The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-12-22
LORD KITCHENER
EXTRACTS FROM Il STAFF OFF,
GERS
Rominisconces--Incldsnts in the sudar

Campaign.
"a Staff Officer" writes in Black
woods Magazine for December, one of
those intimate sketches of men and
things which are characteristic of
Maya. campaigning with Kitchener
is full of good things, and is obviously
written by an officer who has enjoyed
unique opportunities for studying the
new commander-in-chief in India. He
remembers meeting Viscount Kitchener
in 1897 and asking him when the Event
the reconquest of the Sudan-Was
due to happen. Thirteen months
hence" was the answer. Thirteen
months! That is a long time to wait"
Yes, it u.s." said Kitchener; but re-
member that some of US have been
waiting for it for thirteen years" "A
Staff Officer" attributes the gift of
overcoming apparently insuperable diff
ficulties which the Sirdars officers pos
sessed in such a marked degree in the
Sudan campaign, very largely to the
unbending severity with which he
treated all failures, whether high or
low were responsible for them. "A
thing was ordered it had to be done,
and consequently it was done; no ex-
cuses prevailed for an instant
Much of Kitchener's success was no
doubt due to his wise choice of the
tools he used-they really were tools
rather than men; and no finer body of
young fellows ever wore sword than
those splendid officers who worked and
shaved for him, day after day, in those
God-forsaken, sand-sWept wastes.
But no one knows, no one perhaps will
ever fully know, the extent to which
Kitchener was implored, beseeched, ca
joled by the highest in the land to en-
ploy A. or B. or c. on his staff, or any
where. Kitchener was adamant to
such requests. No general has
ever been more entirely independent If
the help of those Immediately around
him; not one of his tools was indispen-
sable, nor even a dozen of them
though many did not realize the fact
Are you going to bring up General x.
for this campaign 1 once asked him.
No, I don't think So Kitchener re-
piled; he is doing very we'll where he
is, and on my staff he always makes a
channel
kitchener hated channels, hated any
strait-waistcoat which hampered and
confined him, and here is an instance.
This same X. had been very we'll
brought up, and he liked to issue a
sealed pattern daily order which was
anathema to Kitchener, and the more
as it was quite unnecessary when the
army was all under his hand, and or
ders were best conveyed verbally.
However, X. was so importunate that
at last out of sheer WEAKNESS Kitche-
ner dictated an order, and *, full of a
new and blissful sense of Importance,
hurried off to get it duly copied, regis
tered, duplicated, sealed, signed and de-
livered in the good old style. Mean
while Kitchener strOlls out, and acci
dentally meets BroadWood, his cavalry
commander. ooh, BroadWood, says
Kitchener, in that soft and almost de-
precating drawl which some of his SUI
bordinates could mimic to the life, 'yOu
will kindly take four squadrons and E
couple of guns and push on forty miles
to clear up the situation, and start II
half an hour Very good, sir say!
Broadwood, who was a man of few
words. AS the cavalry were jingline
out of camp X comes out of his ten
with his orders hot from the press, an(
meets them. Where are you off to?
exclaims x. Mutual explanations fol
low, when it is found that Kitchener!
verbal orders are entirely differen
from those he dictated, and poor X
went back to his tent, and thencefortf
gave up the issue of the daily order a
a hopeless task"
With all his aloofness and self-suff
cheney, Kitchener had one excellen
custom in the Sudan-he lived ''in on
mess with the whole OF his very SINAI
staff, perhaps eight or nine men alto
gether, and was always accessible t
information and opinions of all sorts
He was thereby placed in close touc
with that strange uncanny Will-o'-the
wisp, the spirit of the army, whic]
some generals who live too much apar
from and above their men never coun
with and never Understandable thei
own infinite loss and the army VS." A
the same time mo man ever kept hi
own counsel better than Kitchene
when fighting was afoot; there wa
never any leakage Of information, be
cause there was never any informatio
to leak, Once when the enemy threat
ened our line of communication I eX
pressed some anxiety about our wires
which were laid, for all the world
see, as a ground-line along the deser
glistening in the sun and bearing
meaning even to dervish, which
saying good deal. Kitchener told m
to ride down to the river bank and 50
If felt happier; down I went, and al
ter diligent search discovered secon
wire cunningly laid under the bush an
sedges AS l was about to ride back
saw steamer pushing off, and aske
the young engineer officer on boar
what he was about; it turned out thu
he had personal instructions fro1
Kitchener to lay a third line of tel
graph on the other bank of the Nil
and no one in the army but the chic
and this young officer had wind of tt
matter Assurance was made M
doubly but trebly sure.
1T always feel a confidence amour
ing to certainty that when Kitchen'
arrives on the bank of the Styx he wi
saunter up with a Berthon boat undo
his arm; to think of his being depe1
dent on the goodwill Of an ill-cond
toned ferryman in the passage of a