Chapter 10

"Lieut. Kitchener and I were immediately surrounded. Three came to me and asked me with curses what I was doing. An old man thrust his battle-axe violently into my side, but I did not like to strike him, though I had now a hunting-crop in my hand. I told them they were mad and would be severely punished if they struck an Englishman. About this time other members of the party saw a gun levelled at me five yards off, but fortunately the man's hand was caught before he fired. A man now came into the crowd which surrounded me, and dealt me a blow on the head with a large club with great violence, causing two wounds on the side of my head, covering my face with blood. A second blow, directed with full force at the top of my head, must inevitably have brained me, had I not put my head down to his chest. My servants gave me up for dead. The blow fell on my neck, which ever since has been so stiff and swollen that it is impossible to turn it round. The rest of the party saw me fall.

"As soon as I got up, I dealt this man a blow in the face with the handle of my whip which staggered him, but my whip flew out of my hand and left me entirely unarmed. I must inevitably have been murdered but for the cool and prompt assistance of Lieut. Kitchener, who managed to get to me and engaged one of the clubmen, covering my retreat.

"A blow descending on the top of his head he parried with a cane, which was broken by the force of the blow. A second wounded his arm. His escape is unaccountable. Having retired a few paces from the thick of the fray, I saw that the Moslems were gradually surrounding us, stealing behind trees and through vineyards, and I well understood that in such a case, unless the soldiers arrived at once, we must all die. Many of the servants had indeed already given up hope, though no one fled. I gave the order to leave the tents and fly round the hill.

"Lieut. Kitchener was the last to obey this order, being engaged in front. He retreated to his tent, and whilst running he was fired at, and heard the bullet whistle by his head. He was also followed for some short distance by a man with a huge scimitar, who subsequently wounded with it more than one of our people."

The timely arrival of the regular soldiers undoubtedly saved the little party from massacre.

Another enemy, the Eastern fever, was more successful in attack. Both Conder and Kitchener had to return to England to recuperate. In 1877, Kitchener went back, this time in command of the expedition, and by midsummer had completed his survey of northern Palestine. He had covered all told one thousand miles of country, making photographs and maps which added immeasurably to the general knowledge.

On his way back to England, Kitchener stopped in Turkey, which was then at war with Bulgaria. His observations on the qualities of soldiers in the two peoples, as recorded in an article written for _Blackwood's Magazine_, are interesting in the light of later wars.

The publication of the results of the Palestine exploration first brought Kitchener to public notice. He was officially thanked and began to be regarded as a marked man. He had won his first spurs.

His next task was along similar lines. The Island of Cyprus occupied a strategic position in the Mediterranean, and moreover had been the scene of much turmoil. The British Government desired to set up a stable regime there, and to this end decided to make a careful survey of the Island and its resources. They naturally turned to Kitchener to do the work. The satisfactory way in which he carried it through earned for him the warm approval of Lord Derby, then Secretary of State for the Colonies. One of his associates in Cyprus says of him there: "We saw little of Kitchener at the club or anywhere else where Englishmen mostly congregated, although he sometimes turned up at the gymkhana meetings to contribute his share to their success. Kitchener was always a hard worker, a gentleman with a long head who thought much but said little. It is, of course, easy enough to prophesy when you know, but honestly, to my mind, he looked a man who would go far if he only had his chance."

As an immediate result of this work, Kitchener was given the rank of Major, and sent with Lord Wolseley's expedition into Egypt--then in the throes of civil war. One reason for his promotion was his ability to speak Arabic. His several years in the East had not only taught him the languages, but valuable insight into manners and customs.

The campaign was short and summary. The rebel forces were routed and order established in northern Egypt. Kitchener's ability to organize, and his knowledge of the people soon made him indispensable. His name occurred so frequently in the official reports, that Lord Cromer, in the home office, remarked: "This Kitchener seems to have a finger in every pie. I must see him and find out what he is like." Later, after seeing him, Cromer said: "That man's got a lot in him. He should prove one of our best assets in Egypt."

