A FIELD-MARSHAL IN THE MAKING.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4627, 7 May 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

A FIELD-MARSHAL IN THE MAKING.

LORD KITCHENER’S EARLY AND LITTLE-KNOWN YEARS. “Ye.-', said Lord Kitchener's old nurse a few years ago; “ I know that he is a great man; and they tell me that he has no heart, and that everybody is afraid of him; but they are wrong. He is really one of the most tender-hearted men in the world; and whenever he comes to see me, he is ‘my boy’ just as he was in the old days in Ireland when he used to run to me in all his troubles, and fling hi- arms around me and hug me. Ah, there is nobody left who knows the real ‘Master Herbert,’ as I know him.” It is said that the world knows little of its greatest men, and certainly it knows little of the early years of England’s greatest soldier, the grim, strong-jawed, stcely-cyed man who has scaled the heights of fame almost unparalleled in our history, the man of the ice-cold brain who so successfully' conceals the warm Heart behind the grim exterior lie presents to the world. And it is with these early and almost unknown years, when the Field-Marsh-al of the future was in the making, that this article deals. There are men still living who can recall the long-gone days, sixty years ago, when the embryo Earl and Field-Mar-shall used to run about the Kerry lanes, in company' with his nurse and his elder brother, Chevallier, and when “Master Herbert” was always getting into mischief; and you may still see the square, white-fronted house, a. few miles out of Listowet, where he was cradled.

“A DIVIL FOR MISCHIEF/' His lather, a retired Indian colonel, had settled down in County Kerry but throe years earlier, on a large estate whic h he had purchased “at rubbish price"—ho actually paid £3,000 for it—and on which he won a great local reputation as breeder of horses and cattle, sheep and pigs, with a couple oi young gentlemen pupils to assist him. And it was in this rustic environment that his second son, Horatio Herbert, first opened bis eyes one June day in the year 1850, and grew to vigorous boyhood. Of these years we get few glimpses; übt such as we get are full of interest and significance. Thus, one old friend of the family says of the future lord of Britain's armies. “He was a very manly, active little fellow, full of high spirits and mischief—always getting into scrapes and always getting out of them with great ingenuity and luck”— a description to which a neighbouring villager adds, “Master Herbert, I remember, as a tall, lanky, handsome boy—all the Kitchener boys, four of them, and also their si.-ter, were goodlooking—a regular divil for mischief, but with a way with him that nobody could resist.

An amusing story is told of this time, when “Master Herbert” was a pupil at a local private school, exiiibiting much more ir .erest in his games and larks than in !ii« books. His father, in order to stimulate a little zeal .in him, threatened that if he failed to pass a forthcoming examination he would send him i.) a dame’s school. Herbert failed to pass and was degraded accordingly, wit!; a further threat that if he did not mend his ways he would be apprenticed to a hatter. Tkis terrible prospect seems to have been effective, for from that day he gave no further cause f ;r complaint of his lack of industry. Indeed, we soon learn that he was a model student, more devoted to his books than to games.

AN EXPERT SWIMMER. Thus the years passed happily enough for the young Kitcheners in their rural home, with their booKS and games and sports, among which swimming took a leading place. The sea at its nearest point was seven miles distant from Crotta House, where Colonel Kitchener had now made his home; and, to quote a local chronicler, the future Lord Kitchener and his brothers used often to drive over to Bannastrand in a one-horse trap. I was then a young lad going the same way to school, with my books under my arm, an dvery often the Kitchener trap and I used to race side by side as long as I could keep pace with it. The boys were all expert swimmer?, and many a time I and other village lads used to watch them playing antics in the sea. They used, too, to attend Sunday school and the services at Kilfljnn Church..'’ „ “ Master Herbert was a call, overgrown hov of thirteen when he was sent from Ireland to continue his studies in Switzerland; and after a few montns later coaching in London we find him beginning his soldier training at Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, where he soon won a reputation as a keen worker with quite a genius for mathematics. “He was quite a prodigy at figures,” says a fellow-student, and when any of us came across a problem which we couldn’t tackle it was the regular thing to ‘take it to Kitchener, who, with a ouiet smile, would hand back the solution in an amazingly short time.” Kitchener had been only two years at Woolwich when the war which broke out between France and Prussia fired his young blood for adventure. Throwing down his books he offered his sei vices to France and was soon wearing a private’s uniform in the Second Army of the Loire, under General Chanzy. Of the part ho played in that ill-fated campaign nothing is" known beyond the facts that he fought gallantly in several engagements and made a perilous' ascent in a military balloon before he was struck down by pneumonia and was invalided home.

