflict over the question of military administration. While later events ultimately proved Curzon was right in opposing Kitchener's attempts to concentrate all military decision-making power in his own office, the Commander-in-Chief's intrigues won him the crucial support of the government in London, and the Viceroy in turn chose to resign.

Kitchener presided over the Rawalpindi Parade 1905
Rawalpindi Parade 1905
The Rawalpindi Parade 1905 was a parade by the British Indian Army held in Rawalpindi, India on 8 December 1905 to honour the Prince and Princess of Wales. The troops were under the Command of Horatio Herbert, Viscount Kitchener of Khartoum, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.M.G., Commander-in-Chief India...

 to honour the Prince and Princess of Wales' visit to India. Later, still in India, he broke his leg badly in a horse-riding accident, leaving him with a slight limp for the rest of his life. Kitchener was promoted to the highest Army rank, Field Marshal, in 1910 and went on a tour of the world. He aspired to be Viceroy of India, but the Secretary of State for India, John Morley, was not keen and hoped to send him instead to Malta as Commander-in-Chief of British forces in the Mediterranean, even to the point of announcing the appointment in the newspapers. Kitchener pushed hard for the Viceroyalty, returning to London to lobby Cabinet ministers and the dying King Edward VII, from whom, whilst collecting his Field Marshal's baton, Kitchener obtained permission to refuse the Malta job. However, Morley could not be moved. This was perhaps in part because Kitchener was thought to be a Tory (the Liberals were in office at the time); perhaps due to a Curzon-inspired whispering campaign; but most importantly because Morley, who was a Gladstonian and thus suspicious of imperialism, felt it inappropriate, after the recent grant of limited self-government under the 1909 Indian Councils Act, for a serving soldier to be Viceroy. (In the event, no serving soldier was appointed Viceroy until Archibald Wavell in 1943.) The Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith
H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...

, was sympathetic to Kitchener but was unwilling to overrule Morley, who threatened resignation, so Kitchener was finally turned down for the post of Viceroy of India in 1911.

Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General in Egypt (the job formerly held by Lord Cromer
Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer
Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer, GCB, OM, GCMG, KCSI, CIE, PC, FRS , was a British statesman, diplomat and colonial administrator....

) and of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan referred to the manner by which Sudan was administered between 1899 and 1956, when it was a condominium of Egypt and the United Kingdom.-Union with Egypt:...

 (1911–1914, during the formal reign of Abbas Hilmi II as Khedive
Khedive
The term Khedive is a title largely equivalent to the English word viceroy. It was first used, without official recognition, by Muhammad Ali Pasha , the Wāli of Egypt and Sudan, and vassal of the Ottoman Empire...

 (nominally Ottoman monarch) of Egypt, Sovereign of Nubia, of the Sudan, of Kordofan and of Darfur).

Kitchener was created Earl Kitchener
Earl Kitchener
Earl Kitchener, of Khartoum and of Broome in the County of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The titles Viscount Broome, of Broome in the County of Kent, and Baron Denton, of Denton in the County of Kent, were granted along with the earldom...

, of Khartoum and of Broome in the County of Kent
Broome
-Places:Australia*Broome, Western Australia**Attack on Broome **Broome Bird Observatory**Broome Bulls, Australian Rules football team**Broome International Airport**Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin**Broome race riots of 1920**Broome Regional Prison...

, on 29 June 1914. Unusually, provision was made for the title to be passed on to his brother or nephew, since Kitchener was not married and had no children. He was eventually succeeded by his older brother, Colonel Henry Kitchener, 2nd Earl Kitchener
Henry Kitchener, 2nd Earl Kitchener
Colonel Henry Elliott Chevallier Kitchener, 2nd Earl Kitchener , was a British soldier and peer.-Early life and career:...

.

World War I

At the outset of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, the Prime Minister, Asquith, quickly had Lord Kitchener appointed Secretary of State for War
Secretary of State for War
The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...

; Asquith had been filling the job himself as a stopgap following the resignation of Colonel Seeley
J. E. B. Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone
John Edward Bernard Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone CB, CMG, DSO, PC, TD was a British soldier and politician. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1900 to 1904 and a Liberal MP from 1904 to 1922 and from 1923 to 1924...

 over the Curragh Incident
Curragh Incident
The Curragh Incident of 20 March 1914, also known as the Curragh Mutiny, occurred in the Curragh, County Kildare, Ireland. The Curragh Camp was then the main base for the British Army in Ireland, which at the time formed part of the United Kingdom....

 earlier in 1914, and Kitchener was by chance briefly in Britain on leave when war was declared. Against cabinet opinion, Kitchener correctly predicted a long war that would last at least three years, require huge new armies to defeat Germany, and suffer huge casualties before the end would come. Kitchener stated that the conflict would plumb the depths of manpower "to the last million."

A massive recruitment campaign
Recruitment to the British Army during World War I
At the start of 1914 the British Army had a reported strength of 710,000 men including reserves, of which around 80,000 were regular troops ready for war. By the end of World War I almost 1 in 4 of the total male population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had joined, over five...

 began, which soon featured a distinctive poster of Kitchener
Lord Kitchener Wants You
A 1914 recruitment poster depicting Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War, above the words "WANTS YOU" was the most famous image used in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I. It has inspired many imitations.-Origins:...