The next event--and a dramatic one--in Kitchener's life was concerned with the attempted rescue of Gordon, some three years later. This famous General had been sent to subdue the Soudan, which literally means "Land of the Blacks," and had not received sufficient reinforcements. It was a blunder on the part of the home Government for which Gordon was to pay with his life. A relief force under Wolseley was sent too late.

Kitchener was fully alive to the peril of the situation, but being only a subordinate could not do much to hasten affairs. He did know, however, that a widespread conspiracy was being hatched which threatened the safety of Wolseley's forces as well. How he got at the bottom of this conspiracy is related by Charles Shaw, a Canadian journalist who accompanied the expedition.

A group of Arabs who had been in a brawl were lying tied hand and foot in the guardhouse, when a tall man, also securely tied, was thrown in with them. Although dressed like a native, Shaw relates, "he looked a different brand of Arab than I had been accustomed to. He was Kitchener. He was after the conspiracy.

"I didn't know much Arabic in those days, but we could hear the Dongolese talk and talk in excited tones the whole night, the tall man occasionally saying a few words.

"When we paraded before the large open-faced orderly tent next morning, we were almost paralyzed to see Lord Wolseley himself seated at the little table with Kitchener beside him, both in full staff uniform. A tall, fine-looking Arab was being examined through the interpreter. He didn't seem impressed by the glittering uniforms or the presence of the Commander-in-chief, or embarrassed by their questions. Once or twice an expression of surprise flitted over his face, but his eyes were always fixed on Kitchener, who would now and again stoop and whisper something in Lord Wolseley's ear. Once he raised his voice. The prisoner heard its intonation and recognized him. With a fierce bound the long, lithe Arab made a spring and was over the table, and had seized Kitchener by the throat. There was a short, swift struggle, Wolseley's eye glistened, and he half drew his sword. Kitchener, athletic as he was, was being overpowered, and the Arab was throttling him to death.

"There was a rush of the guard--and within ten minutes a cordon of sentries surrounded the Mudir of Dongola's tent. Within three days he was a prisoner in his palace at Dongola, guarded by half a battalion of British soldiers. The conspiracy was broken.

"How widespread it was, only half a dozen white men knew at the time. . . . To it the treachery of the Egyptian garrison at Khartoum and the death of Gordon was due, and the preservation of the Desert Column (the relief force), can be placed to its discovery."

The next few years in Kitchener's life, which we can but summarize, show him wielding a masterful hand in the pacification of Egypt. After Gordon's death, the command was reorganized, and Kitchener became a Lieutenant Colonel of Cavalry. His duties took him to the extreme outposts.

Halfway down the Red Sea, over against Mecca, is Suakim, the southern outpost of Egypt. Suakim has the distinction of being one of the hottest stations on earth, and one of the most desolate, comparable to Central Arizona in the hot season. Here Kitchener served as Governor from 1886 to 1888, with distinction. The following year found him fighting on the frontier of the Soudan, the wild, vast back-country to the south and west.

From 1889 to 1892 he served as Adjutant-General of the Egyptian Army, nominally as an officer of the Sultan's viceroy, the Khedive; but in reality the visible presence of England's protecting power. He received several high decorations, which would show that he won the esteem and confidence of his Egyptian patrons. Finally in 1893 the Khedive made him Sirdar, or Commander-in-chief.

South of the Egyptian frontier, on the Upper Nile among the cataracts, the three cities, Dongola, Berber, and Khartoum form a triangle of trading centers. Kitchener saw that these were the strategic points in the control of Upper Egypt, and in 1896 led an expedition thither.

Ever since the death of Gordon, the country had been unsettled. It remained to Kitchener to wield the avenging sword. He laid a light railroad southward along the Nile, and marched swiftly, taking his supplies with him. At Omdurman he finally met the enemy and inflicted a crushing defeat. At Khartoum, where Gordon had been slain, he set up a stable government.

