Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener

Kitchener on his mother's lap, with his brother and sister

Kitchener was born in Ballylongford near Listowel, County Kerry, in Ireland, son of army officer Henry Horatio Kitchener (1805–1894) and Frances Anne Chevallier (died 1864; daughter of John Chevallier, a clergyman, of Aspall Hall, and his third wife, Elizabeth, née Cole).[3][4]

Both sides of Kitchener's family were from Suffolk, and could trace their descent to the reign of William III; his mother's family was of French Huguenot descent.[5] His father had only recently sold his commission and bought land in Ireland, under the Encumbered Estates Act of 1849 designed to encourage investment into Ireland after the Irish Famine.[6] They then moved to Switzerland, where the young Kitchener was educated at Montreux, then at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.[3][6] Pro-French and eager to see action, he joined a French field ambulance unit in the Franco-Prussian War. His father took him back to Britain after he caught pneumonia while ascending in a balloon to see the French Army of the Loire in action.[6]

Commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 4 January 1871,[7] Kitchener was reprimanded by the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief, as his service in France had violated British neutrality.[6] He served in Palestine, Egypt and Cyprus as a surveyor, learned Arabic, and prepared detailed topographical maps of the areas.[4] His brother, Lt. Gen. Sir Walter Kitchener, had also entered the army and was Governor of Bermuda from 1908 to 1912.[8]

In 1874, aged 24, Kitchener was assigned by the Palestine Exploration Fund to a mapping-survey of the Holy Land, replacing Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, who had died of malaria.[9] By then an officer in the Royal Engineers, Kitchener joined fellow officer Claude R. Conder; between 1874 and 1877 they surveyed Palestine, returning to England only briefly in 1875 after an attack by locals at Safed, in Galilee.[9]

Conder and Kitchener's expedition became known as the Survey of Western Palestine because it was largely confined to the area west of the Jordan River. The survey collected data on the topography and toponymy of the area, as well as local flora and fauna.[3] [10]

The results of the survey were published in an eight-volume series, with Kitchener's contribution in the first three tomes (Conder and Kitchener 1881–1885). This survey has had a lasting effect on the Middle East for several reasons:

• It serves as the basis for the grid system used in the modern maps of Israel and Palestine;
• The data compiled by Conder and Kitchener are still consulted by archaeologists and geographers working in the southern Levant;
• The survey itself effectively delineated and defined the political borders of the southern Levant. For example, the modern border between Israel and Lebanon is established at the point in upper Galilee where Conder and Kitchener's survey stopped.[9]

In 1878, having completed the survey of western Palestine, Kitchener was sent to Cyprus to undertake a survey of that newly acquired British protectorate.[6] He became vice-consul in Anatolia in 1879.[3][11]

On 4 January 1883 Kitchener was promoted to captain,[3][12] given the Turkish rank binbasi (major), and dispatched to Egypt, where he took part in the reconstruction of the Egyptian Army.[6]

Egypt had recently become a British puppet state, its army led by British officers, although still nominally under the sovereignty of the Khedive (Egyptian viceroy) and his nominal overlord the (Ottoman) Sultan of Turkey. Kitchener became second-in-command of an Egyptian cavalry regiment in February 1883, and then took part in the failed Nile Expedition to relieve Charles George Gordon in the Sudan in late 1884.[6][13]

Fluent in Arabic, Kitchener preferred the company of the Egyptians over the British, and the company of no-one over the Egyptians, writing in 1884 that: "I have become such a solitary bird that I often think I were happier alone".[14] Kitchener spoke Arabic so well that he was able to effortlessly adopt the dialects of the different Bedouin tribes of Egypt and the Sudan.[15]

Promoted to brevet major on 8 October 1884[16] and to brevet lieutenant-colonel on 15 June 1885,[3][17] he became the British member of the Zanzibar boundary commission in July 1885.[3][18] He became Governor of the Egyptian Provinces of Eastern Sudan and Red Sea Littoral (which in practice consisted of little more than the Port of Suakin) in September 1886, also Pasha the same year,[3] and led his forces in action against the followers of the Mahdi at Handub in January 1888, when he was injured in the jaw.[3][19]

Kitchener was promoted to brevet colonel on 11 April 1888[3][20] and to the substantive rank of major on 20 July 1889[21] and led the Egyptian cavalry at the Battle of Toski in August 1889.[3] At the beginning of 1890 he was appointed Inspector General of the Egyptian police 1888–92[3][22] before moving to the position of Adjutant-General of the Egyptian Army in December of the same year and Sirdar (Commander-in-Chief) of the Egyptian Army with the local rank of brigadier in April 1892.[3][19]

