Chapter 22

LORD KITCHENER'S START

A first meeting with Lord Kitchener -- Sent up to see him in Pretoria by his brother under unpromising conditions -- The interview -- The Chief's pleasant reception -- A story of Lord K. from the Sudan -- An unpleasant interview with him in August 1914 -- Rare meetings with him during the first two or three months -- His ignorance of War Office organization -- His lack of acquaintance with many matters in connection with the existing organization of the army -- His indisposition to listen to advice on such subjects -- Lord K. shy of strangers -- His treatment of the Territorial Forces -- Their weak point at the outset of hostilities, not having the necessary strength to mobilize at war establishment -- Effect of this on the general plans -- The way the Territorials dwindled after taking the field -- Lord K. inclined at first to pile up divisions without providing them with the requisite reservoirs of reserves -- His feat in organizing four regular divisions in addition to those in the Expeditionary Force -- His immediate recognition of the magnitude of the contest -- He makes things hum in the War Office -- His differences of opinion with G.H.Q. -- The inability of G.H.Q. to realize that a vast expansion of the military forces was the matter of primary importance -- Lord K.'s relations with Sir J. French -- The despatch of Sir H. Smith-Dorrien to command the Second Corps -- Sir J. French not well treated at the time of the Antwerp affair -- The relegation of the General Staff at the War Office to the background in the early days -- Question whether this was entirely due to its having suffered in efficiency by the withdrawals which took place on mobilization -- The General Staff only eliminated in respect to operations.

My first meeting with Lord Kitchener had taken place under conditions that augured no agreeable experience. It was in March or April 1901. At that time I had charge of a heterogeneous collection of guns in a body of troops operating in the Eastern Transvaal and commanded by General Walter Kitchener, the Chief's brother, and was also used by him as a sort of second-in-command to take charge of portions of the force when detached from time to time. Our commando had trekked out from Belfast and had camped in a likely spot, and on the morrow he took out part of the force in one direction and sent me off with part of the force in another direction, while the remainder stayed in camp guarding the impedimenta. I tumbled across a few snipers, and we enjoyed a harmless scrap; but Walter butted into a whole lot of truculent burghers. These were being reinforced and were full of fight, so he decided to retire, and also to retire the camp; but the message directing me to conform unfortunately went astray. The result was that before long I found myself covering the retirement of the whole gang, and being rather harried to boot--one of those _reculer pour mieux sauter_ sort of movements where it is all _reculer_ and no _sauter_. The casualties were, however, small, and we lost nothing worth bothering about; but Walter took his big brother very seriously indeed, was much concerned as to how the Chief might regard an operation which we could not possibly represent as a success, and, after much cogitation, packed me off to Pretoria to report in person.

He gave me elaborate directions as to how best to approach the subject when in the presence. "No, don't put it that way, tell it him like this"--"He'll damn me and you, but whatever you do, don't make excuses," and so forth. One had read Steevens' appreciation of the then Sirdar in his _With Kitchener to Khartum_, and had gathered from newspapers (the worst possible source of information about the character and the idiosyncrasies of persons of note) that this commander-in-chief of ours was a cold, exacting, unsympathetic figure, much more given to jumping down your throat than to patting you on the back. The consequence was that when, having fetched up in Pretoria after some adventures, I was wending my way to Lord K.'s headquarters I felt very much as one does when repairing to the dentist. It was worse, indeed, than going to the dentist, because when I got there Colonel Hubert Hamilton, the Military Secretary (who was killed when in command of the Third Division soon after it reached the Lys from the Aisne in October 1914), greeted me with "Very sorry, but the Chief's awfully busy to-day. Roll up about this time to-morrow, will you, like a good chap?" It was the same story again on the next day--the Chief up to the neck in correspondence. But on presenting myself on the third day, Hamilton promptly ushered me into the great man's study, where he was sitting at his desk.

