Accordingly the boy was entered in the Company's own military school, at Addiscombe; and in less than two years had become a second lieutenant in the Bengal Artillery—a military company maintained as part of this huge commercial enterprise.

In 1852, in his twentieth year, he received his first marching orders. They were to report for duty. He set sail by way of Suez, but there was no canal in those days to make possible an all-water journey. Instead, at Alexandria he changed to a small inland steamer going by canal and river to Cairo. Thence a hot dusty trek across the desert was necessary, in order to reach Suez.

Once in Calcutta, the young subaltern lost no time in proving that he was not a mollycoddle. He began by riding every horse in the battery, or "troop," as it was called in those days.

"Thus," he tells us, "I learned to understand the amount of nerve, patience and skill necessary to the making of a good Horse Artillery driver, with the additional advantage that I was brought into constant contact with the men."

Roberts was early learning the secret of more than one great general's success—to know his men. In later life he could call many a man by name, and knew just what each could do. While they responded with a close affection and the nickname by which he will be known to history—"Bobs."

It is said that Napoleon expected his officers to know the names and personal histories of every man in their command. As another result of Roberts' fellowship with the rank and file he became a crack shot and expert horseman. During the fighting in the mutiny of Indian sepoys, he proved himself a good swordsman as well; and even when he became Commander-in-chief, he would ride with a tent-pegging team of his own staff.

It was a long and thorough service that he was destined to receive. He joined the Quartermaster-General's office before the mutiny broke out, and remained in it for more than twenty years. During this period he gradually worked his way up from one post of responsibility to another, doing it so gradually that even he himself hardly noticed the advance. On one occasion, for example, he superintended all the arrangements for embarking the Bengal Division, which sailed from Calcutta to take part in an expedition against Abyssinia.

But how he must have chafed at the long delay in getting into the field. He asked his father more than once to get him transferred to Burma, where war had broken out and there was a chance for active service. The transfer was not granted.

The only thing that came to break up the humdrum of those first years was a cyclone. It was actually welcomed; anything for a change! Roberts gives a detailed account of it in his autobiography. He and a native servant were caught out in the open, when the storm descended with little warning.

"I shouted to him (the servant) as loudly as I could," he relates, "but the uproar was so terrific that he could not hear a word, and there was nothing for it but to try and make my own way home. The darkness was profound. As I was walking carefully along, I suddenly came in contact with an object, which a timely flash of lightning showed me was a column, standing in exactly the opposite direction from my own house. I could now locate myself correctly, and the lightning becoming every moment more vivid, I was enabled to grope my way by slow degrees to the mess, where I expected to find some one to show me my way home; but the servants, who knew from experience the probable effects of a cyclone, had already closed the outside Venetian shutters and barred all the doors. In vain I banged at the door and called at the top of my voice—they heard nothing."

In desperation he had to make his way as best he could back to his own bungalow, about half a mile away, only to find that also barred against him. "I had to continue hammering for a long time before they heard and admitted me, thankful to be comparatively safe inside a house."

Another disappointment to Roberts lay in the fact that he was still away from his father, who seemed destined all his life to remain a stranger to him. The junior officer was stationed at Dum Dum, famous as the birthplace of the soft-nosed bullets, now proscribed in civilized warfare. His father had been appointed to the command of the troops at Peshawar, and now wrote him a welcome note bidding him come to join him.

This was easier said than done, but was finally accomplished after three months of toilsome and dangerous travel. He used every sort of native conveyance—barge, post-chaise, palanquin, pony, and "shank's mares"—but it was interesting and full of novelty to the barracks-bound soldier. He went by way of Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, and Meerut—places destined to win unpleasant fame in the Mutiny.

Peshawar, his destination, proved no less fascinating than the way stations. It commanded the caravan route between India and Afghanistan, and guarded the entrance to Khyber Pass. Lord Dalhousie described it as "the outpost of the Indian Empire"—a very accurate title.

At Peshawar at last Frederick Roberts became acquainted with his father, who proved a good comrade. The junior officer served as aide-de-camp on the general's staff, and went with him on several expeditions, outwardly peaceful, but inwardly full of danger. India then was a seething caldron of trouble.

Nevertheless, this period with his father is described by Frederick Roberts as "one of the brightest and happiest of my early life." Unfortunately the senior officer's health showed signs of breaking—and again father and son had to part. General Roberts resigned his command and returned to England, at the end of the year 1853.

