BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-06-23
SAN JUAN, JUNE q
Lord Kitchener.

The closing scenes of the Boer war
are rendered doubly interesting by the
light they throw upon new aspects OF
the remarkable man who has brought
that weary struggle to a satisfactory
conclusion. Lord Kitchener has been
a conspicuous figure in British mill
tarv history ever since he carried
through his brilliant campaign in the
Soudan four years ago and smashed
the army of the Khalifa at Ondurman.
Much has been written about him ;
many euesses have been made in the
attempt to understand his striking per-
sonality, Until now, however no pic
ture. that has been drawn Of him was
anything but incomplete.
The late G. w. Stevens committed
to paper a vivid impression of the
Sirdar as he appeared at the beginning
of the struggle in Egypt. In those
pages we see the man more clearly even
than in any photograph-his six feet
and more Of stature, his slender frame,
straight as a lance and eloquent of tire
less endurance, the stead passionless
eyes, the inscrutable mouth, the face
which, though harsh, seemed to have
no perception of anything like personal
feeling, neither appealing for affection
nor stirring dislike" 1t is a picture
of the purely professional soldier
trained to the highest pitch Of military
efficiency, a consurnmate master OF de-
tail whose observation nothing can
esca pc, a man OF unerring precision, all
intellect, inspired and directed by the
force of an indomitable will. That was
Kitch ener as his subordinates and
soldiers knew him then-a sort OF Eng
i,h Mo1tke, not popular with his sub
ordinates whom he worked to the last
ounce of their endurance, a soldier
scornfu1 Of military display, one who
never entered a dra wlng-room, one
whose heart no woman had ever
touched. When he had completed his
march upon Khartoum and had aveng-
ed the death of Gordon, all Eng
land felt that another great general
had arisen to carry on the splendid ira
ditions of the British army. Military
critics pointed out that at the battle Of
Ondarrnan he had been guilty of three
seri )us tactical mistakes, any one of
which in the presence of a civilized
army would have invited absolute dis
aster; but the replI to this was easy.
The enemy was not a European ARM
but a savage horde, and it is the issue
of a battle which condemns or justifies
a general, and at Omdurman Kitchener
had Il cut of action over 10000 of the
Dervish warriors and had annihilated
Mahdism.
When he went OFT to South Africa,
however, rev CRITICISM aSSailed linn.
He trampled unfeelingly upon the SEN
sibilities of the incapable. To those
who had friends at court and who tried
to make that fact a basis for consider
alton, he was as IA ciy brutal. All
that he cared for vas TO win, to drive
the army on relentlessly to its goal at
Pretoria. to see that the lives Of neither
men nor horses nor beasts of burden
stood in the way of the triumphant
execution of the movement which Lord
Roberts had designed. Pretoria fell
Lord Roberts returned to England
with new wreath of laurel, while
work of ALL knowing perfectly that
however well he did it there could be
little glory in the task, and infinite de-
mands upon his strength and patience.
And so indeed it proved Week af-
ter week and month after month he
fought the long battle in the dark, in a
hostile country, with a horrible climate,
and with elusive foes whom he could |
never hope to meet and vanquish on a
stricken field. His dnty was TO wear
the enemy down, to stop the holes
through which they might escape, TO
hem them in little by little, and show
that however great might be their obs
tlnacy and endurance his own vas
greater. Through all these months his
popularity was utterly obscured, and I
even the man in the street made stupid I
Jokes at his expense. Some even said I
that all his reputation had gone the
way of Buffers, and that his rise had
been a rocket fight brief, brilliant and !
unmeaning.
To-day the sky has cleared and ali I
the world discerns the true proportions
of the man. His dogged perseverance,
and his silence under criticism, like
the dogged perseverance and the silence
of Grant during the bloody weeks of
the Wilderness have won the game.
But he has shown qualities which hith-
erto no one had known him to possess.
In the final negotiations, where all men
naturally expected some civilian to
come forward, Kitchener's was still
the dominating figure. Lord Miner
and the other British reprs sentatives ,
hardly counted and it was the fighter (
With whom the men that he had !