The Hartford republican., 1916-06-30
WASBELOVED BY HIS MEN
SOLDIERS Soldier" Title Given To
Dead Field Marshal by His Loyal
Command.

chieftan whom the British Empire is
mourning was able to weep.
1t was the first Sunday after the
then Sirdar of the Egyptian army had
avenged Gordon" by killing 1900
wounding 10000 and capturing 4,
900 dervishes at the battle of Omdur-
man. The avengers were giving a
Christian funeral to the British
soldier who had been beheaded and
his body cast into the Nile by the
fanatical Khalifa IA years before.
British and Egyptian troops were in
array before the very palace in which
Gordon spent his last hour, river
gunboats doomed salutes to the
British and Egyptian flags, a band
of Mahometan Sudanese played
Christian hymns, chaplains of four
denominations prayed and read
psalms-through it all Kitchener
stood in front of his staff, silent,
motionless, like marble image.
Wept for Gordon.
Pipers then walled dirge, and as
the awiling died out the black,
heather Soudanese band struck up
the favorite hymn of Gordon, "Abide
With Me-" The cold Kitchener, the
man who for IA years had worked
and fought to reach the goal made
sacred by the blood of his comrade,
burst into tears. There was no af-
fection there; the tears were honest,
and they were honestly wiped away
with the back of his sun tanned
hand.
Lord Kitchener was distinctly a
soldiers soldier. The troops who
served under him in the field under
stood him and so called him cold,
cruel and heartless. The public ad-
mires a dress parade soldier; the
man in the ranks is devoted to an
officer who is workingman. Kitch-
ener was a workingman and, when
there was a necessity, he worked
three shifts a day of eight hours
each.
There was a time when he was a
lion in rage at other times the poor
est soldier found in him a friend.
One of his angriest outbursts was
after the relief of Mafeking in the
Boer war, Gen. Baden-Powell and a
small force of British soldiers had
been besieged in the little Rhodesian
town for months. Their food supply
was nearly exhausted and their pleas
for help became so heart-rending that
Lord Kitchener in the far-away
Orange Free State could resist no
longer, although he could i'll spare
the men for a relief expedition. He
sent northward over the veldt his
old friend OF Egyptian days, Brig
Gei. Mahan, and a force of cavalry.
Mafeking Relieved.
The troop eluded the willy De Wet,
who gloated over, then bagged just
such expeditions by the score, and
reached within 10 miles of Mafeking
when out toward them rode the be-
leaguered garrison, with Gen. Baden
Powell at its head and Offering Gen.
Mahan a handful of cigars. When
Gen. Mahan, after wild return dash
through De Vets lines. had reported
the details OF the "relief" of Gen.
Boden-Powell, Lord Kitchener eX-
pleaded with a noise that reached
almost from Bloemfontein to Pret-
oria.
Fancy" was his exclamation, If
translated out of army language,
fancy, calling for assistance of the
whole British army where there
wasn't a Boer within 500 miles of
Mafeking!"
II Lord Kitchener was beloved by
his soldiers, he was regarded as
actually something more than human
by the devishes OF Egypt, and the
story of how he came to be placed
only step below the sacred Mahdi
by the ignorant, superstitious natives
of the upper hill region gives an idea
of the varied experiences of the sold
ier who went down with the Hamp->
shire. In his early days in Egypt,
when he still was Herbert Kitchener,
the plodding engineer officer, he lost
one of his eyes through contact with
a poisonous weed that grows along
the hill and il became necessary to
procure an artificial eyeball. After
Gordon had been slain by the Khali-
ia and Lord Kitchener had been pro-
noted TO governor general OF Suakin,
on the Red Sea, he found II necessary
to obtain information concerning the
country and people in the Khartoum
region. Unable to find person
qualified to obtain the information