DISCOUNT KITCHENER.

New Zealand Mail, 20 August 1902, Page 16

DISCOUNT KITCHENER.

A A APPRECIATION. (By A Staff Officer .J i '.'. vj ycais aad a half ago, the nai .. ali uuuy accustomed to expect great jug., of Uio man who, after a long po. ioa cf paueat uphill work, had re-cpeae-d tne. boudan to civilisation, stamper \\ itii its enthusiastic approval the appointment of Lord Kitchener as Chief ox tiie Staff cf file Army in South Africa. Nor was the country's confidence in Lord Kitchener in the least degree shaken by tiie sneers of our ill-wishers abioad. The competent military critics of Germany had always recognised his conspicuous merits. But the Continental detractors of England hastened to admonish us that it is one tiling to fight hordes of barbarous fanatics, and quite another thing* to contend with a mobile army of skilled marksmen armed with modern weapons of precision.® The British people, sufficiently aware of the fact thus flung in their faces, paid no heed to the disparaging insinuation which the remainder was meant to convey. The two kinds of warfare might be essentially distinct from - each other, demanding very diverse methods of waging them with success. But Lord Kitcheners countrymen also knew—what their kind neighbours had apparently forgotten—that there is one supreme condition of military success which belongs to all campaigns alike, whatever the field cf operations, whatever the nature of the contest, and whatever the character of the enemy. That one condition is the commander’s capacity for organisation, and Lord Kitchener's past record proved him to be, as a military organiser, absolutely without- a viva?. It was felt that here was the man to bring order out of chaos. An army, already the largest ever sent over-sea by any nation, and presently to develop into a force of a quarter of a million of men separated six thousand miles from its base, had to be welded into an effective instrument; to employ a more strictly accurate ’analogy, the various independent par.-is of the complex machine had to be disentangled, sorted out put together, and set going. Above all, the transport required for a force distributed over an immense stretch of J difficult country had to be organised. The hugeness of this Herculean task was of course net then fully realised athome, but public opinion had clearly recognised the fact of a serious dislocation. and trusted implicitly in Lord Kitchener’s capacity for putting things

to rights

A GREAT FEAT.

It may well be that Lord Kitchener's excellence as an organiser is in some degree clue to lii.s having enjoyed the confidence of his distinguished predecessor Lord Woke ley. at a tune when that great commander confronted with the hitherto unheard-of task cf feeding a large force of all arms at a distance of 17U0 miles from its base and in a country which, produced nothing at all. The full significance attaching to feats cf this kind is apt to be 'missed by ignorant or. what is worse, half-instructed critics. How often, and with what severity, do our would-be mentors deplore the backwardness of this or that commander in •‘making a dash” for such ans such an. objective. These censors apparently overlook the trifling condition without which even the boldest “dash” must prove futile: namely, that the commander must keep in touch with the supplies. Troops in the field' are not less depressed by hunger and fatigue than men employed in the arts of peace, and after, let us say, a fortyeight hours’ fast the element of “dash” is more than liable to- show considerable shrinkage, if not to evaporate altogether. The importance of organisation in military affairs is indeed impossible of exaggeration. No less marked are Lord Kitchener’s merits as a strategist and tactician, although some of his critics would deny him any particular skill in any of these capacities. And it lias been a favourite argument, in support of this contention, to point to Omdurman and Paardeberg as battles in which disaster was barely, and only by a “fluke” averted, and as furnishing instances in which the degree of success achieved was wholly disproportionqie to the expenditure of lives involved. I do not propose to enter upon a lengthy discussion of so difficult and hotly-contested a question. Brut the fact, any rate, remains that Omdurman finally “smashed” the Malidi oppression, avenged Gordon, and rescued Khartoum for humanity; while Paardeberg, besides supplying a brilliant offset to Majuba actually turned the tide of the enemy’s successes, and stopped liis advance towards British territory. I have heard Lord Kitchener himself make the remark, “The war, in a sense, ended with Paardeberg.” As to the sacrifice of life which he deemed necessary to secure this desired result, Lord Kitchener has been credited with the observation, “I don’t pretend to be able to win battles without losing men.” Even if this remark were only imaginary, the principle enunciated is indisputably true. And in this connection it. has been a subject cf frequent observation by competent judges during this campaign that

