Horatio Herbert Kitchener (24 June 1850 – 5 June 1916) was British Secretary of State for War from 5 August 1914 to 5 June 1916, succeeding H.H. Asquith and preceding David Lloyd George. Kitchener was well-known for his victories in the Mahdist War and the Second Boer War, using scorched earth tactics and concentration camp internment to defeat the Boers in South Africa and winning the Battle of Omdurman against the Mahdists. During World War I, he organized the largest volunteer army in British history, and he was killed when his ship struck a German mine off Scotland in 1916.
Biography[]
Horatio Herbert Kitchener was born in Ballylongford, County Kerry, Ireland on 24 June 1850, and he was educated in Switzerland and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He served in the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War and joined the British Army's Royal Engineers in 1871. He commanded the Anglo-Egyptian army which conquered the Sudan in 1898, and was, briefly, governor-general there in 1899. He led the British army in the Second Boer War from 1900 to 1902, when hte ruthless efficiency with which he won the war was extended to the treatment of civilians, some of whom he put into concentration camps. From 1902 to 1909, he commanded the British Indian Army. He subsequently served in Egypt, and was appointed Secretary of State for War when World War I broke out. Unlike many of his colleagues, he believed the war would be long, and set about raising a massive volunteer army. He was increasingly blamed for setbaks in the British war effort, such as blunders over the supply of artillery shells, and delays over evacuation of troops from Gallipoli. His authority was eroded by the appointment of William Robertson as the government's senior military adviser in December 1915. He was drowned when his ship on its way to Russia hit a German mine and sank.
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