KITCHENER

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 34, 10 February 1933, Page 14

KITCHENER

A GREAT CAPTAIN

LADY OXFORD'S MEMORIES

HIS WOEK M THE WAE

It was only after I knew Lord. Kitchener intimately that I realised how ■difficult it would be to say whether he was, or was not, a very clever man, and nothing that I have read about him has given me a portrait of the man as I knew him; you may write every fact about a man's birth, upbringing, education, and achievements, and yet not succeed in making a portrait of him. "X"—as most of his friends called him—was different from any of the famous figures that I have known, writes the Countess of Oxford and Asquith in the "Morning Post." He was not at all English, yet I do not think any country but this could have produced him. 'In sonic ways obvious—and always imposing—he was slim, observant, courageous, and simple; and though he attracted the great British public, he kept all but his devoted personal friends at arm's length by his abrupt manner, ruth- v lessness, and non-conducting silence. What I liked best about him was that, in. spite, of welcoming popularity, he was not vain; and he detested war. He told me that he had fought with the Trench in tlie Franco-Prussian war and had spent most of his life in soldiering, but that he had never seen a war out of which any permanent peace had come; and that while fighting brought out great individual heroism, it was futile in settling great international disputes. AT THE WAR OFFICE. ' When in. August, 1914, my husband told me that he had persuaded Lord Kitchener to delay his return to Egypt and take the War Office (which, he had done several days before the Press started its clamour) I was not at all convinced that he was right. I said that, in spite of his great name, he had lived so much among subject xaees that I feared he would not get on smoothly with Europeans; and his inconversable habit of mind and mistrust of men like Lord Cromer and Lord Milner might prevent him working well with a British Cabinet. My husband said he was aware of this, but that he was the only man who by hia prestige and authority could get sufficient recruits to create our new Army, and quoted what my daughter Elizabeth had said: "Kitchener is a great poster." In every way the Prime Minister's appointment was justified, and as Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener made fewer mistakes than most men might have.made placed in a similar situation. But he had never learnt how to delegate work—a talent without which my husband said to me no . man of affairs' could ever become pre-eminent—and took on his own shoulders duties which. Mr. MeKenna, at the Home Office, and other men were..better qualified to perform. He had so much confidence in. himself and his own. ability that he made no use of Lord Haldane's carefully worked out scheme of Territorials, which caused a. certain amount of criticism at the time. The British Army owed more to Lord Haldane than to any Minister of War in my lifetime, and but for him we should never have achieved the perfection, of the first Expeditionary Force. TOO GBEA.T A TASK. The task of creating a new Army •was too vast for one man to undertake, and there was considerable confusion in the early months of the war. The internment camps—which should have been under civil administration—were mismanaged, the Irish, mishandled, and the Tecruits who> flocked from every part of the British Isles to join the new Army, were not properly registered. Nevertheless, there were no complaints, and nothing but adulation, was poured upon Lord Kitchener by an enthusiastic public and his devoted personal friends. Looking back today, I am convinced that there was no man living who could have created our noble voluntary Army as efficiently and rapidly as Lord Kitchener. He lad the spirit pf a great commander, and won for himself, by his prestige and originality, an. tarivalled popularity. In a short time there was nothing that the :man in the street would not have done.at his bidding. In.spite of his powerful domination and ■ rough-and-ready charm, I, never saw any sign of profound intellect or great reasoning power in Kitchener's single-track mind; but he had something better: he was intensely human, and: with his first-rate intelligence and incalculable instinct understood the majority : of his fellow-men. He was a born diplomatist, wise, patient, and reserved, and my husband —who never lost faith in him— always said he would have been a great ambassador. RELATIONS WITH ASQUITH. v From the first day of the war Lord Kitchener and my husband understood one another. They saw each other every hour of the day and worked happily together, which, was the moie remarkable as two men of more different characters, methods, education, and temperament could not have been found. Lord Kitchener understood the value of publicity, delighted in popularity, and, although, neither a flatterer nor a snob, had a reverence for rank, and at one time believed in the power of the Press. He also preferred achieving his purpose by roundabout rather than simple methods^ all of which characteristics were foreign to the Prime Minister. While he enjoyed society, I never met anyone more unaware of rank, less interested in publicity, or more indifferent to the Press than my husband, and no clamour could force his hand: it was almost enough, that public opinion should go against a man for him to defend Mm, and he would have agreed with Hazlitt, who in his essay—written in 1821—upon "Living to One's Self" says: "The public is pusillanimous and cowardly because it is weak. It cries you up or runs you down out of mere caprice arid levity. We may safely say the public is the dupe of public opinion, not its parent." - When high events are making history —such as war—it is better not to take the public into your confidence, and one of the few times I ever saw my husband really angry was when he heard that one of his colleagues had dined with pressmen. He told him that he himself would Bee that the newspapers were properly informed of what was taking place at the front; that he wished no leakage of Cabinet secrets, as it was all-important that the enemy should know as little as possible of our plans and our resources. What first drew Lord Kitchener and me together was our mutual affection for Lady Waterford, a woman of saintly character with whom I had made friends while hunting with her father the Duke of Beaufort (the present Duke's grandfather). He showed a tenderness when talking of her which touched me, and proved how many unsuspected depths there ■were in his incommunicable nature. NO PETTINESS. Although Tie had no pettiness and an easy temper and disposition, Lord Kitchonor was not an elastic man to work with, and his dumb taciturnity at

