KITCHENER IN INDIA

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 11 August 1928, Page 11

KITCHENER IN INDIA

arresting picture of Field Marshal Loi’d Kitchener, “man of blood and iron,” is drawn by the late Viscount Uurzon of Kedle.ston in the second volume of Lord Ronald shay’s “Life of Uurzon.” Just- as in the first volume it was the “(human document” of Ouirzon’s curiously mixed personality that gave the work its chiet interest, so in tais second volume it is the glimpses that one gets of Kitchener which compel the attention. I

When Kitchener went to India to become Cb 111111 aii<ler-in-Ch ief, it was at till© suggestion of Ourzoii, - who was the Viceroy, an office which. is 1)11© nearest approach to a- dictatorship in the whole British Empire. Cur son’s nomination of Kitchener was destined to bring about his own downfall]. There was an Homeric conflict of -personalities. Ourzoil on the one hand believed that Britain was in India toy a -direct interposition of Divine Providence, and that he was the chosen instrument to. carry out the designs of Providence. Kitchener, on his side, was equally convinced that in all tilings his way was best; and when he set out to do anything nothing could alter his determination. Our?. oll’s ways, it soon became apparent, were not Kitchener’s —Ourzo.n was an orderly administrator. Kitchener was a domineering, despotic soldier. At- first- Qurzoon liked Kitchener’s methods. “Kitchener,’'- he wrote, “is most- keen about everything here. I never met so concentrated a man. He uses an alignment. You answer him. He repeats it. You give a- second reply even more cogent than the first. He repeats it again. You demolish him. He repeats, it without alteration a third time. But he is as agreeable as he is obstinate, and everybody here likes him.” j

As Kitchener’® “obstinacy” continued. Omrzon began to grow a little anxious about him; and he referred to

LORD CURZON’S PICTURE

, him in his diiairies and letters to his wife (nee Mary Letter of Chicago) as “a remarkable phenomenon,’’, “this molten man,” “tins caged lion stalking to and fro, and dashing its bruised and lacerated head against the bars.” Tlhe trouble came finally to a head when Ourzon returned to England on. vacation. Whether or not Kitchener “played the game” will all ways be a moot point, for Lord book does not greatly elucidate the question. It is, however, certain that- Kitchener telegraphed his resignation to Cabinet in London, and only withdrew it on the condition that the system of army control in India should be investigated.

This, was the beginning of the end. Lord Curzon was not a popular figure, as Kitchener was; and the Cabinet was also a llittle tired of what Lord Ronal-d----shay call® Ou-raon’s “emota-ona! instability of a -nature always hignly'. strung and greatly increased by the long strain of his work.” There is little doubt that Kitchener, who-"had. many staunch friends in the English press, at that time took occasion to furnish them wiibn confidential documents, whereat (Jurzon was rightly indignant. Still, when the final ora-s-h came and- Curzon resigned the Vioe-royailty, he wrote to hi® brother: “Please don’t- think that I am fumbling with vexation or anger, I have indeed been wickedly treated, but I am perfectly serene.” As Lord Rio maid shay puts it, India “which _ was the stage of Ourzon’s greatest achievement, became the scene of his greatest disaster.” Even in India, Kitchener had developed that habit of taking everything into his own hand® and keeping it there, which led to his own “debacle” in the World War, a debacle which has been generally forgotten in the tragedy of his death when the Hampshire was sunk in the North Sea.