The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-12-04
KITCHENER OF KHARTUM
THE MAN AND THE GENERAL-HIs
APPEARANCE AND TRAITS.
The warmth of English Admiration
for Him, Though He Has No
Personal Magnetism.
London Letter in New York Commercial Adj

London Letter in New York Commercial Ad~
vertiser.
Lord Kitchener is playing the part of q
hero to his fellow-eountrymen somewhat
more gracefully than is the wont of vic
torious English generals. He does not at
feet as some of them liked to do. an inno-
Gently hypocritical surprise when he finds a
crowd filling the platforms of a railway sta
ton at which he is to alight, or lining the
streets along which he is to pass TO some
ceremony. lie neither courts notice nor
deliberately shuns it, going his way natur-
ally and quietly, prepared for Whatever may
befal He accepts applause as simply and
honestly as men give it him. At first he is
little hesitating of speech, but after few
sentences his words come readily, clearly
and forcibly, never of himself, but always OF
his associates in the campaigns in the SUI
dan. of Lord Cromer's help in Cairo and OF
the aid of the government at home The
spokesman Of the prosperous merchants
who gave him Il sword of honor and the
freedom Of London the other day, and who
probably never saw any combat more seri-
Gus than a schooboys' fight, fairly vale
lowed in the carnage before Omdurmans
Lord Kitchener, in reply, spoke of the opA
portunities for the cvilizing and the COM
I<hartum and it's tributary territory, and
Of the promise of the railway across the
desert that viii soon bind it to Egypt. His
victories over the Dervishes, the fall of OmA
durham, his slxillful treatment of M. March-
and, all appeal to him less than the railway
that he conceived and built and that made
certain the overthrow of the Khalifa. The
sirdar entered the army as in engineer, and
he is still an engineer at heart. The extern
sion of the line to Khartum and the build
ing of bridges that shall make il a perma-
nent way, practicable for trade and travel.
are for the moment his dearest projects He
is at work at them already in the intervals
of dinners and civic ceremonies, and in a
few weeks he will have distributed his COM
missions among English ironmasters
A SOLDIER OF THE BRAIN.
The sirdar is thoroughly of his own time,
q soldier of the brain, like Won Moltke or
Sherman, not of the heart like Murat OF
Sheridan. Versifers will not be tempted to
write of him or novelists to set him in
their tales. He is not the man to lead a
charge like the heroic plumbers Of the
I.ancers at Omdurman, and it is characters
istic of him that he speaks Oftener of the
quiet, patient, ceaseless work OF the men
that built the desert railway and moved
the troops and the stores than of those
that actually fought me DerVlShes He is
not a general to snatch a victory by sheer
personal force out of impending defeat.
Rather he is one who has so assduously
adapted his means to his ends that there
is the smallest likelihood of such con-
tingency.
In appearance. in speech, in manner, q
dry keen, untiring alertness seems Lord
Kitcheners domipant trait. Actually, he is
forty-eight years old, but one sees in him
only a man in that full prime when every
capability has been sharpened and trained
but his frame is too slight to give an inn
preston Of physical strength, and there is
no hint in his bearing or in his words of
the intangible magnetism that makes some
men leaders OF soldiers. His troops, one
fancies. follow him with the same conf
dence that Mr. Kiplings vivified piston
rods and eccentrics might have in their
engineer. He looks" said one of the
guests at the Mansion House dinner, like
a man that would never grow tird." And
his neighbor added: "Or expect any ono
else to- His eyes are cold, clear, serious
his mouth firm set. His whole expression
is little hard his whole hearing sugges-
tive of resolute sef-wili and equally Tes0-
lutte self-control with an aloofness that
springs from long and somewhat isolated
habits and from full self-reliance rather
than from any affectaton of superiority.
One does not need to look many times at
Lord Kitchener to see that he is keenly
ambitious man, and has paid the price i'm
obstacles overcome at every step upward.
The work in hand is not ALL himself noth-
ing, as they were with Bismarck. He seems
rather to blend himself and the work 1GtO
one.
EXCITES NO LOVE.
On his personal side, it is easy to wonder
at the degree to which the sirdar has touched
the imagination of Englshmen. He seems
never to have sought or gained the affec~
ton Of his soldiers. They only trusted him
because in all their experience of him he
had never failed; while he regarded them
as essential means to his ends, to be kept,
therefore, in the best possible condition, and
to be worked to the utmost. Officers that
have served under him have a similar cold
and reasoned confidence IN him, coupled
often with frank dislike Of his self-absorp-
ton and of the relentless work and disci-
pline that he imposed The bureaucrats OF
the war office. that now profess such pride
in him, also dislike him personally and it
required all his and Lord Cromer's shrewd-
ness and resolution to escape from the red
checked them once and for all, they tried
to hind him. Living long in the Ievant ana
mixing little with English society there, he
has Singularly few friends. HIS dislike or
married officers, since marriage, in his view.
divided their interests, and his own lack OF
domestic ties are not circumstances to COM
mend him 10 British Philistines. In appear
ance and in speech he makes no appeal to
Them Yet they speak Of the battle before
Omdurman in language that would not be
inappropriate to Waterloo itself, and they
have received Lord Kitchener with deep
and sincere enthusiasm that no English
general of our generation has enjoyed.
At bottom. however, the actual fighting
in the Sudan has probably impressed Eng
ishmen less than the machine-like efficiency
of all the sirdars campaigning. He has
shown himself strong where the English
army and English generals are believed to
him accordingly. OF course. his return
when the dispute over Fashoda had made
Englishmen of all ranks more disposed to
war with a great power than they had been
for nearly fifty years contributed much to
the warmth of his reception. And the sirdar
turned this general confidence in him to
adroit use. He had seen NJ Marchand and
talked with him. He liked the French com-
mander and above all, he appreciated his
heroic journey from the Congo to the Nile.
Those were the days in which Englishmen
liked to sheer at Marchands expedition as
a promenade of a few Frenchmen and n
few ''niggers" across Africa, and in which
the altogether bellicose seemed a little re-
sentful because Lord Kitchener had noe
brought NJ Marchand captive to Cairo or,
at the least. thrust him bodily out of
Fashoda. AS in the Sudan. the cnglish
commander treated the French officer with
the tact and the courtesy that delicate
situation. with much at stake. demanded oe
two gentlemen, so here in London the srdar
has made no secret of his admiration fOE
the majors intrepidity. fortitude and devO-
ton to his task. and helped to bring Eng
ish opinion to a more sympathetic appre-