KITCHENER 



3262 



KITE 



LORD KITCHENER 



as "Kitchener of Khartum," was Great Britain's 

 great military genius of the late nineteenth 

 and early twentieth centuries. He left the im- 

 press of his or- 

 ganizing ability 

 upon almost 

 every part of the 

 empire, won 

 highest honors as 

 a leader of its 

 armies, and died 

 at the height of 

 his career, just 

 after the greatest 

 work of his life 

 had been skilfully 

 accomplished. 



Kitchener was born June 24, 1850, at Bally- 

 longford, County Kerry, Ireland, where his 

 father, Lieut.-Col. Henry Horatio Kitchener, 

 was on military duty at the time; his mother 

 was Anne Frances Chevallier, daughter of an 

 English preacher. His education was secured 

 at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, 

 and at the age of twenty-one he began a career 

 which grew in brilliance with the passing years. 

 The activities of the man may thus be sum- 

 marized : 



He was appointed a lieutenant in the engineer 

 corps, 1871, and reached a lieutenant-generalship 

 in 1902, through the following service: appoint- 

 ment on a survey in Palestine, 1874-1878 ; on a 

 survey in Cyprus, 1878-1882 ; in command of 

 cavalry in Egypt, 1882-1884 ; on the Nile expedi- 

 tion, 1884-1885 ; governor of Suakim, 1886-1888 ; 

 with expedition on Soudan frontier, 1889 ; adju- 

 tant-general Egyptian army, 1888-1892; com- 

 manded Dongola expedition, 1896, then reaching 

 the grade of major-general ; commanded the 

 Khartum expedition, 1898 ; ehief-of-staff of forces 

 in South Africa, 1899-1900 ; commander-in-chief 

 in South Africa, 1900-1902, with rank of lieuten- 

 ant-general; commander-in-chief in India, 1902- 

 1909 ; member of committee of imperial defense, 

 1910; Secretary of State for War, 1914. 



After his brilliant work in the Khartum ex- 

 pedition he was raised to the peerage as Baron 

 Kitchener, given a grant of $150,000 and serv- 

 ice medals. At the conclusion of the South 

 African War, where he had seen his country 

 safely through a campaign badly begun, Par- 

 liament gave him the nation's thanks and a 

 grant of $250,000; in 1914 he was created Earl 

 of Khartum' and Broome. 



Upon the entrance of Great Britain into the 

 War of the Nations in 1914 Kitchener was 

 universally acclaimed as Britain's main reliance 

 in the heavy task of raising an army. He was 

 placed in the Cabinet with the rank of Secre- 



tary of State for War, and was given dicta- 

 torial powers. Within ninety days there were 

 under arms 1,300,000 men, and as many more 

 were asked for before the end of 1914. "Kitch- 

 ener's army," it was called, and it took its 

 place on the firing lines in France as fast as 

 its units could be prepared. By the early 

 spring of 1916 over 4,000,000 men, gathered 

 from all parts of the empire, had answered the 

 call to arms. 



On June 5, 1916, when Earl Kitchener and 

 his staff were en route to Russia on business 

 connected with the war, their vessel was sunk 

 either by a mine or by a torpedo, not far 

 from the Orkney Islands. Nothing was ever 

 heard of the Earl thereafter, and he was un- 

 doubtedly drowned. Some extravagant reports 

 claimed, however, that a German submarine 

 had rescued him and that he was held secretly 

 a prisoner in Germany. 



He was a silent, forceful man, a deep thinker 

 and a strict disciplinarian. His critics termed 

 him cold and heartless. Trained in the stern 

 business of war and having learned the neces- 

 sity of implicit obedience, he exacted rigid 

 formalities from subordinates with a bluntness 

 which sometimes seemed unnecessarily severe. 

 But he accomplished well those tasks intrusted 

 to his charge and died while English public 

 sentiment in his favor was at high tide. See 

 WAR OF THE NATIONS. E.D.F. 



Consult Steevers' With Kitchener to Khartum , 

 Wheeler's Life of Lord Kitchener. 



KITCHEN MIDDENS, mounds of shells and 

 refuse found in many places in the world, 

 formed by throwing together the refuse of a 

 camp or village inhabited by ancient peoples. 

 The largest of these mounds was discovered 

 in Denmark, and from the Danish name given 

 it we derive the term kitchen middens. The 

 mounds contain large quantities of stone and 

 bone tools, shells of shellfish used for food, 

 fragments of pottery, and the bones of wild 

 animals and of dogs. Kitchen middens are 

 found all along the Atlantic coast of North 

 America, from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to 

 Florida and along the Pacific coast to the 

 Aleutian Islands. The objects found in these 

 mounds give a good idea of the habits and 

 customs of an ancient people who lived in 

 America centuries before the coming of the 

 white man. In Europe they bear evidence of 

 a race living there before historic times. 



KITE. Just who invented this device of 

 paper and light wooden framework which soars 

 in the air like a big, strong bird, and so is 