, taken from a magazine front cover. It may have encouraged large numbers of volunteers and has proven to be one of the most enduring images of the war, having been copied and parodied many times since.

In January 1915 General Sir John French, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force, with the concurrence of other senior commanders (e.g., General Sir Douglas Haig), wanted the New Armies incorporated into existing divisions as battalions rather than sent out as entire divisions. French took the step of appealing to the Prime Minister, Asquith, over Kitchener’s head, but Asquith refused to overrule Kitchener. This was a further factor in the deterioration of relations between French and Kitchener, who had travelled to France in September 1914 during the Battle of the Marne to order French to resume the offensive. However, French felt that the war would be over by the summer before the New Army divisions were deployed, as Germany had recently redeployed some divisions to the east. This did not happen, and New Army divisions began to be deployed from the Battle of Loos in September 1915.

Kitchener warned French in January 1915 that the Western Front was a siege line that could not be breached, although this was in the context of Cabinet discussions about amphibious landings on the Baltic or North Sea Coast, or against Turkey. In an effort to find a way to relieve pressure on the Western front, Lord Kitchener proposed an invasion of Alexandretta
Iskenderun
İskenderun is a city and urban district in the province of Hatay on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. The current mayor is Yusuf Hamit Civelek .-Names:...

 with Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was a First World War army corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that was formed in Egypt in 1915 and operated during the Battle of Gallipoli. General William Birdwood commanded the corps, which comprised troops from the First Australian Imperial...

 (ANZAC), New Army, and Indian
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

 troops. Alexandretta was an area with a large Christian population and was the strategic centre of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

's railway network — its capture would have cut the empire in two. Yet he was instead eventually persuaded to support Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

's disastrous Gallipoli campaign in 1915–1916. (Churchill's responsibility for the failure of this campaign is debated; for more information see David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace.) That failure, combined with the Shell Crisis of 1915
Shell Crisis of 1915
The Shell Crisis of 1915 was a shortage of artillery shells on the front lines of World War I, which largely contributed to weakening public appreciation of government of the United Kingdom because it was widely perceived that the production of artillery shells for use by the British Army was...

 – amidst press publicity engineered by Sir John French – dealt Kitchener's political reputation a heavy blow; Kitchener was popular with the public, so Asquith retained him in office in the new coalition government, but responsibility for munitions was moved to a new ministry headed by David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

.

Kitchener was a sceptic about the tank, which is why it was developed under the auspices of Churchill’s Admiralty.

Later in 1915 Kitchener was sent on a tour of inspection of Gallipoli and the Near East, in the hope that he could be persuaded to remain in the region as commander-in-chief. Douglas Haig – at that time involved in intrigues to have Robertson appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff – recommended that Kitchener be appointed Viceroy of India (“where trouble was brewing”) but not to the Middle East, where his strong personality would have led to that sideshow receiving too much attention and resources. At the end of 1915, the new CIGS, Sir William Robertson, took office only on condition that he was granted the right to speak for the Army to the Cabinet in matters of strategy, leaving Kitchener with responsibility solely for manpower and recruitment. Whereas Kitchener had hoped to hold his armies in reserve to administer the coup de grace to Germany after the other warring nations had exhausted themselves, Robertson was suspicious of efforts in the Balkans and Near East, and was instead committed to major British offensives against Germany on the Western Front — the first of these was to be the Somme in 1916.

Early in 1916 Kitchener visited Douglas Haig, newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the BEF in France. Kitchener had been a key figure in the removal of Haig's predecessor Sir John French, with whom he had a poor relationship. Haig differed with Kitchener over the importance of Mediterranean efforts and wanted to see a strong General Staff in London, but nonetheless valued Kitchener as a military voice against the folly of civilians such as Churchill. However, he thought Kitchener "pinched, tired, and much aged", and thought it sad that his mind was “losing its comprehension” as the time for decisive victory on the Western Front (as Haig and Robertson saw it) approached. Kitchener was somewhat doubtful of Haig's plan to win decisive victory in 1916, and would have preferred smaller and purely attritional attacks, but sided with Robertson in telling the Cabinet that the planned Anglo-French offensive on the Somme should go ahead.

Kitchener was under pressure from French Prime Minister Aristide Briand (29 March 1916) for the British to attack on the Western Front to help relieve the pressure of the German attack at Verdun. The French refused to bring troops home from Salonika, which Kitchener thought a play for the increase of French power in the Mediterranean.

In May 1916, preparations were made for Kitchener and Lloyd George to visit Russia on a diplomatic mission. However, Lloyd George was otherwise engaged with his new Ministry, so it was decided to send Kitchener alone.

A week before his death, Kitchener confided to Lord Derby
Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby
Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby KG, GCB, GCVO, TD, PC, KGStJ, JP , known as Lord Stanley from 1893 to 1908, was a British soldier, Conservative politician, diplomat and racehorse owner. He was twice Secretary of State for War and also served as British Ambassador to...

 that he intended to press relentlessly for a peace of reconciliation, regardless of his position, when the war was over, as he feared that the politicians would make a bad peace.

