LAND & WATER 
EMPIRE HOUSE, KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C 
Telephone: HOLBORN 2828 
THURSDAY. JUNE 8, 1916 
The Table of Contents appears on page 7 
KITCHENIiR OF KHARTOUM ' 
That to\wr of stnnf,'th 
Which stood four square to all the wintU that blew. 
IN this hour of grief, while the nation mourns the 
death of Field-^hirshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, 
these words of Tennyson on the death of the Iron 
Duke, the great Field Marshal of the Napoleonic 
wars, inevitabl}' recur. For Ivitchener was also a tower 
of strength which stood unmoved amid the fierce tempests 
of this mighty Continental war, and round which the 
miserable sijualls of partisan jealousy and spite fretted 
in vain. His very name ins]>ired confidence in the 
breast of our Allies for they knew what he had accom- 
yilished in otlier years under other skies ; our enemies 
recognised in him a modern Cadmus from whose sowings 
armed men spraijg into being by battalions. His hnal 
public act in London before lea\ing for Petrograd was 
to meet face to face, on his own invitation, acrid critics 
of the House of Commons. He spoke to them and they 
spoke to hina openly, and a new confidence in the War 
Minister and a clearer understanding of his policj' and 
methods were engendered. 
Courage, steadfastness and de\otion to duty were the 
mainspring of liis career. " His hfe was work." He 
was a type of man much better understood in the outer 
wards of the Empire where actual achieveuK-nt is 
reckoned at liigher worth than it is here at home among 
the haunts of politicians! Never believing in talk, either 
as a preliminary or afterwards, he left the deed to speak 
for itself. He was of the same mould as John Nicholson 
and the Lawrences who by sheer strength of character 
maintained our rule in India during those terrible days 
close on si.xty years ago. Of all the many and varied" 
types which our blood breeds, there is none to whom the 
British l-jiipire owes more than to those c|uiet men of 
action who jiever fear to shoulder a rcsi)onsibility, be it 
ever so heavy or dangerous ; who center on their work 
determined at all hazards to see it through to a finish, 
who, scorning popularity and the tinsel of success, will not 
be moved from their purpose by any attacks which 
tongue or pen can frame. It is a breed, thank Heaven, 
which shows no sign of failing in these islands, and 
although it is only gi\-en to the few to rise to the heights 
which Kitchener attained, the others recognise in him 
a true brother and a comrade and rejoice in his rewards. 
The grip which this great soldier had on national senti- 
ment arose from tliis one fact. >K lonely man lu^ was 
in the sense that he did not mi.K freely and easily with 
his social equals ; his tastes were not their tastes ; the 
very conditions of his existence in the early i)art of his 
career fostered a natural love of solitude. But with 
all this he must l)e written as one who loved his 
fellow men. Before Kitchener entered the British Army, 
he, then a youth, faced death lighting as a volunteer in 
the French ranks against Germany in 1870. He met his 
death at the hands of his first enemy while on his way 
to confer with the Emperor of Russia and his Cieneral 
Staff, thus at the beginning and the ending of his career 
he forged new bonds between fireat Britain and her 
greatest and most gallant Allies. 
Thougli born in Ireland Lord Kiichencr was an 
L nglishman on both sides. The familv whose name he 
has lifted to a high place in the history of the nation 
were of old Hampshire stock. Was it pure coincidence 
that the Hampshire should have been the warship chosen 
to bear him on his last voyage ? His father, Lieutcnant- 
("olonel Horatio Kitchener of the (jth Foot, was 
born on October 2Tst, 1805, the day of the battle of 
Trafalgar; he himself dies at sea on June 5th, 1916, 
almost before the echo of the guns of the. battle of Jut- 
land has died away. This connection of the two greatest 
sea-tights of modern times by two lives covering a period 
of III years, is in itself extraordinary. 
From that day, over forty years ago, when he who 
was to become Britain's most famous Minister of War 
took up surveying and ai"ch,eolog\' in Palestine, he seems 
never to have varied his work. True, the material 
changed — from stones to men, but he has always been 
engaged in clearing away from the relics of the past, the 
debris and waste which Time has heaped up ; in some 
instances restoring the edifices to their ancient purposes 
and in others rebuilding on the old foundations. It 
must have been then that he acipiired that wise appre- 
ciation of time which has always marked his enterprises 
and reforms. Whether in the Soudan or in South Africa, 
at Simla or in Whitehall he never allowed himself to be 
hustled. He slowly won the Soudan back to civilisation 
and incidentally flooded Darkest Africa with light ; he 
restored peace to South Africa, and in the process re- 
established the jMCstige of Great Britain for honourable 
and straight forvvard dealing ; he reorganised the army 
of India and his work has stood what in those 
daj's was con.sidered the supreme test of all — a Eurocean 
conflagration ; he has gi\'en Britain an army comparable 
with the armies of the great Continental Powers. He never 
commanded or hoped to command in France or else- 
where; the forces which he had called into being, but he 
has died on active ser\ice ; he has fallen doing his duty, 
and at sea which is the greatest and most famous of all 
Britain's battlefields, and thereby he. has entered into a 
new command of his own men. Henceforward, Kitchener's 
Army is led up the steep slopes of self-sacrifice by 
Kitchener himself. 
When the first news of his death reached London, 
people would not believe it, they thought it must be an 
uncomely joke ; but as the truth was borne in upon, them 
they were stunned. It was almost as if death had 
visited every home. It succeeded so quickly to the 
sudden losses of the naval battle that minds paused 
]XTplcxed between time and eternity. Death , takes on 
a new guise when men pass away so rapidly in the middle 
nf their work, in the prime of life, or in the first flush of 
manhood before the promise can be fuUilled. E^'eryone 
realised this to the full on Tuesday ; you heard the same 
thought echoed and re-echoed. " Lord Kitchener is 
dead ; we mourn him but we must not grieve as men 
without hope." And those familiar sentences from the 
most exciuisite threnody in the English tongue were 
recalled: " Death is swallowed up in victory. death, 
where is thy sting? O grave wlncre is thy, victory? 
1^'ornrerly they had sounded in our ears as chords of solemn 
music, breathing ct)nsolation ; nowtliat we sec them clearly 
to be triumphant \'erities, living aaid evea'lasting truths, 
they ring out like a trumpet call, simnuoninig and inspiring 
the living to stronger action. Tlie work cf),ntinues though 
the hand that moulded it perishes ; the body dies, but the 
soul lives on. There is no sting in the gruve when on 
either side men jiress forward to one immortal goal and 
when li\ing and dead battle togrther for i n orniptiblc 
principles. Whether individually avc li\-e or di • signifies 
nothing, if that liigh cause for whi:h we fight wins. Lord 
Kitchener's death will not interfere with the work he had 
undertaken, nor shall his passing delay, birJ; rather 
shall it hasten the victory to which he looked forward. 