KITCHENER IX PALESTINE. In January, 1871, Kitchener turned liis back on Woolwich; and, as a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, put in three years of hard work at Aldershot and Chatham, before the next call or adventure came to his eager ears. An assistant was wanted by the Palestine Exploration Society for the new survey of the Holy Land; and the young lieutenant, tempted by the prospect of travel and danger in a now land, applied for and secured the post; and, a few months later, was hard at work, making a survey of the “rock-scarp or Zion ”on the outskirts of .Jerusalem. In this new field of labour he had hardships and adventure,-' enough to satisfy even his exacting appetite; for he was “in perils oft,” and hardships of all kinds were his almost daily companions. In his early days' in the East we read of a nineteen miles tramp through a “tremendous hurricane of bitter wind, with showers of sleet and hail,” including the crossing of more than one swollen river of icy water, “ nearly up to the girtns.” But ' Kitchener smiled at such discomforts, and was always the brightest, as also the most disreputable, of the little hand of surveyors. “He was,” says one of Ids companions', “as good company as a man could wish to have, full of life and high spirits. . . . We none of -us thought much about our toilets, and he least of all. Why, after a few months’ travelling about in Palestine, he looked more like a tramp

than an officer of Her Majesty’s army. Hii l clothes wouldn’t have fetched a threepenny bit at any ‘old do’ shop’ in Whitechaoel.”

“ Drenched clothes, qn empty stomach, fever or cholera came all alike to the ardent young surveyor—they were all in the "day’s work.” On two occasions he provecl his courage and skill as a swimmer by saving his friend, Lieutenant Conder, from death by drowning; and in a score of other ways' exhibited the qualities that were to make him the great man he is to-day. His most perilous adventure came to him at Safed, a Galilean village, .where the surveying party arrived one July day in 1875 to find themselves surrounded by fierce fanatics, thirsting for the blood of the "infidel dogs.” THE LAST TO RUN. Their tents, pitched under some olive trees just outside the village, were surrounded by a yelling, gesticulating crowd. Stones and musket-shots rained on them; one large stone struck Kitchener on the thigh, bruising it badly. In vain did the little party try to pacify the mob, which grew larger and fiercer every moment. Suddenly, one of the more daring of the attackers rushed at Conder and knocked him down with a heavy blow from his club. “1 must inevitably have been murdered,” be says, " but for the cool and prompt assistance of Kitchener, who stood between me and my assailant, and parried his blows, one of which wounded uis arm. His escape is unaccountable.” So perilous did the position become that Conder. when he had staggered to bis feet, gave the order to 'abandon tile tents and fly to a neighbouring hill. Kitchener was the last to obey this order; and it was only when he found himself loft alone that lie toolc to his heels and escaped, with a hail of bullets whistling past his ears. Fortunately, the attack was not repeated, and the next morning the party, two of whom—Conder and Kitchener—were badly wounded, made their escape. For eight years Kitchener did magnificent work in the East before he was called to Egypt to commence the amazing career which has astonished the world and which has not. yet reached its climax. “This Kitchener,” Lord Cromer remarked a year oy two later, “seems to have a finger m every pie. T must see him and find out what he is like. He should prove one of our best assets in Egypt.” Since that >day, thirty years ago, the world at large has discovered “what Kitchener is like,” and has recognised in him one -of our best assets, not only in Egys;, but in the British Empire.