LORD KITCHENER

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10285, 21 May 1919, Page 7

LORD KITCHENER

FRENCH'S ATTACK: UPON" HIS DEAD CHIEF.

THE CHARACTERS OF THE TWO

CONTRASTS©.

(By J. T. M. Hornsby, Jf.P.)

To those who havo been enabled to keep in touch with the career of Lord French from the outbreak of the great war to the present, that officer's questionable conduct towards the late Lard Kitchener will not come altogether as a surprise. Everyone knows that the appointment of Kitchener to supremo control at tho War Office was a very sad blow to the "old' nans-'" French's remark in his published memoirs about Kitchener appearing in France in the •'uniform of a field marshal" shows what manner of man t'ne reiired officer is. Field Marshal Lord Kitchener was not a euphemism, nor hie baton (in empty handle handed to him after a succession of failures. Whv Viscount French should seek to convey tho jtnipressicm that Kitchener was masquerading it is impossible, to understand. Wo shall see clearer and understand better when copies of tho publication are available in this country. It is a very easy matter to vilify a dead man, but one does not usually associato such a task with tho name of a British officer. Instead of seeking to find excuses for himself. Viscount French would surely havo been better encased had ho explained fully and frankly whv he, in the first place, refused to fall in with the proposals oi the Generalissimo of the French Army, Marshal Joffre. when it was arranged that tho 11th French- Army, _ under Maunoury, should make a surprise at> taok upon the army of von Kluok. It was on Friday, September 4th, 1914, that Generals Gallieni and Maunoury interviewed (then) Sir John French at the British Headquarters at Melun. Tho dispositions of the French Army were based upon the British Army crossim; the Marne and engaging and holding- the left flank and rear of von Kluok s men, and that the British should be ready to do> this within twenty-four hours. The replv was that the British could not be readv for forty-eight lours. That was on the 4th. let it be remembered. It was not till September 9th that the Brutish reached the Marne *roni Xtozoy. Their right and centre crossed to the northern bank of the river from.midday onwards: but their left wing, which was the body essential to the threatening ot Kluck's fourth reserve corps was held up at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. The British had cot to the Marne too late. Had the movement of the BBrdtish forces been so ordered as for them to engage and hold the Germans south of the, Marne, the Ourcq river would have been crossed toy the French and Kluck destroyed. Whether tho French command is to blame for a premature movement or 1 Sir John French for .too long delaying the advance T>f thp British cannot vet be clearly established. At any rate the whilom British general! has not told us in theso published memoirs. What he does make fairlv clear is that he refused both requests made to him, and then makes some disparaging remarks about. Lord Kitchener. It is impossible to conceive of worse taste than that of which Viscount French has been eUilty in these memoirs, and it is not at all surprising that already a move has been made to call Lord French to account.. One wonders whether in these memoirs we shall learn the whole truth of the magnificent work done hv Smith-Dorrion on tho retreat from Mons. and whether Viscount French will seek to explain his own failures at Neuve Chapelle and Loos. In any case, whatever his memoirs may contain, nothing ho can write can ever excuse him for his attack upon n greater soldier and ,a very much better man than himself. --Contrast the characters and careers of the two men: Sir John French was a dashing cavalry officer and did well in South; Africa. His work in Franco was distinctly "patchy." Since his recall to England he has passed from one subsidiary position to the other, and not even his'most ardent admirer can pump up any praise for his work in air .defence I That he should seek to "save face' by: girding at a dead man is most regrettable, to say the least. -'„... Turn we now to the caTeer or that great soldier, Herbert Lord Kitchener, whose lamented death was a world loss. It is not neoessary to go farther back in his career than the Soudan. It will be remembered that there he had bis first tussle with the War Office and the "old gang." He asked for a certain.class of field-gun. The Incompetents sent him some obsolete wtepons. These he had driven into the Asert, dismantled them there, and left them to rust away. His next order was very promptly complied with. His next experience with the War Office was the ordering of the viaducts for tho railway. He was told he might havo this material in two years! He ordered tfie same thing from America, vas guaranteed a completion in a few months; and it was so. And so all the way through on his great march to Khartoum—onward, always onward, ielentless, inexorable, until the rebel tribesmen and the remainder of the people named him "Kfsmet" (fate). Think for a moment of the man who coujd go in and out amongst the Arab enemy, unsuspected and undiscovered;" and then in' the end see a hostile country subdued and turned into a settled, peaceful whole. I See him again in South Africa—after the dark days of many British defeats—and note him taking hold of the slackers end wasters among the officers of the Army; witness his wholesale condemnation of theso and his wholesale clearance out of the "ladies'* with whom these wastrels had been philandering. Turn again to his wonderful organisation of the campaign and his crushing of the enemy in detail, his brilliant seconding of his still greater chief, Lord Roberts. Go with him later to India, and there witness the monumental work carried out by him in that vast territory- And remember that the work then done in reorganisation is enabling us to-dav to grapple so effectively with the Afghan and other cifficultles. Accompany him once more to the War Office, and witness his struggle against tho machinations of/ the "old* gang." engineered by "petticoat influence"—an influence he was out to destroy. His enemies wero too strong for him, and he was offered a post in Egypt! This was the move to shelve Kitchener. Be was already on the way, when tho great war came upon us, and Asquith demanded the return of the Field Marshal Attempts were made. to upset this plan, but the Prime Minister, who was also Minister for War, declared that he must and would havo Kitchener. Eomembor his farsightedness as to tho duration of the war; think of his great appeal to the manhood of Britain, to Britons everywhere; of his creation of armies out of nothing; of the dispatch of the finest body of men that ever has or ever will leave the shores of Britain; of the pledge he asked from, the men of the Army—a pledge that set a standard up to which, for the most part, our men have tried to live.

Then, in sorrow, think of his taking j off. And yet wo may surely contemplato this last scene of his career with pride. He has responded to the call of duty, and as the Hampshire struggles with the forces of nature on that wild coast of Scotland, the vessel is rent asunder, end* Kitchener and his officers and every man on, board knows that the end hns come. Wo see him nt tho last, when the Hampshire is settling, standing calm and undismayed, speaking to those about him, meeting death as only the bravest may. The water gulphs him, but he lives on in the memory and in the hearts of the British people everywhere. - Does anyone envy Viscount French ]n\task of caluminntion of our dtad hero?