Peshawar was a notoriously unhealthy station, and young Roberts also soon began to feel the effects of the climate. He was still far from robust, and traded continually on his will and nerve. The native fever sapped his energy, and he was sent to recuperate, to Kashmir. He was enthusiastic about the scenery here, and his tramping and shooting trips in the bracing climate soon gave back his strength and vim.

It was about this time that he realized his pet ambition of joining the Horse Artillery. He also set himself with a will to the study of Hindustani, as he realized that his usefulness in the Quartermaster-General's office would be vastly increased if he could deal directly with the natives.

This was a turning point in Roberts' career. It was to be his first stepping stone upward, and it illustrates the point that even though Opportunity may knock at the door—one must be ready for her. That Roberts finally won his larger success was due not so much to his genius as to his industry. Edison says that genius is made up of two per cent inspiration and ninety-eight per cent perspiration.

The great Mutiny, in which Roberts and many another British soldier was to be plunged, had its immediate cause in a strange thing—greased cartridges! How so insignificant a thing could have started so great a trouble is one of the strange, true stories of history. There were, of course, other contributory factors, but this was the match that touched off the magazine.

At this time England employed a great many native troops. To be exact, there were about 257,000; while the British regulars numbered only 36,000. The latter were outnumbered seven to one.

The Ordnance Department adopted a new rifle, the Enfield, at this juncture, and sent a consignment to India. The cartridges for the rifle were greased, for easy loading, and were to be bitten by the soldiers. This last act at once set the sepoy soldiers in an uproar. It was against their religious scruples to touch meat of any kind, and they heard it stated that the objectionable cartridges were greased with pig's and cow's fat.

As soon as the commanding officers saw the trouble, they ordered that the cartridges be withdrawn—but the mischief was done.

The Mutiny which flared up here among the native soldiers spread quickly from city to city. Runners went from camp to camp, urging that they throw off the hated British yoke. In some places no written or verbal message was exchanged. A basket of unleavened cakes was brought in and broken, by way of prearranged signal.

After the first outbreaks, councils of war were hurriedly held on the part of the British officers, and field expeditions organized. One of the officers, Colonel Neville Chamberlain, was assigned to the command of what was called the "Movable Column," or chief army of pursuit.

Roberts was made one of his staff officers—"the most wonderful piece of good fortune that could come to me," he says. Shortly afterward, Chamberlain was made Adjutant General to the Army before Delhi, and then came orders for all the artillery officers to join in this attack. Roberts was to see active service at last.

He found himself under fire at Delhi for the first time on June 30, 1857. While it was only a skirmish it was a lively one while it lasted.

With some 1,100 men and a dozen guns, Major Coke went on an expedition against a troublesome group of rebels, and Roberts accompanied him as a staff officer. When the enemy appeared the only way to reach them in time was by crossing a swamp. Another troop of rebels unexpectedly appeared in force, but were put to rout.

A few days later, a similar skirmish occurred, which for a time looked more serious. Roberts was posted across a road with a squad of men and two guns. The enemy attacked them with a cross-fire. How he and his band escaped is a mystery.

During their enforced retreat, Roberts felt a stinging sensation in his back, but managed to keep going. It was found afterwards that his life had been saved by the slipping of his knapsack down from his shoulders. This had been penetrated by a bullet, which had entered his body close to his spine. Its force had been broken, but the wound was still so severe as to lay him up for several weeks.

The almost superhuman difficulties which lay in the path of this handful of Englishmen scattered throughout India, are summed up in a letter by another officer, Hodson, as follows:

"The whole country is a steaming bog. I keep my health wonderfully, thank God! in spite of heat, hard work and exposure; and the men bear up like Britons. We all feel that the Government ought to allow every officer and man before Delhi to count every month spent here as a year of service in India. There is much that is disappointing and disgusting to a man who feels that more might have been done, but I comfort myself with the thought that history will do justice to the constancy and fortitude of the handful of Englishmen who have for so many weeks—months, I may say—of desperate weather, amid the greatest toil and hardship, resisted and finally defeated the worst and most strenuous exertions of an entire army and a whole nation in arms—an army trained by ourselves, and supplied with all but exhaustless munitions of war, laid up by ourselves for the maintenance of the Empire. I venture to aver that no other nation in the world would have remained here, or have avoided defeat had they attempted to do so."