On 4 June 1916, Lord Kitchener personally answered questions asked by politicians about his running of the war effort; at the start of hostilities Kitchener had ordered two million rifles from various US arms manufacturers. Only 480 of these rifles had arrived in the UK by 4 June 1916. The numbers of shells supplied were no less paltry. Kitchener explained the efforts he had made to secure alternative supplies. He received a resounding vote of thanks from the 200+ Members of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 who had arrived to question him, both for his candour and for his efforts to keep the troops armed; Sir Ivor Herbert, who, a week before, had introduced the failed vote of censure in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 against Kitchener's running of the War Department, personally seconded the motion.

In addition to his military work, Lord Kitchener contributed to efforts on the home front. The knitted sock patterns of the day used a seam up the toe that could rub uncomfortably against the toes. Kitchener encouraged British and American women to knit for the war effort, and contributed a sock pattern featuring a new technique for a seamless join of the toe, still known as the Kitchener stitch
Grafting (knitting)
In knitting, grafting is the joining of two knitted fabrics using yarn and a needle in one of three types of seams:# selvage-to-selvage seam,# selvage-to-end seam, or# end-to-end seam...

.

Blue plaques have been erected to mark where he lived in Westminster and Canterbury.

Death

Lord Kitchener sailed from Scrabster to Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow
right|thumb|Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern endScapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. It is about...

 on 5 June 1916 aboard HMS Oak
HMS Oak (1912)
HMS Oak was a modified Acheron-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1912, she saw extensive service during World War I as a tender to the Flagship of the Grand Fleet, and for this purpose she was painted white, instead of the usual warship grey. She was sold in 1921 to be scrapped...

 before transferring to the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire
HMS Hampshire (1903)
HMS Hampshire was a Devonshire-class armoured cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was built by Armstrong Whitworth, Elswick, Tyne and Wear and commissioned in 1905 at a cost of £833,817....

 for his diplomatic mission to Russia. Shortly before 1930 hrs the same day, while en route to the Russian port of Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk , formerly known as Archangel in English, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina River near its exit into the White Sea in the north of European Russia. The city spreads for over along the banks of the river...

 during a Force 9
Beaufort scale
The Beaufort Scale is an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land. Its full name is the Beaufort Wind Force Scale.-History:...

 gale
Gale
A gale is a very strong wind. There are conflicting definitions of how strong a wind must be to be considered a gale. The U.S. government's National Weather Service defines a gale as 34–47 knots of sustained surface winds. Forecasters typically issue gale warnings when winds of this strength are...

, Hampshire struck a mine laid by the newly-launched German U-boat U-75
SM U-75
SM U-75 was one of the 329 submarines serving in the Imperial German Navy in World War I.U-75 was engaged in naval warfare and took part in the First Battle of the Atlantic....

 (commanded by Curt Beitzen) and sank west of the Orkney Islands
Orkney Islands
Orkney also known as the Orkney Islands , is an archipelago in northern Scotland, situated north of the coast of Caithness...

. Kitchener, his staff, and 643 of the crew of 655 were drowned or died of exposure. His body was never found. The survivors who caught sight of him in those last moments testified to his outward calm and resolution.

Not everyone mourned Kitchener's loss. C. P. Scott
C. P. Scott
Charles Prestwich Scott was a British journalist, publisher and politician. Born in Bath, Somerset, he was the editor of the Manchester Guardian from 1872 until 1929 and its owner from 1907 until his death...

, editor of the The Manchester Guardian, is said to have remarked that "as for the old man, he could not have done better than to have gone down, as he was a great impediment lately."

Conspiracy theories

The suddenness of Kitchener's death, combined with his great fame and the fact that his body was never recovered, almost immediately gave rise to conspiracy theories which have proved long-lived.

The fact that newly-appointed Minister of Munitions (and future prime minister) David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

 was supposed to accompany Kitchener on the fatal journey, but cancelled at the last moment, has been given significance by some. This fact, along with the alleged lethargy of the rescue efforts, has led some to claim that Kitchener was assassinated, or that his death would have been convenient for a British establishment that had come to see him as a figure from the past who was incompetent to wage modern war.

After the war, a number of conspiracy theories were put forward, one by Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas , nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde...

, positing a connection between Kitchener's death, the recent naval Battle of Jutland
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

, Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

, and a Jewish conspiracy. (Churchill successfully sued Douglas for criminal libel
Criminal libel
Criminal libel is a legal term, of English origin, which may be used with one of two distinct meanings, in those common law jurisdictions where it is still used....

, and the latter spent six months in prison.) Another claimed that the Hampshire did not strike a mine at all, but was sunk by explosives secreted in the vessel by Irish Republicans.

In 1926, a hoaxer named Frank Power claimed Kitchener's body had been found by a Norwegian fisherman. Power brought a coffin back from Norway and prepared it for burial in St. Paul's. At this point, however, the authorities intervened and the coffin was opened in the presence of police and a distinguished pathologist. The box was found to contain only tar for weight. There was widespread public outrage at Power, but he was never prosecuted.

