The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1902-07-18

lieutenant colonelcy Of Dragon regi-
ment, the Thirteenth, good, hard
riding, straight fighting band Little
Kitchener was born in Ireland. but he
is more French than Irish, for Lieuten-
ant Colonel Kitchener was Suffolk
man and Mrs. Kitchener was a cheva-
iier and descended straight from
patrician French Huguenots.
The boy grew up like all English
boys of his class. One day he was sent
away from home to learn to be royal
engineer. And an engineer he became
and an engineer he remained and an
engineer he is. A great, steady, I'M
faitering piston rod of man this
driving along in absolute consonance
with the throbiHg of the vast machine
Of fate. What is there in engineering
that produces so many fighting men?
America has had them and England Is
full Of them.
Peaceful Years in Cyprus.
In 1873 England. in the methodical
movement of her red tape machine,
sent him to Cyprus. where he did
something or another about the or
ganization of the land courts. England
had only just then acquired Cyprus,
monotonous work to 90. He remained
there, off and on, until 1882.
Imagine the man who was to be lord
Of Khartoum, sitting in his hot office
in that year, listening to the drone of
a sleepy complainant and still more
sleepy defendant, both quarreling
about matter concerning which
we'll far too deep for human
sounding-and not 500 miles away
British shells laundering at Alexan-
dria, and young Condor Beresford ly-
ing under fire and having the time of
his life" and big history making all
around!
Now 1t is almost an established fact
that one Kitchener did witness the
bombardment Of Alexandria. 1t Is a
completely established fact that there
Is no official record giving any Kitch-
ener leave to go away from Cyprus.
But Cyprus did not suffer- nor did the
bombardment.
Then things began to happen fast
and furious in Egypt. And then did
certain brick red, bony and almost un-
pleasantly silent youth rage in high
quarters against law courts and civil
organization and Office work in Cyprus,
where man had to wear evening
dress at dinner and do other things
equally futile.
Dress suits thereupon became things
of the past with Kitchener. After Tel
el-Kebir saw the breaking of Arabs
mad might, England had to take In
hand the reorganization of the Egyp-
tian army, SO called by courtesy Sir
Evelyn Wood was appointed sidar
(commander). He demanded twenty
five British officers for the work. Be-
ing about as hopeless and unpleasant
and Improbable and unpromising a
job as ever faced white men, there was
rush Of young Britons. Kitchener
G q n11u + IL H~1
Ger In the glorious army Of the khe-
dive-one of that curious corps who
worked loyalty for the little brown
ruler and were ready at any moment
to knock his head off If they or dear
old England didn't like anything he
did.
a Hopeless Loafing Army.
The Egyptian army was band of
underpaid, underfed, undertreated and
undermined fellaheen. 1t was an army
without stomach, without heart and
without backbone. It went forth to war
only with view to retreating at the
earliest possible moment. 1t slouched
and loafed and did not wash. 1t could
not shoot. And Kitchener worked over
those helpless reeds Of broken natives
and gripped them and squeezed them,
and, being nan himself, found the
man in the weak kneed levies before
him.
He made such men out Of them that
in 1887 they made him commander in
SaulNn, and there are remnants Of des-
ert hordes yet who remember certain
ensuing lean years. They renem Der
yet how the gaunt man stepped calm
~ into their camp one night, unarmed
and alone, and cheerfully flicked their
sacred chief in the face with a riding
whip in the midst of his spear bearers
and porrjarC hpr1I
chief was just preparing to put to death
British soldier who had been caught
that afternoon.
OsmaE's Digna's men who still are
alive remember him, for he took his
Egyptian levies into HANDFUL one day.
The great bearded emirs and the saw
age, hairy, fighting men laughed
through their teeth when they say him
come. They had made the poor rice
eaters of Egypt run too often to dream
OF anything else except an easy slaugh-
ter. But this time the men whom
Kitchener had found in the fellaheen
We're behind those brown skins, in
which once there had been room for
nothing but quaking hearts. And emirs
and hairy fighting men snapped their
teeth in the dust in dying.
The troops We're beaten off at last,
but Kitchener, although defeated in
this his first real battle, had broken his
Egyptian soldicry to fighting and kill
Ing as sportsmen "blood' deerhound,
He got bullet in the face as a SOU
venir of the occasion. A few years ago.
while he was eating at table, the bullet
suddenly worked it's way out and fell
into his plate. He lifted it out with his
fork, stared in disapproval at his SER
want, who had too lively an expression
of surprise on his face, and went on
eating without saying a word
f Within a year, after HANDFUL he led a
brigade of Soudanese over the trenches
at Gemaizeh and incidentally over Os-
mans men, who had ::?eautiously occu-
pied them. In 1889 he again commanded
a brigade. 3.
1t was Kitchener who plunged into the
Korosko desert, and in less than three
weeks came out not only alive Chen a
feat in itself, but with the information
that he had succeeded in establishing a
chain Of outposts extending to the Red
sea and guarded by 1000 friendly Arabs.
1t was Kitchener whose native cavalry
sent the dervisaes in rout across the
desert and stopped all Arab invasion for
a year.
And It was Kitchener who, in 1850 was
appointed sirdar. And in 1898 the Sou
dan was conquered. l.
Before he could move to conquer The
Soudan he had to conquer the lzhe6ive
He did. The khedive said something in
5Suitiny bout T,rifiSh rOf K