"What d'you want?" demanded Lord K. I began explaining about our little affair near Belfast; but he cut me short with "Oh, I don't want to hear about all that. Had any trouble getting here?" Yes, the train in front of mine had been blown up, and----"They'll bag you on the way back," interrupted the Chief cheerily, "so I'd better get what I can out of you now; my brother writes that you've been about a good deal on the east side, and I'm going to take that in hand very shortly. Come along over here." We went across to where there was a huge great map of the Eastern Transvaal, with the positions of the posts and columns, etc., marked on it, and for twenty minutes or so I found myself enjoying the pleasantest interview with a much senior officer than I had ever had in my life. He listened to my exposition of how it seemed best to round up the enemy commandos, where sedentary forces ought to be dumped down to act as stops, and what lines the mobile columns ought to operate along. Lord K. occasionally interjected a question or criticism as to some particular point, but seemed not in the least displeased when I stuck to my own view. When he dismissed me he spoke in a particularly friendly way, and my experience of him on this occasion was nothing short of a revelation.

"Had a satisfactory talk?" asked Hamilton when I came out, and, on my saying how nice the Chief had been, he remarked, "He's in one of his good moods to-day, but you mightn't always find him quite so tame. He's been down to the Old Colony and back these last two days, and found things moving--that's why he could not see you before. But he always keeps his movements very close, so you mustn't let it go any further."

Walter Kitchener, not unnaturally, entertained unbounded admiration for, and belief in, his brother, and he often told me tales from Egyptian days of things that the Sirdar then did and of the resource he would display in unexpected emergencies. One of these yarns about the great War Minister at a stage of his career when he was still mounting the ladder of success deserves to be repeated here.[3] It happened one day, during the operations for the recovery of the Sudan from the Mahdi-ists, that "K." was riding forward with his staff, there being no troops nor transport actually on the move, he mounted on his camel, the rest on horses and ponies. By the wayside they came upon a heap of rolls of telegraph-wire lying near the track, which some unit had apparently abandoned as lumber or else had been unable to carry. "We can't leave that stuff behind," said the Sirdar to the staff; "bring it along." Two or three of them dismounted to see what could be done, but there was no gear available for lashing and the rolls were heavy. A little party of the small donkeys of the country was, however, being driven along by a native lad and came on the scene just at this juncture. "Hurry up. Put the wire on those donkeys. I don't want to sit here all day," commanded the Sirdar impatiently. The donkeys had no saddles nor equipment of any kind except rope halters of sorts, and the officers sampled various devices, without success, for placing the goods on the donkeys' backs and keeping them there. They experimented with balancing a roll on the back of one, but it promptly fell off again. They tied two rolls together and slung them across the back of another, pannier fashion; but the little beast gave a kick and a wriggle and deposited the load on the ground. Various dodges were tried, perspiration poured off the faces of the officers, they were covered with dust, their language grew stronger and stronger, and at last, feeling themselves entirely nonplussed, one of them, looking up at their chief as he sat on his camel with a sardonic smile on his face, observed deprecatingly, "I'm afraid we really can't manage it, sir."

[Footnote 3: While this volume has been in the press Sir G. Arthur's _Life of Lord Kitchener_ has appeared, giving a different version of this story and probably the correct one. Walter Kitchener was speaking, I think, from hearsay.]

"Can't manage it, can't you!" ejaculated the Sirdar; "here, let me come." He made his camel kneel, and dismounted, stalked over to one of the donkeys, gripped the animal by the nose, backed it till its hind feet were inside one of the rolls, turned the roll up over the donkey's back from behind, gave the beast a smack on the rump, and after one or two wriggles and kicks, the creature was trotting along, adorned with a loosely fitting girdle of telegraph-wire round its waist which it could not get rid of. The same plan was promptly adopted with the other donkeys. And in a few minutes the party were riding along again, with the donkeys, carrying the whole of the abandoned wire, in close attendance.

That Lord Kitchener would cut up rough at times when things went wrong, as Hubert Hamilton had hinted at Pretoria, was brought home to me convincingly on the occasion of my first interview with him at the War Office after that visit to the Admiralty which is mentioned in