Kitchen Cabinet

Immediately after the peace he went to India as commander in-chief in the East Indies, and in this position, which he held for seven years, he carried out not only many far-reaching administrative reforms but a complete re-organization and strate gical redistribution of the British and native forces. In India he came into severe conflict with the viceroy, Lord Curzon, and he ultimately induced the secretary of state to give the commander in-chief fuller powers over army expenditure. On leaving India in 1909 he was promoted field marshal, and succeeded the duke of Connaught as commander-in-chief and high commissioner in the Mediterranean. This post, not of great importance in itself, was regarded as a virtual command of the colonial as distinct from the home and the Indian forces, and on his appointment Kitchener (after a visit to Japan) undertook a tour of inspection of the forces of the empire, and went to Australia and New Zealand in order to assist in drawing up local schemes of defence. In this mission he was highly successful, and earned golden opinions. But soon after his return to England in April 1910 he declined to take up his Mediterranean appointment, owing to his dislike of its inadequate scope, and he was succeeded in June by Ian Hamilton. In the late summer of 1911 he became British agent and consul-general in Egypt.

Egypt.

On the day he landed at Alexandria, Italy was pre senting an ultimatum to Turkey, and there is no doubt that Kitchener's presence and his prestige were mainly responsible for the safe passage of Egypt through the critical period of the Tripoli and Balkan wars, and that no one but himself would have been able to prevent collisions between the Greek and Italian colonists and the natives. His idea was to keep the coun try busy with the contemplation of its own affairs, and he initi ated a policy of economic reform the effects of which were to be enduring. His programme comprised village savings banks, the five feddan law, the opening of cotton markets all over the country, cantonal courts, the promotion of the Department for Agriculture to a ministry, school buildings, sanitation and press supervision, and the heightening of the Aswan lam—all of ab sorbing interest to him, all receiving his assiduous care.

At the War Office.

Earl Kitchener (he had just received an earldom for his services in Egypt) came home on leave in June 1914, intending to return in September. But on July 31 all heads of missions were ordered to repair to their posts, and on Aug. 3 Kitchener was actually on board the Channel boat when a message arrived from the prime minister requiring him to stay in England. Three days later he took over the seals of the War Office, and instantly laid his plans for an army of 7o divisions, coolly calculating that its maximum strength would be reached during the third year of the War, just when the enemy would be undergoing a sensible diminution of his resources in man-power. His scheme, of course, ran clean contrary to all accepted ideas: it had always been held that in time of war, though armies could be expanded, they could not be created, and to imagine otherwise seemed as surprising to our friends as to our enemies. In the early

days of 1916 Kitchener could tell the Cabinet that 67 divisions were afoot and three in the mould ; he was met by a representation that we must choose between a diminution of our forces and a reduction of our monetary advances to our Allies. He declined the dilemma. He did not think that England could present either of these conclusions to her Allies without proof positive that expenditure could not be reduced nor national income increased, that her administration was free from extravagance, that her taxable capacity was fully exploited and that all parts of the Empire were pulling their weight. The conflict of opinion was sharp and short, with the upshot that the 7o infantry divisions were assured of their existence, and the way was prepared for the Kitchener armies to take their part in the battle of the Somme which he knew was planned for the coming summer. "I have no fear," he said, "about winning the War ; I fear very much we may not make a good peace." If he did not live to take his place at Versailles, at least as regards the creation and placing in the field of the great force which was to hold high England's honour he could review a finished work, for his last division to go overseas took ship the very day on which he himself set out on the journey from which he was not to return.

Kitchener's vision or intuition served him to protest, though vainly, against the concentration of the original B.E.F. so far forward as Maubeuge; his rapid and accurate grasp of a situa tion caused him to hurry to France after the retreat from Mons to insist, in the name of the Government, on the British Army remaining in the Allied line; and enabled him in 1915 to pro nounce that the evacuation of the Gallipoli peninsula could be effected with infinitely less loss than had been gloomily predicted. Apart from these occasions he did little to interfere with the actual conduct of operations in the field. He knew and sympa thised with the commanders, gave full consideration to their views, and gave them his entire trust and his unswerving support.

His recruiting work was wonderful. His stirring appeals to the nation received immediate answer. The first call was for 1 oo,000 and was followed by analogous appeals at short intervals. He has been criticized for not making greater use of the existing Territorial Army organizations in the early days—the numbers at the Front might conceivably have, within narrow limits, been increased more rapidly had he done so. He had resolved to transform Great Britain into a great military Power while the struggle was actually in progress and success eventually crowned his efforts. If clothing and equipping the swarms of new armies presented obstacles at first, the skilfully tapped textile wealth of the country overcame them within a short space of time.