Kitchener was worried that, although his moustache was bleached white by the sun, his blond hair refused to turn grey, making it harder for Egyptians to take him seriously. His appearance added to his mystique: his long legs made him appear taller, whilst a cast in his eye made people feel he was looking right through them.[23] Kitchener, at 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m), towered over most of his contemporaries.[24]

Sir Evelyn Baring, the de facto British ruler of Egypt, thought Kitchener "the most able (soldier) I have come across in my time".[25] In 1890, a War Office evaluation of Kitchener concluded: "A good brigadier, very ambitious, not popular, but has of late greatly improved in tact and manner ... a fine gallant soldier and good linguist and very successful in dealing with Orientals" [in the 19th century, Europeans called the Middle East the Orient].[26]

While in Egypt, Kitchener was initiated into Freemasonry in 1883 in the Italian-speaking La Concordia Lodge No. 1226, which met in Cairo.[27] In November 1899 he was appointed the first District Grand Master of the District Grand Lodge of Egypt and the Sudan, under the United Grand Lodge of England.[28][29]

Kitchener, Commander of the Egyptian Army (centre right), 1898

In 1896, the British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, was concerned with keeping France out of the Horn of Africa. A French expedition under the command of Jean-Baptiste Marchand had left Dakar in March 1896 with the aim of conquering the Sudan, seizing control of the Nile as it flowed into Egypt, and forcing the British out of Egypt; thus restoring Egypt to the place within the French sphere of influence that it had had prior to 1882. Salisbury feared that if the British did not conquer the Sudan, the French would.[30] He had supported Italy's ambitions to conquer Ethiopia in the hope that the Italians would keep the French out of Ethiopia. The Italian attempt to conquer Ethiopia, however, was going very badly by early 1896, and ended with the Italians being annihilated at the Battle of Adowa in March 1896. In March 1896, with the Italians visibly failing and the Mahdiyah state threatening to conquer Eritrea, Salisbury ordered Kitchener to invade northern Sudan, ostensibly for the purpose of distracting the Ansar (whom the British called "Dervishes") from attacking the Italians.[31]

Kitchener won victories at the Battle of Ferkeh in June 1896 and the Battle of Hafir in September 1896, earning him national fame in the United Kingdom and promotion to major-general on 25 September 1896.[3][32] Kitchener's cold personality and his tendency to drive his men hard made him widely disliked by his fellow officers. One officer wrote about Kitchener in September 1896: "He was always inclined to bully his own entourage, as some men are rude to their wives. He was inclined to let off his spleen on those around him. He was often morose and silent for hours together ... he was even morbidly afraid of showing any feeling or enthusiasm, and he preferred to be misunderstood rather than be suspected of human feeling." Kitchener had served on the Wolseley expedition to rescue General Gordon at Khartoum, and was convinced that the expedition failed because Wolseley had used boats coming up the Nile to bring his supplies.[33] Kitchener wanted to build a railroad to supply the Anglo-Egyptian army, and assigned the task of constructing the Sudan Military Railroad to a Canadian railroad builder, Percy Girouard, for whom he had specifically asked.[34]

Kitchener achieved further successes at the Battle of Atbara in April 1898, and then the Battle of Omdurman in September 1898.[3][19] After marching to the walls of Khartoum, he placed his army into a crescent shape with the Nile to the rear, together with the gunboats in support. This enabled him to bring overwhelming firepower against any attack of the Ansar from any direction, though with the disadvantage of having his men spread out thinly, with hardly any forces in reserve. Such an arrangement could have proven disastrous if the Ansar had broken through the thin khaki line.[35] At about 5 a.m. on 2 September 1898, a huge force of Ansar, under the command of the Khalifa himself, came out of the fort at Omdurman, marching under their black banners inscribed with Koranic quotations in Arabic; this led Bennet Burleigh, the Sudan correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, to write: "It was not alone the reverberation of the tread of horses and men's feet I heard and seemed to feel as well as hear, but a voiced continuous shouting and chanting-the Dervish invocation and battle challenge "Allah e Allah Rasool Allah el Mahdi!" they reiterated in vociferous rising measure, as they swept over the intervening ground".[36] Kitchener had the ground carefully studied so that his officers would know the best angle of fire, and had his army open fire on the Ansar first with artillery, then machine guns and finally rifles as the enemy advanced.[37] A young Winston Churchill, serving as an army officer, wrote of what he saw: "A ragged line of men were coming on desperately, struggling forward in the face of the pitiless fire – black banners tossing and collapsing; white figures subsiding in dozens to the ground ... valiant men were struggling on through a hell of whistling metal, exploding shells, and spurting dust – suffering, despairing, dying". By about 8:30 am, much of the Dervish army was dead; Kitchener ordered his men to advance, fearing that the Khalifa might escape with what was left of his army to the fort of Omdurman, forcing Kitchener to lay siege to it.[38]

