PEOPLE AND THINGS IN INDIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13086, 27 January 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

PEOPLE AND THINGS IN INDIA.

No. I. WHAT THE COMMANDER-IN CHIEF IN INDIA THINKS. BY DR. W. H. FITCHETT. Lord Kitchener's headquarters are at the Treasury Gate, Fort William, Calcutta, and to reach him the visitor drives through the old fortification with its survival of ancient defences, its drawbridge, its shallow ditch, its brick embrasures, which a modern gun Mould reduce to powder in half-an-hour. Fresh-faced English sentries in khaki are at ono or two points; an Indian lancer, a'ert and trim-bearded, a red turban above his dark Jewish features, his steel-tipped lance looped to his arm—a perfect image of an Indian light cavalryman, as armed and drilled and dressed on the British system rides swiftly past. The khaki-dressed privates represent the practical and conquering West • the lancer with his vivid tints and dark features represents the picturesque and conquered East. There is no sentry at Lord Kitchener's door, only two or three Indian servants in red, with prompt and respectful salaams. At the threshold a typical young Englishman, tall, erect, fresh of face and frank of speech, meets the visitor. He is dressed in civilian tweed, and has the inevitable fox terrier at his heels. Somehow the young Englishman in India almost invariably has a. terrier of one breed or another as his closest companion. For all his civilian dress this is one of the Commander-in-Chief's aides-de-camp; and the absence of uniform is a symool of the want of "side" and of official etiquette which marks Lord Kitchener's headquarters. HOW A GREAT SOLDIER TALKS. Lord Kitchener meets his visitor with outstretched hand and frank smile. He, too. is in. civilian dress and sits at his desk) cigar in mouth, plainly ready for an easy talk. He has the reputation of being saturnine, unapproachable, gloomily inartH culate. The average globe-trotter, it is whispered, emerges from an interview with Lord Kitchener in. a sorely torn and damaged conditionn; while the idle "interviewer" who attempts to "drain" him is simply gored and trampled upon. But either rumour in (his matter— as, indeed, on most matters—lies atrociously ; or else Lord Kitchener this particular morning is in a specially gracious mood. He plunges at once and with a pleasant smile into tho frankest of talks. His speech runs fast; but the hurrying syllables are broken with frequent and courteous pauses, for he is as eager to listen as to talk. He is a busy man talking to an idler; a great soldier explaining his own ideas to a totally uninstructed layman. And yet he talks on' a level of frankest equality with his listener. He lias no reserves ; he shies at no question ; he never stops for a word. Yet he is the Commander-in-Chief of India ! Lord Kitchener has many great intellectual qualities-, as everybody knows; but his gift of unbuttoned, easy, and absolutely pellucid talk is quite unrealised by the world at large. AN HISTORIC FACE. The visitor, as he listens, watches with keen interest the face of the great soldier. The Indian sun has reddened the strong features. The grey eyes have that slightly filmed look which sometimes —but certain]; not in this case—is the sign of a dreamer, and which probably is the result of unnumbered hours spent in desk work for Lord Kitchener is perhaps the hardest worked man in India. When he pauses in his talk to listen the look of keen attention brings out the slight cast in his eye. Everyone knows the sttong, masterful face of Lord Kitchener, with his heavy moustache and mass of black hair above the square forehead. But taken as a whole, and when in conversation, the face has by no means a masterful look. It is not even a fighting face. The look is one rf strong common sense, of resolute purpose. It is the face of a great engineer, or of the head of a great business firm, rather than of a fighting man. There is certainly no hint of the eagle-like contours of Napier, no suggestion of Napoleon's flashing glance, of Wellington's aquiline nose and chin like the cut-water of a mailboat. The visitor as he studies the face has to remind himself over and over again that these are the eyes which watched with such iron steadiness the rush of the dervishes at Omdurman. Behind this square forehead is the brain that created the Egyptian army, subdued the Soudan, and organised victory for Lord Roberts in South Africa. WHAT LORD KITCHENER FOUND IN INDIA. But Lord Kitchener almost with the first sentence lias plunged to his interlocutor's astonishment into a discussion of his muchdisputed plans for the reconstruction of the Indian army, and of the whole matter in dispute with Lord Curzon. The Indian Commander-in-Chief plainly feels that, in spite perhaps as the result of—the ocean of controversial ink which has been expended on this subject, his plans are not in the least understood. They are very much misunderstood, indeed, by the public at large; and he finds a relief in talking over them with even a layman. And even a layman, as he listens, begins to see into the heart of Lord Kitchener's plans. For they are not clouded in technicalities. They involve no recondite mysteries of strategy. Tb°y are matters of the plainest common sense; and Lord Kitchener, with his frank and hurrying speech, makes them perfectly luminous. He found the distribution of the armv in India, he tells his wondering listener,' exactly as it had been ever since the Mutiny, an accidental and planless thing having no relation to any possible or imaginable emergency. Regiments were distributed here and there on no principle whatever— perhaps, according to barrack accommodation or for mere reasons of climate. Ammunition columns had been organised before Lord Kitchener arriva; but they were scattered haphazard, in localities which, bad no relation to their probable use The army in India resembled a warehouse with goods tumbled together without order, and stored in rooms without any regard to the question of getting readily at Them when they were needed. there was no understood and orderly unit of command. A brigadier might have larger forces under his'command than a general of division, etc A railway with its rolling stock listributed on such a plan-or want of plan— would be unworkable. '•Then too," says Lord Kitchener, " there was that worst of military faults a division of authority. I gave one set o instructions to a general upon a subject and somebody else gave another set of instructions tc the same general on the same subject." What was that unhappy officer to do-except perhaps do nothing ! Then, says Lord Kitchener. " I am responsible for the efficiency of the army in India ; but 1 had no opportunity of explaining mv own plans to the supreme authority, the Indian Government. They had to be filtered through the lips of another military ofhcei , and no matter how able or honest such an officer nrav be it is impossible that he can understand my plans as perfectly or describe them as clearly as myself He might be asked to explain some detail of the plan; *nd his 'explanation might be one which totally distorted my meaning. CIVIL AND MILITARY ROWER. "There is no question," says Lord Kitchener energetically, as to the right of the Government ot India to finally decide all questions of policy. The civil power is, of course, supreme. All 1 contend tor is that it must be adequately informed as to the. plans which I, as the responsible expert it employs, think necessary for the efficiency of the army. There has been much tuilk of a design on my part to set up a. 'military autocracy.' Nothing could be more untrue. The civil Government in the last, resort is, and must be, supreme. But I