General Erich Ludendorff
Erich Ludendorff
Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was a German general, victor of Liège and of the Battle of Tannenberg...

, Generalquartiermeister and joint head (with von Hindenburg) of Germany's war effort, stated that Russian communist elements working against the Czar had betrayed Kitchener's travel plans to Germany. He stated that Kitchener was killed "because of his ability", as it was feared he would help the Czarist Russian Army to recover.

The role of Captain Fritz Joubert Duquesne in Kitchener's death has been hypothesised/documented in several books and movies:
  • The Man Who Killed Kitchener; the Life of Fritz Joubert Duquesne, 1879–, by Clement Wood (New York, W. Faro, Inc., 1932).
  • Sabotage! The Secret War Against America, by Michael Sayers & Albert E. Kahn (Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1942).
  • The House on 92nd Street, which won screenwriter Charles G. Booth
    Charles G. Booth
    Charles G. Booth was a British-born writer who settled in America and wrote several classic Hollywood stories, including The General Died at Dawn and Sundown...

     an Academy Award for the best original motion picture story
    Academy Award for Best Story
    The Academy Award for Best Story was an Academy Award given from the beginning of the Academy Awards until 1957, when it was eliminated in favor of the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, which had been introduced in 1940.-1920s:...

     in 1945.
  • Counterfeit Hero: Fritz Duquesne, Adventurer and Spy, by Art Ronnie (Naval Institute Press, 1995), ISBN 1-55750-733-3.
  • Fräulein Doktor
    Fräulein Doktor
    Fräulein Doktor is a First World War drama filmed in 1968 and released in 1969. It was a European co-production, starring Suzy Kendall, Kenneth More, Capucine, James Booth, Giancarlo Giannini and Nigel Green. It was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by Alberto Lattuada, with a music...

    , a Dino DeLaurentis film, 1969.
  • The Man Who Would Kill Kitchener, by François Verster
    François Verster
    François Verster is a South African film director and documentary maker.He has a wide background in writing, music, academia and film. After completing an MA degree with distinction under literature Nobel Prize laureate JM Coetzee at the University of Cape Town, he worked with Barenholtz...

    , a documentary film on the life of Fritz Joubert Duquesne that won six Stone awards, 1999.

Captain Duquesne, a Boer
Boer
Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer, which came to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th century, as well as those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to settle in the Orange Free State,...

 Army officer and later a spy in the Second Boer War, hated Kitchener because of his scorched earth policy, and he hated the British in general for abusing his family in the concentration camps. He was captured and sent to Lisbon as a prisoner of war, but he soon escaped and returned to South Africa via London as a Captain in the British Army. He attempted to kill Lord Kitchener in Cape Town, but was betrayed by the wife of one of his co-conspirators. Duquesne was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Bermuda, but he escaped to the United States and became a U.S. citizen, and even served as a consultant on African big-game hunting to President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

 and others. In World War I, Duquesne became a German spy and planted explosive devices on British ships in South America, sinking 22. He claims to have posed as the Russian Duke Boris Zakrevsky in 1916 and joined Kitchener in Scotland. While on board H.M.S. Hampshire with Kitchener, Duquesne supposedly signalled the German submarine that sank the destoyer, got off by using a life raft before the ship sank, and was rescued by the submarine. He was apparently awarded the Iron Cross
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....

 for his efforts. Duquesne was later apprehended and tried by the authorities in the U.S. on the charge of sabotage, but he managed to escape yet again. In World War II, Captain Duquesne ran a huge German spy ring in the United States until he was caught by the FBI in what became the biggest roundup of spies in U.S. history: the Duquesne Spy Ring
Duquesne Spy Ring
The Duquesne Spy Ring is the largest espionage case in United States history that ended in convictions. A total of thirty-three members of a German espionage network headed by Frederick "Fritz" Joubert Duquesne were convicted after a lengthy espionage investigation by the Federal Bureau of...

.

Freemasonry

In 1883 Kitchener became a Freemason. He was initiated in Cairo at La Concordia Lodge number 1226, English constitution. Throughout his adult life Kitchener was a dedicated and very active Freemason, being a Founder Member of numerous Masonic Lodges and having several Lodges named after him.

Memorials

  • The NW chapel of All Souls at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, not normally open to visitors, was rededicated the Kitchener Memorial in 1925. It contains a white marble memorial to Lord Kitchener (with effigy) and is also the last resting place of his aide-de-camp.
  • Kitchener's name heads the War Memorial board in the porch of St. John the Baptist Parish Church, Barham, Kent
    Barham, Kent
    Barham is a village and civil parish in the City of Canterbury district of Kent, England. It is situated close to the A2 road between Canterbury and Dover, 7 miles south-east of Canterbury and 7 miles north of Folkestone....

    . Kitchener had been a resident of Broome Park in the parish of Barham for the last few years of his life. His name is read out each year at the Remembrance Sunday service in the church.
  • Following his death, the town of Berlin
    Berlin to Kitchener name change
    Through the latter half of the 19th century and into the first decade of the 20th, the City of Berlin, Ontario, Canada, was a bustling industrial centre celebrating its German heritage...