He came back to civilization a Major General in the British army, a peer of England--and "Kitchener of Khartoum." This popular title was speedily shortened to "K of K," and was as well known wherever English Tommies assembled as "Bobs," the affectionate nickname of Lord Roberts.

But Kitchener never won the deep affection of the rank and file, that Roberts inspired. He was taciturn, aloof, and a stern disciplinarian. His name evoked fear and respect, but never love. And yet, his men would follow him through fire and water, for they had unbounded confidence in his ability. It was his name that was placarded through London, when the recruiting began for the Great War--and not the King's.

"Will you serve with Kitchener?" the posters said. And they responded, three million strong--"Kitchener's Mob," which was to become so soon a skilled army under his guidance.

They tell of him that when he took the post of Secretary of War, on his first visit of inspection to the office he looked around and said, "Is there a bed here?" When answered in the negative, he gave the brief order, "Have one brought in."

Thereafter for several weeks he literally lived in his office night and day. He had at last found a job that measured up to his fullest requirements for hard work, and he revelled in it. Incidentally, he "delivered the goods"--but nobody marvelled at that; it was nothing more than was expected of him!

Says an anonymous writer in _The Living Age_: "England never fully understood Lord Kitchener, and perhaps he never fully understood his countrymen. They weaved innumerable myths around this shy and solitary man, who revealed himself to few. To them his figure loomed gigantic and mysterious through the sandstorms of African deserts and the mists of the Himalayas. In their hour of trial he came among them for a space, and then vanished forever in the wild Northern seas. He was a good man to fight for or to fight against, and he found a worthy end."

IMPORTANT DATES IN KITCHENER'S LIFE

1850. June 24. Herbert Horatio Kitchener born. 1865. Sent to Switzerland to school. 1868. Entered Royal Military Academy, at Woolwich. 1870. Volunteered in French army against Prussia. 1874. Sent as second-lieutenant to Palestine, with exploration party. 1878. Surveyed Island of Cyprus, for British Government. 1885. Lieutenant-colonel of cavalry in Egypt. 1893. Sirdar, or commander-in-chief, of Egyptian army. 1898. Created a baron. 1900. Chief of staff to Roberts in South Africa. 1902. Made general, and commander-in-chief in India. 1911. Consul-general in Egypt. 1914. Secretary of War. Field marshal. 1916. June 5. Lost his life at sea.

HAIG

THE MAN WHO LED "THE CONTEMPTIBLES"

"There goes young Haig. He says he intends to be a soldier."

The speaker was a young student at Oxford University, as he jerked his thumb in the direction of a slight but well-set-up fellow, a classmate, who went cantering past.

The chance remark, made more than once during the college days of Field Marshal Haig, struck the keynote of his career. From early boyhood Douglas Haig was going to be a soldier; and he stuck to his guns in a quiet, systematic way until he won out.

The story of Haig's life until the time of the Great War, was the opposite of spectacular, and even in it, his personal prowess was kept studiously in the background. With him it has always been: "My men did thus and so." Yet in his quiet way he has always made his presence felt with telling effect. He has been the man behind the man behind the gun.

By birth Haig was a "Fifer," which sounds military without being so. He was a native of Cameronbridge, County of Fife, and came of the strictest Presbyterian Scotch. If he had lived a few centuries back he would have been a Covenanter--the kind that carried a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other. He was born, June 19, 1861, the youngest son of John Haig, a local Justice of the Peace. His mother was a Veitch of Midlothian.

The family, while not wealthy, was comfortably situated. The Haig children grew up as countrywise rather than townbred, having many a romp over the rolling country leading to the Highlands. But more than once on such a jaunt would come the inquiry: "Where's Douglas?" (We doubt whether they ever shortened it to "Doug," as they would have done in America.) And back would come the answer: "Oh, he stayed by the house, the morn. He got a new book frae the library, ye ken."

