A.J.B. AS ICONOCLAST

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 19 December 1936, Page 7

A.J.B. AS ICONOCLAST

INDIGNANT BIOGRAPHER (By Air Mail —-From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, 19th November. Sir George Arthur, Kitchener’s devoted biographer, is naturally aghast at Mrs Dugdale’s revelation that her uncle, Earl Balfour, regarded his hero as a stupid man and unwilling to accept responsibility. Sir George asks indignantly whether Lord Balfour’s memory so far failed him that he forgot Kitchener’s achievements in the redemption of the Sudan, the reorganisation of the Indian Army, his solitary foresight as to the Great

War’s duration and dimension, and his task, in the teeth of opposition, in raising the seventy British divisions which eventually brought an Allied victory. But Earl Balfour, who similarly had a prejudice against lawyei’s, was the last man to whom the military mentality would appeal. He

[' probably, came to the same conclul sion about ail British Brass Hats, and i| in most cases he was right. He was l wrong about K, however, especially ■ as to shirking responsibility. K’s un- ■ doing was his incurable reluctance to ; delegate a task too colossal for even ; ] a giant’s shoulders.