    , Ontario
    Ontario
    Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

    , Canada, was renamed Kitchener
    Kitchener, Ontario
    The City of Kitchener is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada. It was the Town of Berlin from 1854 until 1912 and the City of Berlin from 1912 until 1916. The city had a population of 204,668 in the Canada 2006 Census...

     in his honour. Mount Kitchener
    Mount Kitchener
    Mount Kitchener is a mountain located within the Columbia Icefield of Jasper National Park, which is part of the Canadian Rockies. The mountain can be seen from the Icefields Parkway near Sunwapta Pass....

     in the Canadian Rockies
    Canadian Rockies
    The Canadian Rockies comprise the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains range. They are the eastern part of the Canadian Cordillera, extending from the Interior Plains of Alberta to the Rocky Mountain Trench of British Columbia. The southern end borders Idaho and Montana of the USA...

     was also named in his honour. A memorial to him was erected on the nearby cliffs.
  • A popular music-hall song "Kitchener — Gone but not forgotten!" was sung by F V St Clair shortly after his death.
  • Earl Kitchener Elementary School is a dual-track (English and French) school of approximately 500 students. It is located in the west end of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, below the Niagara Escarpment. A letter from Lord Kitchener suggests that the motto of the school be "thoroughness".
  • Lord Kitchener Elementary School is located on a 2.7–hectare site on the west side of Vancouver
    Vancouver
    Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

    , British Columbia, Canada. A frame building was constructed in 1914, and a main building in 1924. Both are still in use in 2007, but likely to be replaced after 2008, as they are not suitable for seismic upgrading.
  • In the City of Geelong, Australia
    Australia
    Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

    , the Kitchener Memorial Hospital was named in his honour. It is now known as Geelong Hospital
    Geelong Hospital
    The Geelong Hospital is an Australian public hospital located in Ryrie Street, Geelong, Victoria. The hospital is part of Barwon Health, Victoria's largest regional health care provider, which has 21 sites. It is the largest hospital in regional Victoria and the only tertiary hospital outside of...

    . The original building is still in use, although it no longer houses patients.
  • One of the self-catered halls of residences at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (situated in the south of the City), is named after Lord Kitchener (Kitchener House).
  • A month after his death, the Lord Kitchener National Memorial Fund was set up by the Lord Mayor of [the City of] London to honour his memory. It was used to aid casualties of the war, both practically and financially; following the war's end, the fund was used to enable university educations for soldiers, ex-soldiers and their sons, a function it continues to perform today.
  • The Lord Kitchener Memorial Homes in Chatham, Kent, were built with funds from public subscription following Kitchener's death. A small terrace of cottages, they are used to provide affordable rented accommodation for servicemen and women who have seen active service or their widows and widowers.
  • A statue of the Earl mounted on a horse is on Khartoum Road (near Fort Amherst
    Fort Amherst
    Fort Amherst, in Kent, England, was constructed in 1756 at the southern end of the Brompton lines of defence to protect the southeastern approaches to Chatham Dockyard and the River Medway against a French invasion. Part of it is now open to the public....

    ).
  • Oberoi Hotels' premier luxury resort, Wildflower Hall, Shimla in the Himalayas
    Himalayas
    The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

    , has named its premier suite the "Kitchener Suite". The resort is a former residence of Lord Kitchener.
  • The Kitchener Memorial on Mainland, Orkney, is on the cliff edge at Marwick Head, near the spot where Kitchener died at sea. It is a square, crenulated stone tower and bears the inscription: "This tower was raised by the people of Orkney in memory of Field Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum on that corner of his country which he had served so faithfully nearest to the place where he died on duty. He and his staff perished along with the officers and nearly all the men of HMS Hampshire on 5 June 1916."
  • Kitchener is a Senior Boys' house at the Duke of York's Royal Military School
    Duke of York's Royal Military School
    The Duke of York’s Royal Military School, more commonly called the Duke of York’s, is a co-educational Academy with military traditions in Dover, Kent, open to pupils whose parents are serving or have served in any branch of the United Kingdom armed forces for a minimum of 4 years...

     where, like Welbeck college
    Welbeck College
    Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College is a selective sixth form college in Woodhouse, Leicestershire, England, providing A-Level education for candidates to the technical branches of the British Armed Forces, the Ministry of Defence civil service and privately funded students.Welbeck is located near...

    , all houses are named after prominent military figures. An officers' mess at the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, Wiltshire, is also named after him. The other mess on the site is named after Lord Roberts, and are known to the students as either "Kitch" or "Bob's Cafe".

  • Kitchener stitch (or grafting, a technique used in knitting
    Knitting
    Knitting is a method by which thread or yarn may be turned into cloth or other fine crafts. Knitted fabric consists of consecutive rows of loops, called stitches. As each row progresses, a new loop is pulled through an existing loop. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can...

     to join two pieces of knitted fabric sewing up the live stitches) is named after Lord Kitchener.
  • In the early 1920s, a road on a new council estate in the Kates Hill
    Kates Hill
    Kates Hill is a residential area in Dudley, West Midlands, England.-History:Kates Hill was the scene of chaos in 1648 when parliamentarians used it as their base in the Civil War against King Charles I...

     area of Dudley
    Dudley
    Dudley is a large town in the West Midlands county of England. At the 2001 census , the Dudley Urban Sub Area had a population of 194,919, making it the 26th largest settlement in England, the second largest town in the United Kingdom behind Reading, and the largest settlement in the UK without...