Viewing the battlefield from horseback on the hill at Jebel Surgham, Kitchener commented: "Well, we have given them a damn good dusting".[38] As the British and Egyptians advanced in columns, the Khalifa attempted to outflank and encircle the columns; this led to desperate hand-to-hand fighting. Churchill wrote of his own experience as the 21st Lancers cut their way through the Ansar: "The collision was prodigious and for perhaps ten wonderful seconds, no man heeded his enemy. Terrified horses wedged in the crowd, bruised and shaken men, sprawling in heaps, struggle dazed and stupid, to their feet, panted and looked about them". The Lancers' onslaught carried them through the 12-men-deep Ansar line with the Lancers losing 71 dead and wounded while killing hundreds of the enemy. Following the annihilation of his army, the Khalifa ordered a retreat and early in the afternoon, Kitchener rode in triumph into Omdurman and immediately ordered that the thousands of Christians enslaved by the Ansar were now all free people. Kitchener lost fewer than 500 men while killing about 11,000 and wounding 17,000 of the Ansar. Burleigh summed the general mood of the British troops: "At Last! Gordon has been avenged and justified. The dervishes have been overwhelming routed, Mahdism has been "smashed", while the Khalifa's capital of Omdurman has been stripped of its barbaric halo of sanctity and invulnerability.[39] Kitchener promptly had the Mahdi's tomb blown up to prevent it from becoming a rallying point for his supporters, and had his bones scattered. Queen Victoria, who had wept when she heard of General Gordon's death, now wept for the man who had vanquished Gordon, asking whether it had been really necessary for Kitchener to desecrate the Mahdi's tomb.[40]The body of the Mahdi was disinterred and beheaded.[41] This symbolic decapitation echoed General Gordon's death at the hands of the Mahdist forces in 1885. The headless body of the Mahdi was thrown into the Nile.[42][43] Kitchener kept the Mahdī's skull and it was rumoured that he intended to use it as a drinking cup or ink well.[44] In a letter to his mother, Churchill wrote that the victory at Omdurman had been "disgraced by the inhuman slaughter of the wounded and ... Kitchener is responsible for this".[45] There is no evidence that Kitchener ordered his men to shoot the wounded Ansar on the field of Omdurman, but he did give before the battle what the British journalist Mark Urban called a "mixed message", saying that mercy should be given, while at the same time saying "Remember Gordon" and that the enemy were all "murderers" of Gordon.[30] The victory at Omdurman made Kitchener into a popular war hero, and gave him a reputation for efficiency and as a man who got things done. The journalist G. W. Steevens wrote in the Daily Mail that "He [Kitchener] is more like a machine than a man. You feel that he ought to be patented and shown with pride at the Paris International Exhibition. British Empire: Exhibit No. 1 hors concours, the Sudan Machine". The shooting of the wounded at Omdurman, along with the desecration of the Mahdi's tomb, gave Kitchener a reputation for brutality that was to dog him for the rest of his life, and posthumously.[40]

