{"id":57285,"date":"2016-06-05T09:47:50","date_gmt":"2016-06-05T14:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=57285"},"modified":"2016-06-05T09:47:50","modified_gmt":"2016-06-05T14:47:50","slug":"the-rock-amidst-the-raging-tempest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=57285","title":{"rendered":"The Rock Amidst the Raging Tempest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite rough seas, the HMS Hampshire<\/em> was making good time on June 5th, 1916. \u00a0Having left the main British naval base in Scapa Flow, Scotland, the cruiser was easily outrunning its destroyer escort.<\/p>\n

With the wound of Jutland<\/a> fresh in the minds of the admiralty, the HMS Hampshire<\/em> had been assigned a circuitous route through the Orkney Islands to avoid German U-boats and yet another British naval casualty. \u00a0Besides, the HMS Hampshire<\/em> was carrying precious cargo – the Secretary of State for War, Lord Herbert Horatio Kitchener. \u00a0The man whose image had called millions of Britons to service in the Great War, had seen his political star dim by 1916, as his support of tertiary British fronts<\/a> and efforts just short of conscription<\/a> hadn’t produced his promised results. \u00a0Still, Kitchener maintained some of his pre-war aura as the heroic pragmatist with a golden touch. \u00a0His dire warnings on British manpower – that the war would be won by the nation capable of finding the “last million men”<\/a> – had echoed in the halls of power only months earlier.<\/p>\n

Kitchener’s mission aboard the HMS Hampshire<\/em> had him en route to the Russian port of\u00a0Arkhangelsk, where the Secretary was charged with negotiating yet another agreement for supplies with the Tsar’s failing government. \u00a0He would never arrive.<\/p>\n

At 7pm, an explosion tore through the hull of the HMS Hampshire<\/em> – the victim of a U-boat placed mine. \u00a0The ship starting listing immediately, on it’s way to sinking within 15 minutes. \u00a0As sailors scrambled towards the few lifeboats that were being lowered, a figure caught their eye. \u00a0Standing calmly on the starboard side of the vessel, casually chatting with fellow officers was the War Secretary himself. \u00a0It would be the last time anyone would see Lord Kitchener again.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

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Kitchener the Recruiter – the War Secretary’s call to patriotism swelled the ranks of Britain’s armies (at first)<\/p><\/div>\n

“We hoped against hope, but no doubt now remains. A great figure gone. The services which he rendered in the early days of the war cannot be forgotten…He made many mistakes. He was not a good Cabinet man. His methods did not suit a democracy. But there he was, towering above the others in character as in inches, by far the most popular man in the country to the end, and a firm rock which stood out amidst the raging tempest.”<\/p>\n

–Journalist\u00a0Charles Repington upon Kitchener’s passing<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

With the passage of 100 years, the reputation and impact of Herbert Horatio Kitchener is difficult to relay without invoking the comparison to another titan of war-time Britain just a conflict later – Winston Churchill. \u00a0Like Churchill in World War II, Kitchener was an aging war hero; a walking anachronism that nevertheless personified the English ethos of their eras and inspired a generation’s trust and admiration. \u00a0Unlike Churchill, Kitchener would never live to see his legacy repaired by victory. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Kitchener’s hard visage and personality had been born of a childhood of psychological and physical abuse. \u00a0His father,\u00a0Lt. Col. Henry Horatio Kitchener, had attempted to mold his son by subjecting him to a life of near-constant hardship. \u00a0Eschewing blankets, Henry Kitchener forced his son to sleep on the floor under newspapers despite having a sizable pension from the Royal Army. \u00a0Once, upon talking back to his father, young Herbert was staking to the ground overnight with croquet hoops. \u00a0Shuffled off to military school, Kitchener was only allowed to return home years later when a life-threatening battle with pneumonia forced him to take leave from the Royal Military Academy.<\/p>\n

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Kitchener in Egypt (center-right) – he would make his name fighting across the Empire, in Sudan, South Africa, and as the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army<\/p><\/div>\n

Instead of rebelling against his father’s autocratic ways, Kitchener seemingly embraced them in adulthood, providing for a curious juxtaposition of attitudes towards authority. \u00a0An army man through and through, Kitchener demanded total obedience from his juniors while displaying an arrogant, if not completely dismissive persona, towards his civilian superiors.<\/p>\n

He would earn his fame in service in Egypt and South Africa at the turn of the century. \u00a0Fighting Sudanese rebels, while simultaneously wooing the press, Kitchener would become Baron (on way to Lord) Kitchener and the Governor-General of Egyptian Sudan. \u00a0To the media, this striking, 6’2″ officer with the graying hair and sun-bleached mustache (he would later color it black to hide his advancing years), epitomized the British colonial ideal. \u00a0The man now known as “Kitchener of Khartoum” was more than just a military hero, \u00a0he was a corporate spokesman –\u00a0his image was emblazoned on biscuit tins, buttons and postcards across the Empire.<\/p>\n