    , Worcestershire
    Worcestershire
    Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...

     (now West Midlands
    West Midlands (county)
    The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...

    ) was named Kitchener Road in honour of Lord Kitchener.

Debate on Kitchener's sexuality

Some biographers have concluded that Kitchener was a latent or active homosexual
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

, though this is not universally accepted. Writers who make the case for his homosexuality include Montgomery Hyde, Ronald Hyam, Dennis Judd and Richardson. Biographers who make the case against include Cassar, Pollock, and Warner. Pakenham, Magnus and Royle hint at homosexuality, though Magnus is said to have later recanted.

The proponents of the case point to Kitchener's friend Captain Oswald Fitzgerald, his "constant and inseparable companion," whom he appointed his aide-de-camp. They remained close until they met a common death on their voyage to Russia. From his time in Egypt in 1892, he gathered around him a cadre of eager young and unmarried officers nicknamed "Kitchener's band of boys." He also avoided interviews with women, took a great deal of interest in the Boy Scout movement, and decorated his rose garden with four pairs of sculptured bronze boys. According to Hyam, "there is no evidence that he ever loved a woman". However, he was apparently in love with, and may have been engaged to, Hermione Baker, the beautiful young daughter of Valentine Baker
Valentine Baker
Valentine Baker , British soldier, was a younger brother of Sir Samuel Baker.-Biography:...

, commander of the Egyptian gendarmerie, but she died from typhoid in January 1885, aged eighteen. In 1902 he unsuccessfully courted Lord Londonderry
Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry
Charles Stewart Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry KG, GCVO, PC, DL, JP , styled Viscount Castlereagh between 1872 and 1884, was an Anglo-Irish Conservative politician, landowner and benefactor, who served in various capacities in the Conservative administrations of the late 19th and...

's daughter, Helen Mary Theresa; she married Lord Stavordale
Giles Fox-Strangways, 6th Earl of Ilchester
Giles Stephen Holland Fox-Strangways, 6th Earl of Ilchester GBE, FSA, DL , styled Lord Stavordale until 1905, was a British peer and philanthropist.-Background and education:...

 instead. He was friendly, in her old age, with the courtesan Catherine Walters
Catherine Walters
Catherine Walters, also known as "Skittles" , was a fashion trendsetter and one of the last of the great courtesans of Victorian London...

.

A contemporary journalist remarked that Kitchener "has the failing acquired by most of the Egyptian officers, a taste for buggery
Buggery
The British English term buggery is very close in meaning to the term sodomy, and is often used interchangeably in law and popular speech. It may be, also, a specific common law offence, encompassing both sodomy and bestiality.-In law:...

".

According to another writer, his interests were not exclusively homosexual. "When the great field marshal stayed in aristocratic houses, the well informed young would ask servants to sleep across their bedroom threshold to impede his entrance". His compulsive objective was sodomy, regardless of their gender.

J. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...

 noted in his book on The Edwardians that one of Lord Kitchener's personal interests in life included planning and decorating his residences. He was also known to collect delicate china with a passion (such allusions to an 'artistic temperament' were a common code for implying homosexuality at that time).

Kitchener in historical films

  • In the film Khartoum
    Khartoum (film)
    Khartoum is a 1966 film written by Robert Ardrey and directed by Basil Dearden. It stars Charlton Heston as General Gordon and Laurence Olivier as the Mahdi and is based on Gordon's defence of the Sudanese city of Khartoum from the forces of the Mahdist army during the Siege of Khartoum.Khartoum...

    , mention is made of "Major Kitchener"'s involvement in the Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884–5.
  • In the film Young Winston
    Young Winston
    Young Winston is a 1972 British film based on the early years of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.The film was based on the book My Early Life: A Roving Commission by Winston Churchill. The first part of the film covers Churchill's unhappy schooldays, up to the death of his father...

    , Kitchener, portrayed by Sir John Mills, is shown disapproving of the young Winston Churchill
    Winston Churchill
    Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

    's attempts to see action in Sudan. He disdainfully sweeps a book by Churchill into the bin, and is astonished when, during the battle of Omdurman, it is Lieutenant Churchill who brings him a message about the speed with which the enemy are approaching. Kitchener is incorrectly shown as wearing the insignia of a full general, a higher rank than he in fact held at that time.
  • In the film Breaker Morant
    Breaker Morant (film)
    Breaker Morant is a 1980 Australian film about the court martial of Breaker Morant, directed by Bruce Beresford and starring British actor Edward Woodward as Harry "Breaker" Morant...

    , he is portrayed by Australian actor Alan Cassell
    Alan Cassell
    Alan Cassell is an Australian actor, born in the UK and best known for his roles in film and television.Cassell was one of the actors who worked in Bruce Beresford's early Australian films....