After Omdurman, Kitchener opened a special sealed letter from Salisbury that told him that Salisbury's real reason for ordering the conquest of the Sudan was to prevent France from moving into the Sudan, and that the talk of "avenging Gordon" had been just a pretext. Salisbury's letter ordered Kitchener to head south as soon as possible to evict Marchand before he got a chance to become well-established on the Nile. On 18 September 1898, Kitchener arrived at the French fort at Fashoda (present day Kodok, on the west bank of the Nile north of Malakal) and informed Marchand that he and his men had to leave the Sudan at once, a request Merchand refused, leading to a tense stand-off as French and British soldiers aimed their weapons at each other.[30] During what became known as the Fashoda Incident, Britain and France almost went to war with each other.[46] The Fashoda incident caused much jingoism and chauvinism on both sides of the English Channel; however, at Fashoda itself, despite the stand-off with the French, Kitchener established cordial relations with Marchand. They agreed that the tricolor would fly equally with the Union Jack and the Egyptian flag over the disputed fort at Fashoda.[46] Kitchener was a Francophile who spoke fluent French, and despite his reputation for brusque rudeness was very diplomatic and tactful in his talks with Marchand; for example, congratulating him on his achievement in crossing the Sahara in an epic trek from Dakar to the Nile.[47] In November 1898, the crisis ended when the French agreed to withdraw from the Sudan.[40] Several factors persuaded the French to back down. These included British naval superiority; the prospect of an Anglo-French war leading to the British gobbling up the entire French colonial empire after the defeat of the French Navy; the pointed statement from the Russian Emperor Nicholas II that the Franco-Russian alliance applied only to Europe, and that Russia would not go to war against Britain for the sake of an obscure fort in the Sudan in which no Russian interests were involved; and the possibility that Germany might take advantage of an Anglo-French war to strike France.[48]

Kitchener became Governor-General of the Sudan in September 1898, and began a programme of restoring good governance. The programme had a strong foundation, based on education at Gordon Memorial College as its centrepiece – and not simply for the children of the local elites, for children from anywhere could apply to study. He ordered the mosques of Khartoum rebuilt, instituted reforms which recognised Friday – the Muslim holy day – as the official day of rest, and guaranteed freedom of religion to all citizens of the Sudan. He attempted to prevent evangelical Christian missionaries from trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.[49]

At this stage of his career Kitchener was keen to exploit the press, cultivating G. W. Steevens of the Daily Mail who wrote a book With Kitchener to Khartum. Later, as his legend had grown, he was able to be rude to the press, on one occasion in the Second Boer War bellowing: "Get out of my way, you drunken swabs".[23] He was created Baron Kitchener, of Khartoum and of Aspall in the County of Suffolk, on 31 October 1898.[50]

Duffus Bros, platinum print/NPG P403. Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, 1901

During the Second Boer War, Kitchener arrived in South Africa with Field Marshal Lord Roberts on the RMS Dunottar Castle along with massive British reinforcements in December 1899.[19] Officially holding the title of chief of staff,[51] he was in practice a second-in-command and was present at the relief of Kimberley before leading an unsuccessful frontal assault at the Battle of Paardeberg in February 1900.[19] Kitchener was mentioned in despatches from Roberts several times during the early part of the war; in a despatch from March 1900 Roberts wrote how he was "greatly indebted to him for his counsel and cordial support on all occasions".[52]

Following the defeat of the conventional Boer forces, Kitchener succeeded Roberts as overall commander in November 1900.[53] He was also promoted to lieutenant-general on 29 November 1900[3][54] and to local general on 12 December 1900.[53] He subsequently inherited and expanded the successful strategies devised by Roberts to force the Boer commandos to submit, including concentration camps and the burning of farms.[19] Conditions in the concentration camps, which had been conceived by Roberts as a form of control of the families whose farms he had destroyed, began to degenerate rapidly as the large influx of Boers outstripped the ability of the minuscule British force to cope. The camps lacked space, food, sanitation, medicine, and medical care, leading to rampant disease and a very high death rate for those Boers who entered. Eventually 26,370 women and children (81% were children) died in the concentration camps.[55] The biggest critic of the camps was the English humanitarian and welfare worker Emily Hobhouse.[56] She published a prominent report that highlighted atrocities committed by Kitchener's soldiers and administration, creating considerable debate in London about the war.[57] Kitchener blocked Hobhouse from returning to South Africa by invoking martial law provisions.[57]

Historian Caroline Elkins characterized Kitchener's conduct of the war as a "scorched earth policy", as his forces razed homesteads, poisoned wells and implemented concentration camps, as well as turned women and children into targets in the war.[57]

