Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-12-23
EUROPEAN WAR NOTES

"Since then, every man has taken I'd
the fashion of heating his meals. The
kitchens furnish US with the grease
and we live quite comfortably though
the weather may be below freezing and
German shells may be cracking over
our heads"
ASSOCIATED Press Correspondence)
Havre, Dec. 19.--Several Belgian of
f1cers have been deprived Of their
rank by royal decree for having cross
ed into Holland without the excuse of
military necessity. On the fall Of Ant
werp large force of Belgians and
English were driven into Holland by
the Germans, and were there disarr1ec.
But major, two captain command
ants. a captain and two sub-lieuten-
ants. who voluntarily crossed in order
to escape further military duty, have
paid the penalty with the loss of their
shoulder straps.
ASSOCIATED Press Correspondence
Lakenheath, Dec. ia visit to
Lakenheath, the ancestral home of the
Kitcheners, impressed one with the
facts that Lord Kitchener is not an
Irishman but Suffolk man, and that
war and rumors of war have very lit
tie significance or Importance in the
free, hard air of the English country
side
One reaches Lakenhearth from Lon
don in couple OF hours. The village is
a sleepy old Suffolk town, in the midst
of the fens-a city of one street, one
church, one inn, one graveyard, but
with profusion of farm land and farm
animals, and an almost Dutch abund-
ance of whirrtng wind mills.
This is Kitcheners country. For
Kitchener, like the Duke of yelling
ton, is called an Irishman merely by
the accident of birth. Efe was born IN
Ireland because his father happened To
be stationed there at the time. He -
really of old Suffolk yoeman stock, as
may be easily proved by pointing to
the eleven Kitchener gravestones IN
the Lakenheath churchyard.
Lakenheath is hardly what one would
call an up-to-the- minute town It is
frankly. proudly. slow" 1t talks the
Suffolk dialect. It shares with thous-
ands of exactly similar agricultural
villages in Britain a leisurely contempt
for what goes on in the outside world
In the inn. they discuss the war as
they discuss all subjects, but in far
off, detached way. There Is no doubling
their patriotism, firm and solid, IN
questioning patriotism, and the town
has furnished its share of recruits as
1t has for every war since the begin
ming Of things.
The old Kitchener house is a half
mile or so up the moor road from the
Half Moon inn. 1t is small, decrepit,
old farmhouse. now labelled the
"Rookery." 1t is of brick and cobble,
with the regulation four white win
dows in front, and smaller false win
Cow frowning down from over the
door. Behind is the farmyard, crowded
with geese and chickens and a COW and
a dog. For over two hundred years,
that house and farmstead was the
home of Lord Kitchener's forebears
On his mothers side. he is a ChevaI-
lier, family of long standing in Suf-
folk, despite the French name.
In the church yard. which has ra-
Gently been repaired and restored at
Lord Kitchener's expense, the Kitchen
err graves occupy prominent place.
There are no elaborate monuments
they have plain messy markers at head
and foot, the same as the other village
dead
The first Kitchener's inscription Is as
follows: Here lyeth the body Of
Thomas Kitchener, who came from
Binsted in Hampshire in the year 1898,
an agent to We Honble Sir Nicholas
Stuart. Bart, and departed this life
April we 5th, 1871, ages IS years." He
was Lord Kitchener's thrice-great
grandfather.
BY his side lies John Kitchener: his
son. who is honored with poetic Ell
taph
Stay mortal, and depart not from my,
stone,
But stand and ponder well where I am
gone; .
Death quickly took my sense and
strength away
And laid me down in this dark bed OF
clay,
Consider of 1t and take home this line.
The grave that is made next may
chance be thine