    .
  • The sinking of the HMS Hampshire is portrayed in the 1969 WW1 Italian historical film Fraulein Doktor
    Fräulein Doktor
    Fräulein Doktor is a First World War drama filmed in 1968 and released in 1969. It was a European co-production, starring Suzy Kendall, Kenneth More, Capucine, James Booth, Giancarlo Giannini and Nigel Green. It was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by Alberto Lattuada, with a music...

    , in which a spy known as 'The Woman'(Suzy Kendall
    Suzy Kendall
    Suzy Kendall is a British actress best known for her film roles in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her blonde attractive looks got her leading roles in some fairly prestigious productions...

    ) relays information which leads to a German U-Boat sinking the Hampshire after laying mines. A British Colonel(Kenneth More
    Kenneth More
    Kenneth Gilbert More CBE was a highly successful English film actor during the post-World War II era and starred in many feature films, often in the role of an archetypal carefree and happy-go-lucky middle-class gentleman.-Early life:Kenneth More was born in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, the...

    ) summarises Kitchener's death by stating that when the Hampshire was sunk 700 men were lost, but one man was assassinated.

Kitchener in fiction

  • In the British sitcom Dad's Army
    Dad's Army
    Dad's Army is a British sitcom about the Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977. The series ran for 9 series and 80 episodes in total, plus a radio series, a feature film and a stage show...

    , Lance Corporal Jones repeatedly tells tales of when he served under "Lord Kitchener" against the "Fuzzy Wuzzies
    Fuzzy-Wuzzy
    Fuzzy-Wuzzy is a poem by the English author and poet Rudyard Kipling, published in 1892 as part of Barrack Room Ballads. It describes the respect of the ordinary British soldier for the bravery of the Hadendoa warriors who fought the British army in the Sudan.-Background:"Fuzzy-Wuzzy" was the term...

    " and mentions his involvement in the Battle of Omdurman
    Battle of Omdurman
    At the Battle of Omdurman , an army commanded by the British Gen. Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad...

     in the episode The Two and a Half Feathers
    The Two and a Half Feathers
    The Two and a Half Feathers is the eighth episode of the fourth series of the British comedy series Dad's Army that was originally transmitted on Friday 13 November 1970.-Synopsis:...

    . The rumours about Kitchener's sexuality are briefly touched upon in the episode Number Engaged
    Number Engaged
    Number Engaged is the fifth episode of the ninth series of the British comedy series Dad's Army that was originally transmitted on 6 November 1977.-Synopsis:...

    , when Pike asks why Jones always puts his hand on his hip in a somewhat flamboyant manner when imitating Kitchener. Jones replies that he does not want to go into it.
  • Kitchener was referred to in the novel Rilla of Ingleside
    Rilla of Ingleside
    Rilla of Ingleside is the final book in the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery, but was the sixth of the eight "Anne" novels she wrote. This book draws the focus back onto a single character, Anne and Gilbert's youngest daughter Bertha Marilla "Rilla" Blythe...

    of Lucy Maud Montgomery
    Lucy Maud Montgomery
    Lucy Maud Montgomery OBE , called "Maud" by family and friends and publicly known as L.M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success...

    .
  • Kitchener makes two brief appearances as a character in the 2008 novel After Omdurman by John Ferry.
  • Kitchener makes appearances in The Measure of Days, Volume 30 of The Morland Dynasty
    The Morland Dynasty
    The Morland Dynasty is a series of historical novels by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, based around the Morland family of York, England and their national and international relatives and associates.There are currently thirty-two books in the series...

    , a series of historical novels by author Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
    Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
    Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is a prolific and successful British novelist, best known for her Morland Dynasty series.Cynthia Harrod-Eagles was born in Shepherd's Bush, London and educated at Burlington School. Her first successful novel was The Waiting Game , and she became a full-time writer in...

    . This novel includes a fictional account of the sinking of HMS Hampshire.
  • Kitchener is included as a character in the 2001 book "KRUGER'S GOLD", a novel of the Anglo-Boer War by author Sidney Allinson
    Sidney Allinson
    Sidney Allinson is a Canadian author and military historian. He was a Creative Director with Ogilvy & Mather International Advertising, then served as Communications Policy Adviser to the Ontario Government. Sidney Allinson now resides in Victoria, British Columbia, having previously lived in...

    . The fact-based novel portrays Kitchener's personality, accurately drawn from his known real-life mannerisms, including some of his direct quotations.

Styles

  • 1850–1871: Horatio Herbert Kitchener
  • 1871–1883: Lieutenant
    Lieutenant
    A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

     Horatio Herbert Kitchener
  • 1883–1884: Captain
    Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)
    Captain is a junior officer rank of the British Army and Royal Marines. It ranks above Lieutenant and below Major and has a NATO ranking code of OF-2. The rank is equivalent to a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and to a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force...