The Treaty of Vereeniging, ending the War, was signed in May 1902 following a tense six months. During this period Kitchener struggled against Sir Alfred Milner, the Governor of the Cape Colony, and the British government. Milner was a hard-line conservative and wanted forcibly to Anglicise the Afrikaans people (the Boers), and Milner and the British government wanted to assert victory by forcing the Boers to sign a humiliating peace treaty; Kitchener wanted a more generous compromise peace treaty that would recognize certain rights for the Afrikaners and promise future self-government. He even entertained a peace treaty proposed by Louis Botha and the other Boer leaders, although he knew the British government would reject the offer; this would have maintained the sovereignty of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State while requiring them to sign a perpetual treaty of alliance with the UK and grant major concessions to the British, such as equal rights for English with Dutch in their countries, voting rights for Uitlanders, and a customs and railway union with the Cape Colony and Natal.[58] During Kitchener's posting in South Africa, Kitchener became acting High Commissioner of South Africa, and administrator of Transvaal and Orange River Colony in 1901.[3]

Kitchener, who had been promoted to the substantive rank of general on 1 June 1902,[3][59] was hosted to a farewell reception at Cape Town on 23 June, and left for the United Kingdom in the SS Orotava on the same day.[60] He received an enthusiastic welcome on his arrival the following month. Landing in Southampton on 12 July, he was greeted by the corporation, who presented him with the Freedom of the borough. In London, he was met at the train station by The Prince of Wales, drove in a procession through streets lined by military personnel from 70 different units and watched by thousands of people, and received a formal welcome at St James's Palace. He also visited King Edward VII, who was confined to his room recovering from his recent operation for appendicitis, but wanted to meet the general on his arrival and to personally bestow on him the insignia of the Order of Merit (OM).[61] Kitchener was created Viscount Kitchener, of Khartoum and of the Vaal in the Colony of Transvaal and of Aspall in the County of Suffolk, on 28 July 1902.[3][62]

Broome Park, Kitchener's country house in Canterbury, Kent

In late 1902 Kitchener was appointed Commander-in-Chief, India,[65] and arrived there to take up the position in November, in time to be in charge during the January 1903 Delhi Durbar. He immediately began the task of reorganising the Indian Army. Kitchener's plan "The Reorganisation and Redistribution of the Army in India" recommended preparing the Indian Army for any potential war by reducing the size of fixed garrisons and reorganising it into two armies, to be commanded by Generals Sir Bindon Blood and George Luck.[66]

While many of the Kitchener Reforms were supported by the Viceroy, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, who had originally lobbied for Kitchener's appointment, the two men eventually came into conflict. Curzon wrote to Kitchener advising him that signing himself "Kitchener of Khartoum" took up too much time and space – Kitchener commented on the pettiness of this (Curzon simply signed himself "Curzon" as a hereditary peer, although he later took to signing himself "Curzon of Kedleston").[67] They also clashed over the question of military administration, as Kitchener objected to the system whereby transport and logistics were controlled by a "Military Member" of the Viceroy's Council. After what Curzon's most recent biographer described as "prolonged intrigue" and "deceitful methods", including correspondence which Kitchener asked the recipients to destroy after reading, the Commander-in-Chief won the crucial support of the government in London, and the Viceroy had no option but to resign.[68] [69]

A portrait of Field Marshal Kitchener in full dress uniform taken shortly after being promoted to the rank

Later events proved Curzon was right in opposing Kitchener's attempts to concentrate all military decision-making power in his own office. Although the offices of Commander-in-Chief and Military Member were now held by a single individual, senior officers could approach only the Commander-in-Chief directly. In order to deal with the Military Member, a request had to be made through the Army Secretary, who reported to the Indian Government and had right of access to the Viceroy. There were even instances when the two separate bureaucracies produced different answers to a problem, with the Commander-in-Chief disagreeing with himself as Military Member. This became known as "the canonisation of duality". Kitchener's successor, General Sir O'Moore Creagh, was nicknamed "no More K", and concentrated on establishing good relations with the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge.[70]

Kitchener presided over the Rawalpindi Parade in 1905 to honour the Prince and Princess of Wales's visit to India.[71] That same year Kitchener founded the Indian Staff College at Quetta (now the Pakistan Command and Staff College), where his portrait still hangs.[72] His term of office as Commander-in-Chief, India, was extended by two years in 1907.[68]

