Background
Kitchener was born on June 24, 1850 in Ballylongford in Ireland, son of army officer Henry Horatio Kitchener (1805-1894) and Frances Anne Chevallier.
administrator military officer
Kitchener was born on June 24, 1850 in Ballylongford in Ireland, son of army officer Henry Horatio Kitchener (1805-1894) and Frances Anne Chevallier.
Kitchener was educated in Switzerland and at the Royal Military Academy near London.
While on vacation during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Kitchener fought for France as a volunteer. He joined the Royal Engineers in 1871. A solitary and devout young man, disliking regimental routine, he took part in surveys of Cyprus and Palestine. When the British occupied Egypt in 1882, he was one of the officers selected to reorganize the Egyptian army. In 1884 and 1885 he was intelligence officer to the force that tried to relieve General Charles ("Chinese") Gordon, then besieged by the Sudanese at Khartoum. After much service in the desert Kitchener rose to be sirdar (commander) of the Egyptian army and in 1896 began the reconquest of the Sudan. His campaign ended in 1898 with the victorious Battle of Omdurman. As the avenger of Gordon, Kitchener became the idol of the British people. He founded the Gordon College as a memorial at Khartoum. Tall, handsome, and reserved, Kitchener, now Lord Kitchener of Khartoum ("K of K"), was the typical "strong silent" hero of the age, admired but not loved. He remained unmarried and had few friends. With diplomatic skill he induced French explorer Jean Baptiste Marchand to withdraw from Fashoda in the Sudan, thus ending an Anglo-French crisis. In 1899 Kitchener went as chief of staff to Lord Roberts, who had taken command of the British troops in South Africa after initial defeats by the Boers. When the main campaign was over, Kitchener was left to suppress the guerrilla rising of the Boers. At the peace negotiations he proved more liberal-minded than his civilian colleague Alfred Milner, by persuading the Boers to submit on generous terms. As commander-in-chief in India in 1903 he was again in conflict with the civil authorities, over control of the army. He scored a victory over the viceroy, Lord Curzon, who resigned. Serving as consul-general in Egypt from 1911 to 1914, Kitchener was virtually the ruler of the country. Disdaining the politicians, he gave his attention to improving the welfare of the peasants. In London during the war crisis of 1914, he was made secretary of state for war with universal approval. After 40 years in the East, he was secretive, domineering, and out of touch with English political life. Using his great prestige, he dictated military policy without consulting his colleagues. Foreseeing a long war, he planned for an army of 70 divisions, thereby making Britain, after his death, for the first and last time the world's leading military power. Three million volunteers joined Kitchener's army. The Indian army, which he reorganized, sent troops to the war fronts, as did the Dominions, which he had advised on military policy. But Allied defeats in 1915 revealed weaknesses of organization. He forfeited the confidence of his colleagues though not of the nation. While he was on a mission to Russia, his ship struck a German mine and he went down with H. M. S. Hampshire on June 5, 1916.
Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Kitchener remained unmarried and had few friends.