     Horatio Herbert Kitchener
  • 1884–1885: Captain (Bvt. Major) Horatio Herbert Kitchener
  • 1885–1886: Captain (Bvt. Lieutenant-Colonel) Horatio Herbert Kitchener
  • 1886–1888: Captain (Bvt. Lieutenant-Colonel) Horatio Herbert Kitchener, CMG
  • 1888 – 20 July 1889: Captain & Lieutenant-Colonel (Bvt. Colonel) Horatio Herbert Kitchener, CMG
  • 20 July – 8 November 1889: Major (Bvt. Colonel) Horatio Herbert Kitchener, CMG
  • 8 November 1889–1894: Major (Bvt. Colonel) Horatio Herbert Kitchener, CB
    Order of the Bath
    The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

    , CMG
  • 1894–1896: Major (Bvt Colonel and Local Brigadier-General
    Brigadier (United Kingdom)
    Brigadier is a senior rank in the British Army and the Royal Marines.Brigadier is the superior rank to Colonel, but subordinate to Major-General....

    ) Sir
    Sir
    Sir is an honorific used as a title , or as a courtesy title to address a man without using his given or family name in many English speaking cultures...

     Horatio Herbert Kitchener, KCMG, CB
  • 1896-1 November 1898: Major-General
    Major-General (United Kingdom)
    Major general is a senior rank in the British Army. Since 1996 the highest position within the Royal Marines is the Commandant General Royal Marines who holds the rank of major general...

     Sir Horatio Herbert Kitchener, KCB
    Order of the Bath
    The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

    , KCMG
  • 1–15 November 1898: Major-General The Right Honourable
    The Right Honourable
    The Right Honourable is an honorific prefix that is traditionally applied to certain people in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Anglophone Caribbean and other Commonwealth Realms, and occasionally elsewhere...

     The Lord Kitchener, KCB, KCMG
  • 15 November 1898 – 4 December 1900: Major-General (Bvt. Lieutenant-General and Local General
    General (United Kingdom)
    General is currently the highest peace-time rank in the British Army and Royal Marines. It is subordinate to the Army rank of Field Marshal, has a NATO-code of OF-9, and is a four-star rank....

    ) The Right Honourable The Lord Kitchener, GCB, KCMG
  • 19 April 1901 – 26 June 1902: Lieutenant-General (dated to 23 December 1899) (Local General) The Right Honourable The Lord Kitchener, GCB, GCMG
  • 26 June – 28 July 1902: Lieutenant-General (Local General) The Right Honourable The Lord Kitchener, GCB, OM
    Order of Merit
    The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...

    , GCMG
  • 28 July 1902–1907: His Excellency
    Excellency
    Excellency is an honorific style given to certain members of an organization or state.Usually, people styled "Excellency" are heads of state, heads of government, governors, ambassadors, certain ecclesiastics, royalty, aristocracy, and military, and others holding equivalent rank .It is...

     Lieutenant-General (Local General) The Right Honourable The Viscount Kitchener, GCB, OM, GCMG
  • 1907–1908: His Excellency General The Right Honourable The Viscount Kitchener, GCB, OM, GCMG
  • 1908 – January 1909: His Excellency General The Right Honourable The Viscount Kitchener, GCB, OM, GCMG, GCIE
  • January – 10 September 1909: General The Right Honourable The Viscount Kitchener, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE
  • 10 September 1909–1911: Field Marshal The Right Honourable The Viscount Kitchener, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE
  • 1911 – 27 July 1914: Field Marshal The Right Honourable The Viscount Kitchener, KP
    KP
    -Groups and organizations:* Kashmiri Pandit, a person who belongs to a sect of Hindu Brahmins originating from Kashmir* Kaiser Permanente, a U.S. health maintenance organization* Kenya Police* KP Snacks, a United Kingdom food manufacturer...

    , GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE
  • 27 July – 6 August 1914: Field Marshal The Right Honourable The Earl Kitchener
    Earl Kitchener
    Earl Kitchener, of Khartoum and of Broome in the County of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The titles Viscount Broome, of Broome in the County of Kent, and Baron Denton, of Denton in the County of Kent, were granted along with the earldom...

    , KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE
  • 6 August 1914–1915: Field Marshal The Right Honourable The Earl Kitchener, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC
    Privy Council of the United Kingdom
    Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...

  • 1915–1916: Field Marshal The Right Honourable The Earl Kitchener, KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC

See also

  • Kitchener's Army
    Kitchener's Army
    The New Army, often referred to as Kitchener's Army or, disparagingly, Kitchener's Mob, was an all-volunteer army formed in the United Kingdom following the outbreak of hostilities in the First World War...

  • Kitchener, Ontario
    Kitchener, Ontario
    The City of Kitchener is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada. It was the Town of Berlin from 1854 until 1912 and the City of Berlin from 1912 until 1916. The city had a population of 204,668 in the Canada 2006 Census...

     – Canadian city renamed from Berlin after Horatio Kitchener's death.
  • Scapegoats of the Empire
    Scapegoats of the Empire
    George Ramsdale Witton was a Lieutenant in the Bushveldt Carbineers in the Boer War in South Africa. He was sentenced to death for murder after the shooting of Boer prisoners...

  • Kitchener bun
    Kitchener bun
    A Kitchener bun is a type of sweet pastry made and sold in South Australia. It consists of a bun sometimes baked, sometimes fried, made from a sweet yeasted dough similar to that used for making doughnuts, split and then filled with raspberry or strawberry jam and cream, most often with a dusting...


External links


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