The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-06-06

compulsory military service. Great
Britain alone faced the issue with con
fdence that its people would readily re-
spond to the call of King and Country
without compulsiOn, and the precipit-
ious developments that lead to the war
found both the people and the govern
ment unanimous in the verdict that
Kitchener of Khartum was the man to
lead i'll the recruiting and organization
Cf the necessary army.
After dispatehing a few hundred
regulars to France and Belgium to help
check the onrushing Germans, the war
secretary began recruiting and organiz-
ing his army of millions. The British
Isles were covered with signs and post
ers urging young men to join the col
ors. Kitchener went through the coun-
try experimenting the drilling of the
army. From time to time there were
reports indicating his failure to get the
number of men he wanted, but within
year after the war opened Premier AS
quith officially announced in Parliament
that about 100000 men had enlisted
in the United Kingdom alone, and al
most another million in the overseas do
miniOus.
Without Ais crowning achievements
as the great organizer of the British
campaign i'll the European war. Kitch-
ner had already won wide and lasting
fame by his many campaigns in Egypt,
South Africa and in India.
He was born June "a, 1850, in County
! Kerry, Ireland, fact that gave rise to
a general belief that he was of Irish
blood, but his parents were of French
and English descent. His father was a
soldier, but of no very high rank He
had managed to climb to the lieutenant
colonelcy of a dragoon regiment, when
! he retired to the estate in Ireland
where Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the
! to-be distinguished son was born.
Young Kitchener received his funda-
mental military education at WooIwich
where he displayed only ordinary bril-
lIancy, with the exception of his Hk-
ling for mathematics. On graduating he
received commission in the ROYAL En-.
gineers, but when not p years of age
!, he attached himself to a French army
in the Franco -Prussian war. He hac
been in the service only a short time
when he contracted pneumonia during
a balloon flight, and had such a pro
; longed and serious illness that he haC
= to give up further service for France
! Kitchener's experience in European
warfare-prior to his direction of tht
great war of l914-therefore, had beer
limited only to a few balloon flight
in France.
In 1874 when British expedition
was sent out to survey Western PaIes
tine, Kitchener was one Of the cage
volunteers accepted for this service.
In 1882 while in Sudan, he took hi
first step on the path that was to lea
him eventually to Khartum. TroubI
was already brewing in the Sudan
Hearing that the Egyptian army wa
being organized by Sir Evelyn WooC
; young Kitchener saw his oppOrtunit
with inerring instinct and lost no tim
in Offering his services. The militar
authorities, recognizing at once his il
i sight into the native character, put hin
z, in the intelligence department, an
d from the very outset of his Egyptia
d career negotiations of the utmost in
II portance were entrusted to him an
carried out with invariable success.
t. an intelligence officer Kitchener a
st companied Sir Herbert Stewart s de
e ert column on that heroic but dsastrol
IS enterprise known as the Gordon Reli,
EXpedition-the relief of General Go
ID don from Khartum where he had bee
Id entangled during the evacuation of Il
- Sudan. Kitchener deeply took
= heart the lessons of this fasco, with /
| failure of transport and intelligen
Il departments, and avoided these trou
II les in the expedition which he himse
led some years later. In the mea
time Kitchener was employed in
Vulnerable fights and raids against t
II dervishes or Mahdists of Southe
Egypt. In 1886 he became governor
the Red Sea territories and set in m
tion series of raids on the notorio
II Osman Digna. the dervish leader.
one of these raids Kitchener IS m
II were fanked and put to fight, duri
II which he received bullet which bro
ii his jaw.