KITCHENER'S FIRST WAR

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 19 December 1914, Page 5

KITCHENER'S FIRST WAR

EXPERIENCES IN FRANCE

It is not quite correct to say that Lord Kitchener '''fought" in the FrancoPrussian war of 18/0-1, although he was there, on the side of the French, only anxious to get some fighting to do." The story of the part he played in that campaign is told in a biography of Lord Kitchener, written by the author of "King Edward the Seventh." Lord Kitchener's father had sold his Irish estates, married again, and settled again at Dinan, in France. Titere his sous, including the present Lord Kitchener, became familiar with France and French ways:-—

"It was from Dinan that Gentleman Cadet Kitchener threw his first hazard of fortune, when he went off, without asking the leave either of his father or his military superiors, to join General Chanzy's Second Army ot the Loire. Enlisting as a private in the 6th battalion of the Mobile Guard of the Department of the Cctez-du-Nord, he went with it to Laval. There, while helping a French officer in some military balloon ascents, he caught a chill which developed into pneumonia, and this abruptly ended his first experience of active service, and, indeed, nearly ended his life. But if he saw no fighting, he saw other things which were far more valuable to him.

"Thte inefficiency jand mismanagement were tragic. Chanzy's great army, which was an organised herd of men rather than an array, fought gallantly for three days in a continuous snowstorm before retreating from Le Mans. Chanzy wished to retire on Alencon, but Gambetta ordered him to Laval, and that was the end of the war ii that part of France. "Young Kitchener's battalion belonged to the reserves, and that is, no doubt, why he saw no actual fightmg. But he saw that, while the men vvere splendid, they could not fight for long with nothing to eat. All round -Laval were the most pitable evidences ?| incompetence. On the railway stood idle fbrty miles of rolling-stock which ought to have been used in bringing up reliefs and supplies. The roads were blocked with the baggage of the defeated army, and with starving, frostbitten men and horses lying down to die by the wayside. Chanzy's defeat has been compared, on a small scale, to JNapoletin's retreat from Moscow Discipline practically vanished, soldiers insulted their officers, who wept at their own powerless-ess, and hundreds of deserters were brought i n by the mounted gendarmerie. There were indeed lessons to be learnt at Laval in those bitter January days and nights h ranee learnt them, and so did the young English cadet who looked on"