Kitchener

Ballard, Brig. - General C. R. Kitchener. First edition. London: Faber & Faber, 1930. Hardback, Good, no dustjacket. Grey cloth, faded and spotted to spine, bumped to corners, with various small marks to surface. Binding strong. Frontispiece b/w photograph. 380pp., maps. Dust-staining to top edge of page block, and a few marks to other edges. Contents clean and bright. Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, (24 June 1850 – 5 June 1916) was a senior British Army officer and colonial administrator. Kitchener came to prominence for his imperial campaigns, his involvement in the Second Boer War, and his central role in the early part of the First World War. Kitchener was credited in 1898 for having won the Battle of Omdurman and securing control of the Sudan, for which he was made Baron Kitchener of Khartoum. As Chief of Staff (1900–1902) in the Second Boer Warhe played a key role in Roberts' conquest of the Boer Republics, then succeeded Roberts as commander-in-chief – by which time Boer forces had taken to guerrilla fighting and British forces imprisoned Boer civilians in concentration camps. His term as Commander-in-Chief (1902–1909) of the Army in India saw him quarrel with another eminent proconsul, the Viceroy Lord Curzon, who eventually resigned. Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General). In 1914, at the start of the First World War, Kitchener became Secretary of State for War, a Cabinet Minister. One of the few to foresee a long war, lasting for at least three years, and also having the authority to act effectively on that perception, he organised the largest volunteer army that Britain had seen, and oversaw a significant expansion of materiel production to fight on the Western Front.…