LORD ROBERTS AT ADMIRALTY HOUSE, SIMON'S BAY.]
Not only was Lord Roberts great in war; in the quiet times of peace he strove earnestly for military reform. He especially distinguished himself during his Indian and Irish commands by the emphasis which he placed upon good shooting and the development of the soldier's intelligence. He did not want his men to be the soulless automata of the eighteenth-century barrack square. It is admitted by all, that under him the Indian Army was raised to a pitch of efficiency which it had never possessed before, and which, perhaps, has not marked it since. Some who did not know him may have feared that here was another reputation, won in savage or barbarous warfare, going to be lost in that land where the fair fame of so many had suffered swift eclipse. They may have asked themselves, if he failed with Lord Kitchener, who was left. Yet those who knew him and had served under him felt no such concern. To them his success was certain.
A cavalry trumpeter carries both a bugle for field calls, and a trumpet for the more elaborate camp and barrack calls.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL LORD KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM, G.C.B., K.C.M.G., R.E.
Chief of the Staff to Lord Roberts in South Africa since December 23, 1899. Horatio Herbert Kitchener was born in 1850, the son of the late Lieut.-Colonel H. H. Kitchener. He was educated at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and entered the Royal Engineers in 1871. He was engaged in the Palestine Survey, 1874-8, and the Cyprus Survey, 1878-82. Commanded the Egyptian Cavalry, 1882-4; served in the Sudan Campaign, 1883-5; Governor of Suakin, 1886-8; Colonel, 1888; Adjutant-General of the Egyptian Army, 1888-92; Major-General, 1896; commanded Dongola Expeditionary Force, 1896; and the Khartoum Expedition, 1898, in which campaign he finally overthrew the power of the Khalifa.]
[Sidenote: Dec. 1899.] _Lord Kitchener in Egypt._]
His chief-of-the-staff, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, was in his fiftieth year, but already, as the reconqueror of the Sudan, was by far the most famous and trusted of the younger British generals. His earlier years had passed uneventfully, but with that energy and intense earnestness of purpose which distinguishes the genius from the common-place man, he studied and learnt Arabic, while most of his fellow-officers were amusing themselves. Present at the bombardment of Alexandria, in spite of and not because of orders received, he was employed by Lord Wolseley when that General came to Egypt for the Tel-el-Kebir campaign. Thenceforward, Kitchener belonged to Egypt, and his career is inseparably entwined with Egyptian history. He saw the sad tragedy of the abandonment of the Sudan; he smarted with his countrymen at the bitter shame of the betrayal of Gordon, and took part in the expedition which came too late to save the martyred general. His eyes must have fastened upon that prophetic page in Gordon's journals:--"I like Baker's description of Kitchener. 'The man whom I have always placed my hopes upon, Major Kitchener, R.E., who is one of the few _very superior_ British officers, with a cool and good head, and a hard constitution combined with untiring energy.'"