A FIGURE IN HISTORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19503, 6 December 1926, Page 10

A FIGURE IN HISTORY.

The biographer of the late Earl "Kitchener has just uttered a striking tribute to the work done, especially in the early stages of the war, by the man whose life he has subjected to critical analysis. This draws attention again to the remarkable place already taken in history by the man who, on the very declaration of war, was entrusted with the work of making the British Army, not as it existed on a peace footing, but as it grew to be with all the resources of the nation mobilised in its defence. The life, even the death, of Lord Kitchener have been the subjects of fierce controversy. He lived in an age when publicity beats about every man who holds high office. His position and his duties were known. His everyday activities were chronicled. Yet about him there has grown an air of mystery that threatens to make him what most people would be ready to declare impossible, a twentieth century legend. Despite the enthusiasm centring round his name when he went to the War Office, despite the sense of loss, almost of calamity, felt when he went down with the Hampshire, there would still be much hesitation in anyone asked to place an exact value on the work he did. Later historians, who have not felt the pull of those controversies in which his name figured, will probably judge with more certainty. Already there are signs that his place in fame will be high. 1 At least one thing must stand to him in the estimate. Never for one moment did he fall into the popular error of expecting a short, sharp conflict, with the war soon over. His speedy estimate "at least three years," his instant realisation that Britain's participation must go to the uttermost limit, his careful planning to meet the eventualities he foresaw probably exercised a greater influence on the history of the time than any single decision of any man then living. As Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, no mean judge, has said, if he had not decided and acted as he did "many things which required to be clone might not have been done at all until too late." In the light of that, other things in his later official career may easily be outweighed, so ,the judgment of years hence, it is quite possible, will make present eulogies of his work feeble compared with considered estimates of his worth.