The Second Boer War would only enhance Kitchener’s reputation. \u00a0Assigned as the conflict’s Chief of Staff, Kitchener implemented a brutal campaign against the Boers, creating the first concentration camps for Boer civilians (the name had a very different meaning in 1900). \u00a0The Army’s total mismanagement of the camps led to nearly 28,000 deaths, provoking an uproar of condemnation from liberal MP’s like David Lloyd George. \u00a0But Kitchener’s controversial tactics were nevertheless credited with bringing the war to a swift end in 1902.<\/p>\n

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The war hero returns – Kitchener’s return from South Africa had him celebrated as a national figure<\/p><\/div>\n

If the war had shown Kitchener’s appetite for bloodshed, peace showed his political skills. \u00a0Despite earning the hatred of almost all Boers, Kitchener proved himself their biggest defender in negotiations. \u00a0While South Africa’s Governor-General and the rest of London wanted a humiliating treaty that would break the political backbone of the Boers, Kitchener fought for generous terms, including a future promise of self-governance. \u00a0He had done the same in Sudan after a bloody campaign, having the government officially recognize Muslim holidays and forbidding evangelical Christian missionaries from trying to convert the locals. \u00a0Kitchener had little trouble reconciling such dichotomies. \u00a0War required hard men willing to butcher their opponents quickly and often without mercy. \u00a0Peace required merciful men willing to stand up to the butchers. \u00a0In an era where generals thought themselves politicians without success, and vice versa, Kitchener was perhaps the only figure who could perform both roles with skill.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

There had been few other men considered for the post of Secretary of State for War when Britain entered the fight on August 4th, 1914. \u00a0The Times of London<\/em> spoke for most Britons as they expressed their “profound satisfaction and relief” with Kitchener’s appointment.<\/p>\n

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The War Secretary – Ktichener leaves his first War Cabinet meeting<\/p><\/div>\n

If Kitchener’s War Cabinet colleagues shared such a reaction, it was short-lived. \u00a0Whereas most of Europe had cheered the various declarations of war<\/a>, confidentially predicting a brief, sharp conflict that would settle the question of European dominance for the next 100 years, Kitchener was definitely among the minority. \u00a0Kitchener foresaw a war that would last at least three years and contain untold carnage. \u00a0It was a war Kitchener believed Britain was completely unprepared to fight. \u00a0A sea-going nation with no history of the sort of conscripted masses<\/a> required for industrialized warfare, Kitchener knew Britain would be forced to adopt practices totally without precedent in British history in order to win.<\/p>\n

Kitchener would proceed to alienate the nation’s generals as much as it’s politicians. \u00a0His “New Army” of volunteers, derisively called “Kitchener’s Mob”<\/a> by his military critics, antagonized the British military elite who disliked leading men who hadn’t been sharpened by the British professional elite through years of training. \u00a0Kitchener only made his relationship with the military more difficult with his penchant for wearing his Field Marshal uniform as a member of the Cabinet – a not-so-subtle implication that Kitchener was their superior, despite no longer holding a command. \u00a0Mostly, Kitchener fought over the strategic considerations of the British Expeditionary Force. \u00a0While many elements of London wanted to fight while there was still a war to conduct, Kitchener wanted to conserve Britain’s limited forces for the long, bloody war ahead.<\/p>\n

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Kitchener the Spokesman – he was a celebrity endorser for decades before the Great War<\/p><\/div>\n

—<\/p>\n

By the start of 1915, Kitchener’s accuracy in his assessment of the war had made him nearly prophetic in the eyes of many politicians. \u00a0Thus when Kitchener told the War Cabinet that the trench system had made the Western Front impenetrable, the British search for secondary fronts consumed the nation’s military planners.<\/p>\n

Such endeavors would be the beginning of his undoing. \u00a0Kitchener hadn’t fully supported the Gallipoli campaign<\/a>, preferring instead to strike the Ottomans at\u00a0Alexandretta (now, Iskenderun just north of modern Syria in Turkey) in the hopes of cutting the Turks off from their Arabian possessions to the south. \u00a0But Kitchener did fully back the Mesopotamian campaign<\/a>, and both battles did little but drain the limited manpower of the Crown and Empire.<\/p>\n

The War Secretary’s managerial skills also left much to be desired. \u00a0In fits and starts, Kitchener would devise a new plan of action, but often once confronted with hurdles (usually of the political variety), Kitchener would withdraw his objections if he couldn’t dictatorially circumvent those who opposed him. \u00a0Kitchener had resisted sending his “New Armies” into France out of concern of repelling a German invasion, much to the frustration of Britain’s French ally. \u00a0Forced by political reality to concede the reallocation of his armies, Kitchener sulked. \u00a0David Lloyd George, after witnessing Kitchener up close for many months in the War Cabinet, remarked that Kitchener was\u00a0\u201cone of those revolving lighthouses which radiates momentary gleams of revealing light far out into the surrounding gloom and then suddenly relapses into complete darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n

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David Lloyd George (left) and Prime Minister H.H. Asquith (right-both with top hats). \u00a0Both saw Kitchener as a hurdle to be overcome in order to win the war<\/p><\/div>\n