THE TENDER-HEARTED unwillingness on sundry critical occasions of certain commanders to “deliver” men, has proved in the end to be not the least effective .factor in the pro-

longation of the struggle. On one point, however, all must confess the entire success of Lord Kitchener’s strategy—"aiueiy, the establishment of the block houses with thS? lines of barbed-wire fences and the auo^> Tl eii Pi the system of “drives.” More striking just now than his achievements as a military commander, are his masterly powers in a wholly different sphere. It had been, a short while back, the rather cheap fashion to profess to regard the Commander-in-Cliief in Soutli Africa as a general who, given his own time and allowed to choose his own material, might be depended on to see any specific job “through” which might be entrusted to his liands. Even among the masses of his countrymen the singular fascination of this silent and mysterious figure lay chiefly in its gaunt, grim steadfastness of purpose—in its living personification of remorseless Fate, advancing always towards its prearranged goal, slowly but surely, never turning aside to right or left—calmly, coldly, quietly irresistible—weirdly reminiscent of “the mills of God,” which “grind slowly.” It has remained for the later phases of a campaign unique in the annals -of warfare t-o exhibit Lord Kitchener as possessing the attributes of a statesman and a diplomatist of first rank.

During the period of his military service in he availed himself to tiie full of liis opportunities of receiving lessons in diplomacy in the* best modern school and at the hand of one of the greatest- of contemporary diplomatists. And no one is more forward than the great soldier himself to- pa.y the highest tribute of rcspc-ct and admiration to Lord. Cromer. whatever of duty or of dignity the future may have in store for Lord Kitchener, it is probable that. Egypt and the Soudan will always hold the first place in his affections. In the unlikely event of the Army being able to spare his services, there is one appointment which lie would he loth to refuse, and that is the reversion of the office of Ago iit and Consul-General of liis Britannic Majesty at Cairo. In Egypt his intimate knowledge of Arabic —for. with the possible exception of the present Sirdar, Lord Kitchener is unsurpassed as AN ARABIC SCHOLAR

—was of special service to him in eliciting information from natives. ' It repeatedly happened m Soudan that, when the “intelligence” officer had foiled to obtain any “intelligence” at all from a sulky prisoner or a voluble but incoherent native, "the Chief” has come to tno rescue with immense and immediate effect. By a process of subtly suasive and affably penetrating inquisition peculiarly liis own lie has extracted •he exact information required. In South Africa the same degree of success iuver failed him, although in this case it was often necessary to employ r.n interpreter. or. as I have frequently seen happen. to elicit the preliminary fact- that the individual under process cf interrogation really understood every word of every question that was being addressed to him. Lord Kitchener’s method of dealing with the Boers has been in every respect. admirable. He seems first to have taught, them to respect him thoroughly and implicitly by addressing them frankly, directly, plainly, and without ihetoric. and then to have shown them that on his side he was prepared to accord them his fullest confidence and respect. One most striking illustration of the power he exercises over the Boer character was afforded by the manner in which hundreds of Boers, once our bitterest foes, in rampantly anti-Bri-tish places like Middleburg and Eotchefstroom, flocked to join the National Scouts, having been won over by I ord Kitchener’s speeches. HIS APPRECIATION OF THE BOER CHARACTER.

In the opinion of those most intimately acquainted both with the sequence of events in Soutli Africa and with the qualifications of the men who have been called upon to control its destinies, Lord Kitchener is the first man since Sir Bartle Frere to appreciate the Boer character in all its complexity of racial characteristics. v

The Commander-in-Chief in South Africa shares with Lord Wolseley tho power of appreciating and /exhaustively retracting the best, qualities of the men with whom he is brougnt/ into contact —even of those to when/, ho may find) himself opposed. Banish,ed for ever should be the tradition j:hat ho is apt to treat each and every (individual soldier either as a mere pawn in the game which ho lias in hand, ojr as an incumbrance to bo swept ruthlessly aside. Though it. is his great principle that the work and not tho workmen is of supremo and final importance, no one is more thoroughly human ih his dealings with his follows than this'great leader, who is as swift and generous to praise tho right as he is without fear or favour to condemn the wrong. He has always selected for Ids personal staff men who, though determined that his orders shall be carried out immediately andl to the letter,_ have in accordance with tlicir Chief’s instructions conveyed those orders with every courtesy and consideration. And for all, his sterner qualities Lord Kitchener possesses a true sense of humour which enables him to see the lighter and ofteq more accurate side of a situation, and renders

him a most congenial and delightful companion. It lias often been observed that South Africa is the grave of every reputation, military andl civil. In Lord Kitchener we have a brilliant exception to this rule. he placed hhnseir for all imm - * front of England’s greatest public servants.—“ Empire Review.”