In 1911 Kitchener succeeded Sir Eldon Gorst as British Resident in Cairo. In this position he devoted himself to the suppression of the disloyal and anarchist agitation which had been gathering head during Sir Eldon Gorst's regime, and to the initiation and fur therance of measures for the economic develop ment of the country. Largely owing to his ex ertions the value of the Egyptian cotton fields has largely increased, roads were constructed and unproved, public health safeguarded by ade quate sanitary measures and the fellaheen pro tected by legislation against the exactions of usurers.
The summer of 1914 found Kitchener in England in consultation with the imperial au thorities. On 2 August he was boarding a steamship at Dover on his return to Egypt, when, owing to the threatening situation in Europe, he was summoned back to London. On the 4th war was declared and on the fol lowing day he was appointed Secretary of State for War—an announcement that was hailed with enthusiastic approval in Great Bri tain. The task that fell to him then was one of unexampled difficulty. The British army for effective purposes was composed of a striking force of 160,000 men; he expanded it into an army of 5,000,000, in a country traditionally de voted to voluntary enlistment, and his prestige and personality were main factors in the strik ing results achieved under the voluntary sys tem and in the acceptance by the nation with so little friction of the final resort to conscrip tion. Certain it is, however, that he took on himself a burden that was too heavy for one man to bear. Following on a campaign of criticism in a section of the press the Ministry of Munitions was created and the powers of chief of the staff enlarged with a view to keep ing the War Secretary to matters strictly within his own department. On 2 June 1916 he invited the members of the House of Commons, some of whom had attacked his conduct as War Minister, to a secret conference at the House, and there he is said to have emerged triumph antly from what must have been for him a try ing and somewhat distasteful experience.
The termination of his career followed a few days thereafter with tragic and appalling suddenness. Accompanied by the members of his staff, he embarked on 5 June on the cruiser Hampshire at an unknown port in the north of Scotland, with the intention of proceeding to Archangel, and thence to Petrograd to con fer with the Russian government. The
cruiser was accompanied by two destroyers, hut owing to the heavy seas that were running these had to be detached. At eight o'clock in the evening an explosion occurred on board, which was observed from the shore; four boats were seen to leave the vessel, but these were apparently swamped and the sole survi vors of the wreck were 12 sailors who man aged to reach shore on a raft. It was after ward officially stated that the Hampshire had struck a mine. The news of the disaster was received with consternation and grief in all parts of the British Empire. Kitchener followed as Minister of War by Mr. George, and his elder brother, Henry Elliott Chevallier Kitchener, succeeded to the title.
Kitchener in popular tradition was regarded as a stern, austere and somewhat =approach, able man; but his aloofness was due in the main to shyness, the conditions of his early service in Palestine,. Cyprus and Egypt •fiester ing a love of solitude that became a second nature with him. From the time of his Sudan campaigns he was regarded by the British public as an organizer of victory, one who never struck without making full and adequate preparation for the blow. This characteristic was fully revealed in his final task. When, at the outset of the great European conflict, a short war was generally anticipated, he had the courage and foresight to state the dis agreeable truth and to make adequate prepa:. rations for a long war. No hope of temporary successes in the early stages of the 'conflict could divert him from his purpose, to ensure that, in what he conceived would be a war of exhaustion, the superiority in man power, mu nitions and equipment should in its later stages rest incontestably with the allied powers. Consult Beglie, H.,
Kitchener' (Lon don 1915) ; Burleigh, B., 'Twixt Sirdar and Khalif a> (London 1898)_; Doyle, Sir A. Conan, 'The Great Boer War' (London 1903) ; Groser, H. G.,
Kitchener' (London 1914) ; Hackwood, F. W.,. 'Life of Lord Kitchener' (London 1913); Steevens, G. W., 'With Kitchener to Khartum' (1899-1914) Wheeler; H.. F.,
of Lord
(London 1914) ;