KITCHENER, kich"e-ner, Horatio Her bert, 1ST EARL KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM AND OF BROOME, British soldier: b. Crotter House, Ballylongford, County Kelly, Ireland, 24 June 1850; drowned west of the Orkney Islands, Scotland, 5 June 1916. Though of Irish birth, he was of English descent, his father being Lieut.-Col. H. H. Kitchener, of the 13th Dra goons. He was educated at the Royal Mili tary Academy, Woolwich. and received his commission in the Royal Engineers on 4 Jan. 1871. Between the time of his entering the mili tary academy and receiving his commission he had seen service in the Franco-German War. He was at Dinan when war broke out, offered his services to the French authorities and served as a private in the Second Army of the Loire under the command of General Chanty. As a subaltern Kitchener was mainly employed on survey work in Palestine and Cyprus. The whole of the survey of Galilee for the Palestine Exploration Fund's map was executed by him. He was employed from 1882-92 in assisting in the reorganization of the Egyptian army, and in 1892 became sirdar or commander-in-chief. The next four years were spent in preparations for the reconquest of the Soudan, and in 1896 he began operations against the Khalif a, whose forces he defeated at Firket. The result of this engagement was the recovery of the prov ince of Dongola. In 1898 he again defeated the Khalifa's forces at Atbara. Kitchener had learned well the lessons of warfare in Egypt and behind each advance constructed a railroad. On 2 September of that year the Khalifa's forces were utterly deated at Omdurman and two days after the battle Kitchener entered Khartoum. For these services Kitchener was raised to the peerage as Baron Kitchener of Khartoum. A remarkable feature in the con quests was the economy with which the three campaigns from 1896-98 were conducted, the total cost exceeding little more than $12,000,000.
Then occurred an episode that might have led to war between England and France, when a French officer, Colonel Marchand, with a small force of Senegalese soldiers, established themselves at Fashoda, on the White Nile, 600 miles above Khartoum on territory claimed for Egypt. Kitchener met the situation very tact fully; y; he visited Fashoda, permitted the tri color to remain hoisted and arranged with Mar chand that the disputed occupancy should be re ferred to the diplomatists of the two countries.
In 1899 Kitchener was summoned from Egypt to join Lord Roberts as chief of the staff when the latter took over the supreme command of the British forces during the Great Boer War. Here his untiring energy was devoted first to the work of organization. He was responsible for the decision to attack the Boers at Paardeberg and his tactical dispo sitions on that occasion were subjected at the time to severe criticism. In November 1900, after both of the Boer capitals had been occu pied, and it appeared as if the object of the war had been attained, Lord Roberts handed over the command to Lord Kitchener and to him fell the difficult and arduous task of coping with the guerrilla methods thereafter adopted by the Boers, and to which the country was well adapted. He first made his railway com munications safe and secured the important cen tres; then he brought the non-combatant popu lation into concentration camps; and finally he established a vast system of protective block houses hugging the railway lines, which were finally used as armed bases against which long lines of mounted men swept parties of the Boers. In the negotiations preceding the Treaty of Vereeniging in 1902, which ended the war, Kitchener took an active part, and he favored the granting of generous conditions of peace. As a mark of appreciation for his services he was raised a step in the peerage by being cre ated a viscount, promoted to the rank of gen eral and was awarded the Order of Merit.
Shortly after the conclusion of the Boer War he was appointed commander-in-chief in India, and this post he held till 1907, carrying through a number of important reforms in the organization of the Indian army. At the end of his term he was appointed commander-in chief in the Mediterranean, but this appoint ment he subsequently declined. In leaving India he paid a visit to Japan and then proceeded to Australia and New Zealand, where he drew up schemes for the defense of these dominions which were subsequently put in operation. In April 1910 he returned to England, when there ensued a brief respite from military duties and a relapse into civil life.