Douglas was, indeed, bookish and was inclined to favor the inglenook rather than the heather. As he grew older he discovered a strong liking for books on theology. It was the old Presbyterian streak cropping out.

The last thing one would expect from such a boy, was to become a soldier. A divinity student, yes,--perhaps a college professor--but a soldier, never! Yet it was to soldiering that this quiet boy turned.

The one thing which linked him up with the field was horsemanship. He was always a devotee of riding, and soon learned to ride well, with a natural ease and grace.

He received a general education at Clifton, then entered Brasenose College, Oxford, at the age of twenty. He was never a "hail-fellow-well-met" sort of person. Reserve was his hallmark. But the longer he stayed in college, the more of an outdoorsman he became. Every afternoon would find him mounted on his big gray horse for a gallop across the moors, or perhaps an exciting canter behind the hounds on the scent of a fox. It was then that his habitual reserve would melt away, and he would wave his hat and cheer like a high-school boy.

The record of his classes is in no sense remarkable. He turned in neat and precise papers, without making shining marks in any particular study. Literature and science were his best subjects.

"Well, son, how goes it now?" his father would ask. "Ready to make a lawyer out of yourself?"

Douglas would shake his head. He could never share his father's enthusiasm for the law. "I guess not, father," he would reply quietly. "Somehow, I am not built that way. I want a try at soldier life."

So his father let him follow his bent, and procured for him a position in the Seventh Regiment of Hussars. His career as a soldier was threatened at the outset by the refusal of the medical board to admit him to the Staff College on the ground that he was color-blind; but this decision was over-ruled by the Duke of Cambridge, then commander-in-chief, who nominated him personally. This was in 1885. England was then as nearly at peace as she ever became, and it seemed that young Haig was destined to become a feather-bed soldier.

But it was not for long. They presently began to stir up trouble down in Egypt, and England found, as on many previous occasions, that she didn't have half enough regulars for the job in hand. The revolt of the Mahdi had occurred, Khartoum had fallen, and the brave Gordon had lost his life.

A relief expedition into the Soudan was organized under the command of a tall, stern soldier named Kitchener, who began his first preparations to march into the interior about the time that Haig was putting on his first Hussar uniform.

The campaign in Egypt dragged, despite the zeal of the leader. In disgust, Kitchener returned to England to demand more men. The request was at last granted, and by December, 1888, he was in command of a force of over 4,000 troops, of which number 750 were British regulars! Those were indeed the days of the "Little Contemptibles," but right manfully they measured up to their tasks. And in the British force was the Seventh Hussars, including Haig. He was about to achieve his life's ambition, at last--to see real service as a British soldier.

Haig was then a well-knit young man of twenty-seven. His outdoor exercise had browned and hardened him, until he looked thoroughly fit for the exacting job ahead. He was slightly under medium size, but tough and wiry to the last degree. His shoulders were broad, his head well set, and the bulging calves of his legs showed the born cavalryman. He had fair, almost sandy hair, a close-cropped mustache, and steel-blue eyes which met honestly and unflinchingly the gaze of any with whom he talked. He looked then, as in later years, "every inch a soldier," and speedily won the confidence of his superiors.

The silent Kitchener, who was a keen judge of men, soon took a fancy to this quiet young lieutenant. A friendship sprang up between them, that was destined to bear far-reaching fruit. The two men were both reserved in demeanor, but in a different sort of way. Kitchener was taciturn and often inclined to growl. Haig was a man of few words and no intimates, but greeted all with a pleasant smile. To this young Scotsman Kitchener unbent more than was his wont, and was actually seen shaking hands with him, at parting, on a later occasion; which all goes to show that even commanding officers can be human.