Kitchener on horseback in The Queenslander Pictorial in 1910

Kitchener was promoted to the highest Army rank, Field Marshal, on 10 September 1909 and went on a tour of Australia and New Zealand.[68] He aspired to be Viceroy of India, but the Secretary of State for India, John Morley, was not keen and hoped to send him instead to Malta as Commander-in-Chief of British forces in the Mediterranean, even to the point of announcing the appointment in the newspapers. Kitchener pushed hard for the Viceroyalty, returning to London to lobby Cabinet ministers and the dying King Edward VII, from whom, whilst collecting his field marshal's baton, Kitchener obtained permission to refuse the Malta job. However, Morley could not be moved. This was perhaps in part because Kitchener was thought to be a Tory (the Liberals were in office at the time); perhaps due to a Curzon-inspired whispering campaign; but most importantly because Morley, who was a Gladstonian and thus suspicious of imperialism, felt it inappropriate, after the recent grant of limited self-government under the 1909 Indian Councils Act, for a serving soldier to be Viceroy (in the event, no serving soldier was appointed Viceroy until Lord Wavell in 1943, during the Second World War). The prime minister, H. H. Asquith, was sympathetic to Kitchener but was unwilling to overrule Morley, who threatened resignation, so Kitchener was finally turned down for the post of Viceroy of India in 1911.[73]

From 22 to 24 June 1911, Kitchener took part in the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary. Kitchener assumed the role of Captain of the Escort, responsible for the personal protection of the royals during the coronation. In this capacity, Kitchener was also the Field Marshal, In Command of the Troops, and assumed command of the 55,000 British and imperial soldiers present in London. During the Coronation ceremony itself, Kitchener acted as Third Sword, one of the four swords tasked with guarding the monarch.[74] Later, in November 1911, Kitchener hosted the King and Queen in Port Said, Egypt while they were on their way to India for the Delhi Durbar to assume the titles of Emperor and Empress of India.[75]

In June 1911 Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General in Egypt during the formal reign of Abbas Hilmi II as Khedive.[73]

At the time of the Agadir Crisis (summer 1911), Kitchener told the Committee of Imperial Defence that he expected the Germans to walk through the French "like partridges" and he informed Lord Esher "that if they imagined that he was going to command the Army in France he would see them damned first".[76]

He was created Earl Kitchener, of Khartoum and of Broome in the County of Kent, on 29 June 1914.[73]

During this period he became a proponent of Scouting and coined the phrase "once a Scout, always a Scout".[77]

Kitchener is officially remembered in a chapel on the northwest corner of St Paul's Cathedral in London, near the main entrance, where a memorial service was held in his honour.[137]

In Canada, the city of Berlin, Ontario, named in respect to a large German immigrant settler population, was renamed Kitchener following a 1916 referendum.[138]

Since 1970, the opening of new records has led historians to rehabilitate Kitchener's reputation to some extent. Robin Neillands, for instance, notes that Kitchener consistently rose in ability as he was promoted.[139] Some historians now praise his strategic vision in the First World War, especially his laying the groundwork for the expansion of munitions production and his central role in the raising of the British army in 1914 and 1915, providing a force capable of meeting Britain's continental commitment.[4]

His commanding image, appearing on recruiting posters demanding "Your country needs you!", remains recognised and parodied in popular culture.[140] In the 1972 movie Young Winston, Kitchener is portrayed by John Mills.[141] In the 2021 movie The King's Man, Kitchener is portrayed by Charles Dance.[142]

