New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-06-07
"K. of K"

Perhaps the thing that one would say
first of Lord Kitchener is that he, more
than any other man, served in Britain as
the symbol of strength, of determination, OF
The will to bear and to do in the terrible
first months of the Great War When, with
the coming of war, there was the whls-
ner. then the assertion, that Lord Haldane
was 20 20 back to his old post, Britain
and Britain's allies alike felt a sense Of
apprehension. of doubt All this was dis
PEELED when the fact was established that
*. of K" was to go to the War Office.
In the months that followed, when Eng
land had to create out of nothing armies,
officers, a system and a machine, 1t was
Kitchener who in the public mind stood
for the success Of this tremendous I'M
dertaking. The first force that crossed
the seas after the expeditionary army had
fought itself to a shadow was "K-1."
The very posters that babe men enlist bore
The face and name of the man. who had
conquered the Sudan and brought civil
ization back to the land where Gordon
persisted.
Never in history, not even in our own
American Civil War history, has there
been a more marvellous or more splendid
voluntary rising of a nation than that
which answered the call to the colors IN
Great Britain in the early months Of the
war. Those who volunteered were num-
bered by the millions. Not only did all
that was best in Britain respond, but
the host that marched was beyond the cal
culation of any who based estimates of
British response upon records of volunteer
ing in the past.
The task that was Kitchener's was in
b magnitude beyond that which any general
BIAS confronted. In character it was like
that which was faced by the elder Carnot
in France and by Mcclellan in our own
Civil War. 1t was the task of finding the
guns, the officers, the munitions, not for
an army, but for a nation long given over
to the habit of peace and never before in
history confronted by such an immediate
and tremendous peril.
In the present time mon talk about
mistakes. Mistakes were made. Kitcd-
ener himself was responsible for some,
but the main mistake was not his. It
was after all the mistakes had been made
that were possible that he was called in to
perform a miracle, and while the miracle
itself was performed men criticised the
incidental mistakes, but hereafter men will
equally marvel at what was accomplished.
In very definite and enduring fashion
Lord Kitchener will be indistinguishable
from that great national response which
England, Scotland and Wales made to The
call to the coors. Generals failed at the
front and at the rear, exactly as generals
failed with us in the Civil War and with
the French in the Revolution. Statesmen
and politicians Numbered and faltered ;
but behind this, underneath this, the mill
ions of British men slowly, steadily,
transformed themselves voluntarily from
civilians into uniformed servants of the
State.
1t is a wrong idea that any man, any
soldier, can transform civilian popula-
tion into an army, speedily victorious,
Immediately efficient. Napoleon the Great
found Carnot's army at his hand when ne
began his wonderful career, but Carnot,
who made the army, bore full burden of
defeat 1t was not Kitchener's fault that
his first armies were not the rivals in
achievement of the Napoleonic-it was
his claim to distinction, and it will be an
enduring claim, that under his direction
armies were created which could take the
field so promptly and hold the German
armies in check.
What Kitchener did will be tested here
after, so far as the quality Of his armies
is concerned. But what Kitchener did,
what Britain did, in providing these
armies is a final answer to the challenge
of the Germans that the British were a
decsdent people who would not defend
their possessions or their liberties and that
British armies were and would remain
mercenary.
On the military side Kitchener was
successful colonial soldier. He was not a
great general; in the old-fashioned sense
he was hardly general at all. lie was
the man who carried a railroad into the
desert, created an instrument which had
accomplished its main task before the Bat
tie of Omdurman was fought, for the re-
suit Of the battle was inevitable once his
army was ready. South Africa did not
add greatly to the fame of Ak of X" lie
was never the commander of large armies
in the field, and he never fought battle
comparable not with the Marine or Flan-
ders but with those of Marlborough or
Wellington.
Ye. men will recall now that when Eng
land was still IN the dark as to the extent
and length of' the war it was Kitchener