Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1914-11-03


GERS and 12O Soudanese tirailleurs, and
their withdrawal left the whole Of the
Soudan in the power of England. But
having conquered, Kitchener at once
began to build up the country, and all
his wonderful powers Of organization
were devoted to creating a new civili-
zation. AS Kipling put it:
They terribly carpet the earth with
dead and before their cannon cool
They walk unarmed by twos and threes
to call the living to school.
The Industry of War.
Within a year the Boer war broke
out, and after the British disasters at
Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso,
| Lord Roberts was sent to South Afri-
ca Lord Kitchener, while still Sirdar
of the Egyptian army, was promoted
lieutenant general and made chief of
staff. He arrived in Cape Town in jan
uary, 1900, and in November took SUI
| preme command after Lord Roberts
had left for England. He went to work
built across the Transvaal a line of
blockhouses connected by wires charg-
ed with electricity; sixty mobile COL
umns were put into the field; all the
women and children and non n-combat-
ants were taken off the farms and
placed in huge concentration camps.
| Slowly and with much less loss Of life
| than would otherwise have been pos
sible the Beers were worn down, and
| in May, 1902, the long struggle ended.
1t was Kitchener's work, not the
| work of q dashing soldier or brilliant
| tactician, but the plodding, methodi-
cal progress of an ideal traffic superin-
| tendent. 1t was work Of organization
in which nothing was left to chance.
He had trained himself to the industry
of war To Kitchener war is only rails
| ing up, clothing and arming men, feed
| ing them and caring for them and plac-
ing them in positions where they can
not lose and placing the enemy in po-
sitions where they cannot win. The ac-
tual battle he looks upon as a necessary
but exceedingly noisy and rather Vul-
gar affair. He fights without a parti-
Gle of feeling for any one, and was per-
sonally responsible for the frontal at
tack at Paardeburg, the bloodiest of the
whole war For his services in South
Africa Kitchener was made viscount,
advanced to the rank of general for
distinguished service" given the
thanks of parliament and $250,000, also
the Order of Merit.
No sooner was peace signed than
Viscount Kitchener was sent to India
as Commander-in chief and in seven
years he revolutionized the Indian
army and freed it from red tape. This
stern, icy man put an instant end to
the old round Of polo-playing, whisky
and soda drinking garrison life. He
made every one work and thanked no
one for working. Just as in South Af-
rica he had shipped back to England
more than 400 officers as useless he
started in to weed out the incompetents
in India All failures were treated with
unbending severity whether high or
low were responsible for them. He
never played favorites and never per-
mitted an excuse to prevail.
The Idol of Men and Women.
The rank and file Of the army love
Kitchener; they worship him. Perhaps
it is because he makes their officers
work. Women are greatly attracted to
him and yet he has never married.
There is an element Of chance that en-
ters into matrimony and no one can
imagine Kitchener leaving anything to
chance.
But, although he is a bachelor this
tall, handsome man is by no means a
woman hater. He does not carry his
heart upon his sleeve and he is the
most undemonstrative of men. His un-
readable, still face, iron n-jawed and
wordless, the hard gray eyes that look
over other mems heads tell Of soul OF
Steel And then he has great physical
strength. All over his foot frame
muscles are stretched like wire rope,
and at siXty-four he is 1.-the and wiry.
Although his bearing is dignified and
cold, he can display at times the agility
of cat. In an accident in India in
1903 where other men would have lost
their lives, he escaped with a broken
leg.
Such a man naturally appeals to wo-
men. He is the oak to which the vine
may cling, and he possesses in a pre-
eminent degree the two things in
which the fair sex is always lacking
and which they most admire; great
physical strength and the inability to
tell an untruth.
Officers who worked with Kitchener
in Palestine and knew him at Paphos,
men who fought beside him in Egypt
and saw him, the true Strickland Sahib
on the hot sands Of the desert beneath
the Arab tents, smile knowing smile
when some msinformed person makes
remark about Kitchener not caring
for women. But he knows their uses
and if he had his way they would prob
ably be kept in stalls.
Teach Them to Shoot"
After leaving India with the rank of
field marshal, Kitchener succeeded the
Duke Of Connaught as commander-in-
chief and high commissioner in the
Mediterranean and made a tour of
England's colonies to organize their
fighting forces. On his way from Aus
tralia he visited Japan and the United
States, returning to England in 1910.
His latest service has been in Egypt,
where he went to continue Lord Gro
mer's great work. He succeeded in re-
storing the Fellah to the land and with
grant Of $l5, 100000 from the British
government created a great cotton
raising industry which has so changed
economic conditions along the Nile that
the nationalist movement which threat
ened TO create great trouble has almost
died out in Egypt.
When war broke out Kitchener was
i'm England to accept promotion in the
peerage to an earldom. The prime min