On the march into the Soudan, Kitchener was in command of the Egyptian Cavalry also. The Khedive was exceedingly anxious that the rebellion be crushed speedily, and had made Kitchener the "sirdar." One of the first actions in this campaign was the Battle of Gemaizeh. Three brigades were sent to storm the forts held by the dervishes, and a heavy and sustained fire from three sides soon drove the enemy out in disorder. Some 500 dervishes were slain, and the remainder numbering several thousand fled across the desert toward Handub--closely pursued by the British Hussars and the Egyptian cavalry.

This was only the first of many such actions. Further and further south the rebels were driven. Kitchener pushed a light railroad across the desert as he advanced, so that he would not suffer from the same mistake which had ended Gordon--getting cut off from his base of supplies.

And in the thick of it was Haig--learning the actual trade of war in these frequent brushes on the desert--riding hard by day, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion at night. On more than one occasion the Chief sent him on a special quest with important messages, and always Haig got through. He seemed to bear a charmed life. "Lucky Haig," the men began to call him, and the title stuck.

Entering the desert as a Lieutenant, he was promoted to Captain, then brevetted a Major. He was mentioned in the despatches for bravery, and won a medal from the Khedive.

All this was not done in a few short months. The Egyptian campaign stretched into years, and at times must have seemed fearfully monotonous to these soldiers so far removed from home comforts. Here is the way one writer describes the Soudan:

"The scenery, it must be owned, was monotonous, and yet not without haunting beauty. Mile on mile, hour on hour, we glided through sheer desert. Yellow sand to right and left--now stretching away endlessly, now a valley between small broken hills. Sometimes the hills sloped away from us, then they closed in again. Now they were diaphanous blue on the horizon, now soft purple as we ran under their flanks. But always they were steeped through and through with sun--hazy, immobile, silent."

One of the culminating battles of the campaign was that of Atbara, where the backbone of the dervish rebellion was broken. It is estimated that here 8,000 dervishes were killed, 2,000 wounded, and 2,000 made prisoners. The battle began with a bombardment by the field guns. Then came the British cavalry at a gallop--the Camerons in front, and columns of Warwicks, Seaforths, and Lincolns behind. Bugles, bagpipes, and the instruments of the native regiments made strange music as the army pressed forward intent on reaching the river bank.

The native stockades were reinforced with thorn bushes, but these were torn away by the men, with their bare hands, in their eagerness to advance. Haig's regiment was one of the first to penetrate, but once past the stockade they encountered many of the defenders who put up a fierce fight. Several British officers lost their lives, and it was due to Haig's agility and presence of mind that he was not at the least severely wounded. Two dervishes attacked him at once from opposite sides. One aimed a slashing blow at his head with a scimitar. Haig quickly ducked and the scimitar went crashing against the weapon of the other dervish. Haig's luck again!

Others were not so fortunate. "Never mind me, lads, go on," said Major Urquhart with his dying breath. "Go on, my company, and give it to them," gasped Captain Findlay as he fell. At the head of the attacking party strode Piper Stewart, playing "The March of the Cameron Men," until five bullets laid him low. Truly the spirit of the fiery old Covenanters was there!

The final battle of the Soudanese campaign, Khartoum, put the finishing touches to the rebellion, and gave to Kitchener the title "K. of K."--Kitchener of Khartoum. This battle was noteworthy in employing the cavalry in an open charge across the plains against the dervish infantry. It was just such a charge as a skilled horseman such as Haig would keenly enjoy, despite the danger. Winston Churchill, the British Minister, thus describes it:

"The heads of the squadrons wheeled slowly to the left, and the Lancers, breaking into a trot, began to cross the dervish front in column of troops. Thereupon and with one accord the blue-clad men dropped on their knees, and there burst out a loud, crackling fire of musketry. It was hardly possible to miss such a target at such a range. Horses and men fell at once. The only course was plain and welcome to all. The Colonel, nearer than his regiment, already saw what lay behind the skirmishers. He ordered 'Right wheel into line' to be sounded. The trumpet jerked out a shrill note, heard faintly above the trampling of the horses and the noise of the rifles. On the instant the troops swung round and locked up into a long, galloping line.