Cabinet, meetings often made things difficult. _He knew nothing about British polities, or the consideration due to men of different opinions and, with the exception of the Prime Minister, he was not on intimate terms with any of his colleagues. He told me he had a poor opinion of them, which as they comprised mbn of the highest intelligence amused mo. i It is _ not easy to estimate a man whose instinct is stronger than his reason, but though it would be untrue to say he had an original mind, ho had an unusual personality, and I have never met anyone at all like- Lord Kitchener. His fine figure, bold presence, and desert eye gave a misleading impression of candour, and it was only with the few people that he really cared foxthat he was unreserved. He had had little opportunity of living with, his equals and was incline^ to manoeuvre for position as he had done for a largo part of his life with Orientals. Nevertheless, there was a sort of avtlessness in his slimness which always interested me, and in all his relations with myself and my husband Lord Kitchener showed trne loyalty and affection. Among his private proclivities he was fond of art, and in the course of his travels had collected many valuable possessions. When offered by Mayors and Corporations the freedom, of their cities, he always made it clear what he wished them to give him, as ho very rightly did not approve of the heavy gold caskets lined with plush which are the usual costly and foolish form of presentation. "PROBABLY UNTRUE." This passion for collecting, and a certain Oriental love of getting the better of an adversary, gave rise to many stories, most of them probably untrue, but as they throw such a human and lovable light on his character I cannot resist quoting one or tivo. The late. Lord Chesham told me that after the Boer War he was sitting alone in the billiard-room of an hotel in Cape Town watching Kitchener playing billiards with the leader of a scalliwag troop that had . fought in '' the war. There was an old-fashioned marker on the wall where you pushed on your score. "While his opponent was playing, Lord Kitchener lit a large cigar and pushed his score to the end of the markingboard with, his elbow. Lord Chesham was dumbfounded at seeing this, and when Kitchener's turn came to play, wondered if the other man would notice the score. He did not wonder long, as the leader of the troop clapped him vigorously on the shoulder and said, "Did you see that? My God, I love that man!" They exchanged a smile of confidence after looking at the score. When my husband paid his first visit to the front in 1915 ho was accompanied by Lord Kitchener, received by Lord French, and conducted by them, their aides-de-camp, and several distinguished field-marshals to see the Cloth Hall at Ypres. This marvellous building had been bombarded for weeks by the Germans, but though, much of the roof had gono, most of the famous statues in the niches of the facade-were intact. The Commanderrin-Chief, the Secretary of State, the Pr'mo Minister, and some attendants were all gazing at what remained of the Cloth Hall, when a youthful subaltern nudged my husband, and pointing to< Lord Kitchener —whose eyes wore immovably fixed upon the stone figures—said: "Do you see those statues, sir? They have been bombed by the German army for months, but have never been in such danger as they are to-day."