LORD KITCHENER

Evening Star, Issue 16195, 17 August 1916, Page 3

LORD KITCHENER

.«. INTIMATE RECOLLECTIONS. Lord Desborough, on tho occasion of a memorial servico for Earl Kitchener held at the Canadian Red Cross Hospital at Cliveden, gave some intimate recollections of tho great- soldier, who frequently hail teen his guest at Taplow Court. It was there that I/ord Kitchener said,jvhen he came home after the capture of Khartum: "When I come here I feel like coming home : I have no home." " W 7 hercver Kitchener went," said Lord Desborough. " throughout the Empire— Egypt, the Dominions, India, Egypt again —he at once beeamo the dominating figure for friends and foes alike, snd something great always happened. This was due to tho mysterious foresight ho possessed, his realisation of great ends, and the unflinching methods with which he sought to gain those ends. Abroad in tliis war he. may he said to have stood for English military power in tho minds of our Allies and our enemies.

—Always Working.—

" When I first knew him he was a most striking figure, tall, spare, with the most wonderful, piercing, bright blue eyes set very far apart-. His eyes were what he called ' burnt out' afterwards. He was doing a desert ride on camels with a Bedouin Arab tribe with whom he was ' blood ■ brother,' and the sun off tho sand in their long ride, like sun off snow, nearly ruined his eyes. I asked him why ho did not wear colored glasses, but he said a 'blood brother' of an Arab tribe could not weal glasses. I remembeo 4 my brother, who was in tho 10th Hussars, saying that Kitchener was always working, up at sunrise drilling his men, and learning Arabic, of which ho knew even tho dialects.

"Another physical calamity befell him when his horse fell on him when he was riding alone hi India. Some natives saw the accident, l.ut were too terrified to go near him, but at last they summoned up courage to bring the news that the 'Lord of War,' as they called him, was lying seriously hurt. He suffered much from his bioken leg afterwards. Indeed, when he came back from India ho determined to get his leg broken and set again, but he could not find a surgeon who would do it, and this was one of the few occasions on which he did not get his way. The feelings of the natives of India were shared by those m Africa. On the field of Omdurman I met ono who had been through, the advance up the Kile. He said Kitchener never slept, and appeared when least expected among every unit of tho force; which hi 6 spirit pervaded. "Once again when he was at Taplow I asked him about South Africa, and he told me everything without the slightest 'swagger' or self-praise; in fact, I think modesty was one of his greatest qualities. Ho looked juet tho same as betoro the war, except that ho. vas a, littlo more srnburnt. He said that he wondered what the Boers would think of our life over here in the summer, going lazily on tho river in boats and lounging about all day, and he said that they "did not look at life that way.' Whatever was going on ho seemed to pay the greatest attention to it, even if it was not of the slightest importance. —ln I'rivatc Life.—

"Lord Kitchener was not in private life tho stern, unbending sphinx of popular imagination. Indeed, no one to his friends was a more stimulating companion. When alone with yoa he was very talkative, and his curious humor and his quaint summingup of individuals and situations was an unfailing source of interest and surprise. He was absolutely unaffected, and had an engrained distaste of popular demonstration, speechifying, r.rd banquets. "Children accepted him as a natural friend. I remember my little girl onca meeting us *s we came in for tea from a walk, outside the tea room (she was, 1 may say, his god-daughter), and she immediately said to the great Lord Kitchener : ' Don't go in there ; they are making such a chatter; come up and havo tea with me,' and up ho went, right to the top of the house, with his lame leg, and sat down with Imogen arid her nurse and had a long talk.

"There is one short story about him and the army I think I may tell, as it helps you to understand him. A high staff officer, who has now a command, camo to see iiim from the front, and ha pub searching questions to him about, munitions; and then he said: 'I hope the army docs not think I havo let them down,' and two largo tears rolled down from his stern eyes. The munitions difli culty was part of our unpreparedness for war. The contractors undertook to carry cut contracts, but owing in a great measure to their best men leaving for the war found themselves unable to do so, and Lord Kitchener had terriblo disappointments.

"Work was the keynote of Lord Kitohener'o life, and work is tho legacy he leaven to us. Amusements, as such, did not amuse him; bis aim was always to get something big accomplished, and he accomplished it. And.now he is gone, and it feels, as I have seen it described, ' like Nelson's column falling—something national, almost symbolic, gone'; but his work and his- example remain, and, if it had to be, I hope he may lio where ho it with a British warship for his coffin."