—<\/p>\n

Doubts had crept into the minds of all the Great War’s political and military leaders following years of bloodletting without progress. \u00a0Figures great and small had seen their stature tarnished by the conflict, and Kitchener was no exception. \u00a0\u201cIf not a great man, he was, at least, a great poster,\u201d H.H. Asquith’s wife Margot sneered about Kitchener, mocking his famous war-recruitment posters that had once adorned every corner of the nation.<\/p>\n

In reality, Kitchener had simply been exhausted by the job. \u00a0The scale of the war effort required trusting subordinates and farming out assignments, and whether by design or temperament, Kitchener couldn’t relinquish control. \u00a0The result had been a War Cabinet divided in focus, prone to flights of strategic fancy where any diversionary assault or tertiary front could be approved with limited consideration. \u00a0Kitchener’s colleagues were no longer interested in wearing down his resistance to attacks or new ideas (Kitchener was no proponent of the newly created tank) – they simply wanted him gone.<\/p>\n

Removing someone of Kitchener’s stature was easier said than done. \u00a0Some recommended merely reducing his powers, placing the Chief of the Imperial General Staff in the role of War Secretary for the duration of the conflict. \u00a0Others suggested moving Kitchener out of Britain entirely, perhaps as the Viceroy of India. \u00a0Still, Kitchener had influence among the media and rank-and-file Britons. \u00a0When Parliament attempted to reduce his salary by 100 pounds (an economic rebuke for his handling of the war), Kitchener arrived for his hearing in his dress navy blue Field Marshal uniform and gave a good show of stoic British imperialism, defending his pay and his conduct as War Secretary. \u00a0The MPs shelved the suggestion.<\/p>\n

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Kitchener boards the HMS Hampshire – his last known photograph<\/p><\/div>\n

Few figures in Britain had the clout – militarily or politically – to remove Kitchener without a public outcry. \u00a0Thus, getting the War Secretary out of the country on various tours of the war fronts and Allied capitals seemed a better tactic. \u00a0Kitchener embraced the opportunity to leave London, even if he probably knew it was intended to circumvent his authority in the War Cabinet.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Only 12 men would survive the sinking of the HMS Hampshire<\/em>. \u00a0Few bodies would be even recovered. \u00a0Kitchener’s was not among them.<\/p>\n

Reactions to the loss varied. \u00a0Officially, the nation went into mourning. \u00a0All army officers were commanded to wear black armbands for the following week. \u00a0Newspapers sold millions of commemorative prints announcing the War Secretary’s death. \u00a0King George V would write in his diary that Kitchener’s death came as “a great loss” for both Britain and the Entente.<\/p>\n

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Death Becomes Him – his passing might have saved his reputation<\/p><\/div>\n

Others were immediately swept up in conspiratorial delusions. \u00a0The sinking had to be the work of German spies. \u00a0Or Irish saboteurs. \u00a0Or maybe Boers still seething over the concentration camps. \u00a0Some even refused to believe that Kitchener had died; rather that the old Lord was probably in Russia, leading the Tsar’s armies while having a good laugh at his reported demise. \u00a0Like so many others famous disappearances, rumors of Kitchener sightings would occasional leek into the press well into the 1920s. \u00a0A hoax involving Kitchener’s supposed remains took Britain by storm in 1926 until authorities discovered the former War Secretary’s supposed coffin was filled with nothing more than tar. \u00a0Rumors surrounding his death forced the government to reopen an investigation as late as the early 1970s – an investigation which reached the same conclusion that the sinking was caused by a German U-boat mine (the investigation could point to evidence of U-boat logs that U-75 had placed the mine). \u00a0Doubts continued nevertheless. \u00a0It didn’t help that some files relating to Kitchener’s death have remained sealed, and will continue to be so, until 2025.<\/p>\n

While the public’s reaction would rival the sort of\u00a0K\u00fcbler-Ross process for the deaths of John F. Kennedy or Princess Diana, left unspoken was an element of relief among Kitchener’s contemporaries. \u00a0As right as Kitchener had been about the start of the Great War, he was equally wrong about how to proceed two years into the fight. \u00a0Victory in the Middle East or Africa would do little to hasten the end of the war. \u00a0Either Germany would be defeated in the West or the Entente would fall, and as long as Kitchener stood as a critic of offensive actions on the Western Front, renewed fighting would remain politically problematic.<\/p>\n

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Kitchener’s memorial in St. Paul’s Cathedral<\/p><\/div>\n

In the moment of grief and public shock, few publications or individuals had the stomach to second the Manchester Guardian<\/em>‘s perhaps accurate commentary that\u00a0“as for the old man, he could not have done better than to have gone down, as he was a great impediment lately.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite rough seas, the HMS Hampshire was making good time on June 5th, 1916. \u00a0Having left the main British naval base in Scapa Flow, Scotland, the cruiser was easily outrunning its destroyer escort. With the wound of Jutland fresh in the minds of the admiralty, the HMS Hampshire had been assigned a circuitous route through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,281],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-ringer","category-ww1-fact-and-myth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57285"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59066,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57285\/revisions\/59066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}