must work under conditions which enable me to discharge the trust put in my hands by the civil Government, and one of these conditions is that I must be allowed to put adequately, and personally, my own plans before the authority to which I am responsible." LORD KITCHENER'S THREE POINTS. "There are," says Lord Kitchener, " only three principles for which I contend, and they belong," he adds, "to the very alphabet of common sense. 'J he first is unity of authority. A divided command in military affairs is fatal. The next is that the army in India must be organised and distributed on an intelligible plan, and with some regard to its instant and effective use as an instrument of war. It is totally untrue that I have any design for concentrating the army on the frontier, and so separating the native regiments from their recruiting grounds and their hometies. The forces, on my plan, are distributed throughout India pretty much as before; but now there is method and intelligible order in their grouping. India is divided into nine territories, with a divisional general in command of each territory. The force under his command is a complete and balanced unit, and the arrangement is such that if war broke out each division would be ready for instant movement, and would find itself, with regard to railway communication, in a position which made transit easy. And' in each territory what may bo called the obligatory garrisonthe force necessary to be left for the control of the territory— also completely organised. The division could move at once to the front, and leave, the district adequately garrisoned." WHAT IT ALL MEANT. It is easy, as the result of (his talk, to see. into what may be called the inside of Lord Kitchener's brain. He is essentially an organiser. Confusion, disorder, want of intelligible plan to him are intolerable. He' must have the forces under his command, arranged and equipped so as to make them instantly available, and available on a definite plan and for a definite objective. Tins was what Moltke did for the mobilisation of the German armies. He organised their, units so that a single word flashed along the wires set the forces everywhere crystallising into great army corps at certain definitely selected points; and each corps, as it emerged from the stream of battalions marching along 100 roads to one centre, found itself a perfectly equipped army with all arms in just proportion, and till supplies ready to hand. " And," adds Lord Kitchener, my third principle is that having a definite and comprehensive plan of this character 1 must have the right, of .stating it myself to the Government to which I am responsible." All this seems, as Lord Kitchener expounds it. to be the very perfection of common sense. Modern war is a great and multiplex business affair, and here is the application of intelligible business methods to a vast business concern. As to his desire to establish a, military autocracy or to set the military above the civil power, " this." says Lord Kitchener again, with energy, "is utter nonsense." He knows British history and the principles on which tho British Government moves too well to dream of any such thing. He only asks*, he declared, for the opportunity of doing efficiently the work put by the civil power into his hands, and of explaining without an intermediary what these plans arc. INDIA AND RUSSIA, Incidentally Lord Kitchener gives many quick interesting judgments* on. more or less related topics. He thinks that Russia is to be " counted out" for the present as a menace to India; but not, as his interlocutor suggests, "for a generation,'.' but only for 10 years, a nation in revolution, as history teaches, usually ends by throwing up a great soldier who is the founder of a new. dynasty; and who, partly by bias of, natural genius' and partly for the sake of strengthening his rule and diverting attention from domestic troubles, plunges into foreign war. If the Russian revolution follows this law the world's peace will be. in peril; bur, much water must, run under the bridge before this happens. Still Lord Kitchener thinks that the period during which Russia must remain preoccupied with its own domestic troubles will not be longer than 10 years. He thinks, too, that the success with which Russia transported great armies to Manchuria—a distance of nearly 6000 miles—and fed them with supplies, with only a single railway, shows that with, the two lines of railway she has running towards the Indian frontier it could easily fling a formidable army on India. LORD KITCHENER QN THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINGENTS. The visitor, being an Australian, was naturally anxious to know Lord Kitchener's opinion about the Australian and New Zealand contingents in South Africa. " They were first-class," says Lord Kitchener with energy and with a pleasant smile lighting up his face. " I could not. on the whole, wish for better material. There was only one regrettable incident." lie goes on to say— referring to a well-known case—" in connection with the Australian contingents, and there," he adds, "as it happened the offender was not an Australian by birth. Yes." he says, " I should be only too glad to have Australians under my command again. And if trouble broke out in India I should wire to Australia, 'Roll up, boys,' and I am sure they would come." At this point Lord Kitchener has risen to his feet, his tall figure towering above the chair in which his visitor sits. "Yes," he repeats as he lifts his hand, "I should wive. ' Roll up, boys,' and I am sure they would come 1"