Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-06-09

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as the great organizer of the British
campaign in the European war, Kitch-
ener 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, a 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 dragon regiment, when
ne retired to the estate in Ireland, where
Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the to-be-
distinguished son, was born. Young
Kitchener received his fundamental mill
itary education at Woolwich, where he
displayed only ordinary brilliancy, with
the exception of his liking for mathe-
matics. On graduating he received
commission in the royal engineers, but
when not yet twenty-one years Of age
he attached himself to a French army
i'm the Franco-Prussian war. He had
been I'm the service only a short time
when he contracted pneumonia during
balloon fight. and had such a pro-
lpnged and serious illness that he had
to give UP further service for France.
Kitchener's experience in European war
fare-prior TO his direction of the great
war of 1914-therefore, had been limited
only to few balloon flights i'm France
In 1874 when a British expedition was
sent out to survey western Palestine,
Kitchener was one of the eager volun-
teers accepted for this service. For
months he travelled over the hills and
valleys of this peaceable Bible land
with his theodolite and surveying tape,
and with this life in the open he grew
to be a tall, gaunt subaltern with a
hard face well burned. His contribu-
ton to the typographical knowledge of
the Holy Land completed, young Kitch-
ener was sent to Cyprus, which Great
Britain had just acquired, to organize
a system of courts. work i'm which he
displayed administrative ability and
tact.
1t was while there, in 1889. that he
took his first step on the path that was
to lead him eventually 60 Khartum.
Trouble was already brewing i'm the SUI
dan. Hearing that the Egyptian army
was being organized by Sir Evelyn
Wood, young Kitchener saw his oppor-
tunity with unerring instinct and lost
no time in offering his services The
military authorities, recognizing at
OliCG MS lISlSul INTO the ndLlNe CldIdC-
ter. put him in the intelligence depart
ment, and from the very outset of his
Egyptian career negotiations of the ut
most Importance were entrusted to him
and carried out with invariable success.
AS an intelligence officer Kitchener
accompanied Sir Herbert Stewards des-
ert column on that heroic but disastrous
enterprise known as the Gordon relief
expeditiop-the relief of General Gordon
l..
tangled during the evacuation of the
Sudan. Kitchener deeply took to heart
the losses OF this fiasco, with its failure
of transport and intelligence depart
ments, and avoided these troubles in the
expedition which he himself led some
years later.
In the meantime Kitchener was en-
ployed in innumerable fights and raids
against the dervishes or Mahdists of
southern Egypt. In 1886 he became
governor of the Red sea territories and
set in motion a series of raids on the
notorious Osman Digna, the dervish
leader. In one of these raids Kitchener
men were fianked and put to flight, dur
ing which he received a bullet which
broke his jaw.
BY this time much was heard in Eng
land of Kitcheners work in Egypt and
when he returned there for a short rest
lAC was ACNCANCu Win A4ullOA anu llOliiA-
mated aide-de-camp of Queen Victoria.
With his health recruited, he went back
to Egypt where, on the resignation of
Sir Francis Grenfell, he was appointed
sirdar (commander) of the Egyptian
army. His really great career dates
from that time.
As an instance of the self-confidence
with which Kitchener undertook his
tasks in Egypt is recalled how he dealt
with office fau- unnaralg no
fore him ever dared. On one occasion he
sent home for a special kind of gun. The
war Office suggested another kind. The
sirdar repeated his orders. Next he was
informed that the war Office guns had
been forwarded, whereupon he dis
patched a politely insolent message
home saying that he was very grateful,
but the war office could keep its guns.
His message read: II can throw stones
at the dervishes myself" AS a conse-
quence, the guns he asked for were for
warded without delay.
The Kitchener campaign that ended
with the recapture of Khartum Was con-
sidered by military experts as perfectly
organized and faultlessly conducted The
Egyptian army that Kitchener had
worked up to such a remarka bic efficien-
CIV was, when he first took charge of it,
a band of unpaid, unfed and undermined
fellaheen 1t was said TO be an army
without stomach, heart or backbone"
but Kitchener worked over these help
less reeds of broken natives and made
Of them some of the finest of black bat
talions.
VICTORY AT KHARTUM
The fight at Omdurman. September .,
1898, lust across the Nile from Khar-
tum, was the greatest battle of Kitch-
ener's time in Egypt. Osman Digna
he had bat 10000 men. When the battle
was over, 1000 of the Mahdists had