Kitchener Memorial at Marwick Head on Mainland, Orkney

Kitchener Memorial on Horseguards Parade

• As a British soldier who was lost at sea in the First World War and has no known grave, Kitchener is commemorated on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Hollybrook Memorial at Hollybrook Cemetery, located at Southampton, Hampshire.[143]
• Blue plaques have been erected to mark where Kitchener lived in Carlton Gardens, Westminster[144] and at Broome Park near Canterbury.[145]
• The NW chapel of All Souls at St Paul's Cathedral, London, not normally open to visitors, was rededicated the Kitchener Memorial in 1925.[137] The memorial is however clearly visible from the main entrance lobby. The recumbent white marble figure was designed by Detmar Blow.[146] The figure, plus the statues of Saint George and Saint Michael and the Pieta in the chapel were sculpted by William Reid Dick.[147]
• A month after his death, the Lord Kitchener National Memorial Fund was set up by the Lord Mayor of London to honour his memory. It was used to aid casualties of the war, both practically and financially; following the war's end, the fund was used to enable university educations for soldiers, ex-soldiers, their sons and their daughters, a function it continues to perform today.[148] A Memorial Book of tributes and remembrances from Kitchener's peers, edited by Sir Hedley Le Bas, was printed to benefit the fund.[149]
• The Lord Kitchener Memorial Homes in Chatham, Kent, were built with funds from public subscription following Kitchener's death. A small terrace of cottages, they are used to provide affordable rented accommodation for servicemen and women who have seen active service or their widows and widowers.[150]
• A statue of Kitchener mounted on a horse is on Khartoum Road (near Fort Amherst) in Chatham, Kent.[151][152]
• The Kitchener Memorial on Mainland, Orkney, is on the cliff edge at Marwick Head (HY2325), near the spot where Kitchener died at sea. It is a square, crenellated stone tower with the inscription: "This tower was raised by the people of Orkney in memory of Field Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum on that corner of his country which he had served so faithfully nearest to the place where he died on duty. He and his staff perished along with the officers and nearly all the men of HMS Hampshire on 5 June 1916."[153][154][155]
• In the early 1920s, a road on a new council estate in the Kates Hill area of Dudley, Worcestershire (now West Midlands) was named Kitchener Road in honour of Kitchener.[156]
• The east window of the chancel at St George's Church, Eastergate, West Sussex has stained glass commemorating Kitchener.[157]
• In December 2013, the Royal Mint announced their plans to mint commemorative two-pound coins in 2014 featuring Kitchener's "Call to Arms" on the reverse.[158]
• A memorial cross for Kitchener was unveiled at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate church in 1916 (near Liverpool Street station), perhaps one of the first memorials of the First World War in England.[159]
• One of the three houses of the Rashtriya Indian Military College, Dehradun, India was named after Kitchener.[160]
• A memorial tree was dedicated to Kitchener a month after his death along the Avenue of Honour in the former town of Eurack, Victoria and remains today whilst the surrounding township no longer exists.[161]
• Half-a-dozen local communities inscribed Kitchener's name on to the memorials they were already building to their own dead, alongside the names of ordinary soldiers and sailors who had answered his 1914 appeal for volunteers and would never return.[121]

Kitchener was a lifelong bachelor. From his time in Egypt in 1892, he gathered around him a cadre of eager young and unmarried officers nicknamed "Kitchener's band of boys",[162] who included his friend Captain Oswald Fitzgerald, his "constant and inseparable companion", whom he appointed his aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria (1888–1896). They remained close until they died together on their voyage to Russia.[163] Rumour occasionally circulated that Kitchener was homosexual, and after his death a number of biographers suggested or hinted that he might have been a latent or active homosexual.[164][lower-alpha 2]

Professor C. Brad Faught, chair of the Department of History at Tyndale University College, discusses Kitchener's sexuality in a 2016 biography. While acknowledging Kitchener's "vestigal femininity" in collecting porcelain and organising dinner parties, plus emotional repression typical of his class and time, Faught concludes that the absolute absence of evidence either way leaves "an issue about which historians can say almost nothing useful".[170] Biographer George H. Cassar argues that Kitchener's letters to his sister include evidence of heterosexual attraction and that if there were any credible evidence that Kitchener was homosexual, it would have been used by his many opponents during his lifetime.[164]

• Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan – a reconquest of territory lost by the Khedives of Egypt in 1884 and 1885 during the Mahdist War
• Frances Parker – niece and a New Zealand-born British suffragette.[200]
• I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet – a clothing boutique which achieved fame in 1960s "Swinging London"
• Kitchener's Army – an all-volunteer army formed in the United Kingdom from 1914
• Kitchener bun – a type of sweet pastry made and sold in South Australia
• Kitchener, Ontario – Canadian city renamed from Berlin after Kitchener's death
• Scapegoats of the Empire – a book by George Witton
• Statue of the Earl Kitchener, London

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Kitchener, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Viscount".

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Lord Kitchener (Chesterton)

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Indian Biographical Dictionary (1915)/Kitchener, Horatio Herbert

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kitchener, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Earl

• Works by or about Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener at Internet Archive
• Works by Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl Kitchener
• Kitchener Scholars' Fund
• The Melik Society
• National Portrait Gallery 112 portraits
• Lord Kitchener: Active Soldier, Active Freemason
• Newspaper clippings about Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
• Peter Simkins. "Kitchener, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Earl". encyclopedia.1914–1918-online.net. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
• "Lord Horatio Kitchener (1850–1916)". BBC.
• "10 Facts about Lord Kitchener". historyhit.com.
• "Horatio Herbert Earl Kitchener of Khartoum". iwm.org.uk.
• "Herbert, 1st Earl Kitchener". westminster-abbey.org.
• "Field Marshal The 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, KG". geni.com. 24 June 1850.