The story of the rise and fall of the Indian Mutiny is the story of the life of Roberts—in so far as the rise is concerned. His was an inconspicuous but well played part. Acting as staff officer and lieutenant of a gunners' company by turns, he was always in the thick of it. If it were the command of guns at a difficult salient before Delhi, it was "Send Roberts." If it were an urgent message for more ammunition, at Agra, "Send Roberts." If it were an escort for the rescued women and children at the historic relief of Lucknow, "Send Roberts."

This slender, undersized officer, in spite of his physique, seemed indefatigable. He had several narrow escapes from death, in hand-to-hand encounters with sepoys. Once, a mutineer fired point-blank at him at twelve yards away, but for some providential reason Roberts' horse reared just at the moment of firing and received the bullet in his own head.

At another time, a fanatic danced out in front of his horse waving a turban to frighten it, and at the same time whirling a wicked looking scimitar around his head. Roberts drew his pistol but the weapon missed fire. The fanatic sprang forward, and it is probable that the career of a future Field Marshal would have ended then and there, had not a lancer spurred his horse in between and run the fellow down.

On still another occasion, his presence of mind saved the flag from capture and brought him the first of his many honors, the Victoria Cross. An assault had been made on the village of Khudaganj, and the pursuit was being followed up in brave style, when some of the rebels suddenly faced around and took steady aim at those who were charging them. Roberts was of the party and had gone to the rescue of a man who was on the verge of being run through by a bayonet, when he saw two sepoys running off with the Union Jack. He spurred his horse in pursuit, and, leaning over, wrenched the standard out of the hands of one of the men, at the same time sabering him. The other sepoy took advantage of the opportunity to take steady aim at Roberts, point-blank, but the weapon missed fire. Roberts returned with the flag, and for reward of his gallant action was given the V. C., that most coveted of British decorations.

Another officer in writing of the event says: "Roberts is one of those rare men who, to uncommon daring and bravery in the field, and unflinching, hard-working discharge of duty in the camp, adds the charm of cheery and unaffected kindness and hospitality in the tent, and his acquaintance and friendship are high prizes to those who obtain them."

With the end of the Mutiny, Roberts was sent to England on sick leave for a much-needed rest. In April, 1858, exactly six years after his arrival at Calcutta, he turned over his duties of Deputy-Assistant Quartermaster-General to his successor—though much against his will. He felt that again he was in danger of being put upon the shelf, and his intensely active nature longed for still further field service.

In a little over a year, however, he was recalled to India, and there given a unique task. The first Viceroy to India, Canning, determined to impress the natives by a pomp and display dear to their own hearts, and show the majesty of England, by holding a series of Durbars, or triumphal processions. These extended right across India, from city to city, for a thousand miles. To Roberts was assigned the important task of arranging all the details of the tour, and he did it with characteristic thoroughness. It was like moving a mammoth circus, what with elephants, tents, supplies of all kinds, and gorgeous trappings to be handled.

These Durbars lasted for six months, and the Viceroy not only complimented Roberts for his work, but gazetted him for the rank of Brevet Major.

The next few years were much of a piece—a routine of office and field work which, if it brought nothing sensational to the conscientious young officer, still kept his feet in the path of glory. It was not until the year 1875, that he reached the goal for which he had long striven—Quartermaster-General of the Army in India, which carried with it the rank of Major General.

With this title his larger work in India may be said to have fairly begun. For nearly twenty years longer his military career was to be continued there, and in the neighboring country of Afghanistan. It is all recounted in his "Forty-One Years in India"—a recital of constant adventure and interest. For his services, he was made a peer of England, receiving the title of Baron Roberts of Kandahar. An address presented to him by the native and English residents, on his leaving India, is worth repeating.

"The history of the British Empire in India has not, at least in the last thirty years, produced a hero like Your Lordship, whose soldier-like qualities are fully known to the world. The country which has been the cradle of Indian invasions came to realize the extent of your power and recognized your generalship. . . . The occupation of Kabul and the glorious battle of Kandahar are amongst the brightest jewels in the diadem of Your Lordship's Baronage. . . . Terrible in war and merciful in peace, Your Excellency's name has become a dread to the enemies of England and lovely to your friends."

That last phrase, "lovely to your friends," is a true though Oriental summing-up of one great secret of Roberts' renown. He has been called the "best-loved soldier of England." And he possessed in an especial degree the power of attracting and holding the love and respect of the East Indians. They felt that he would always deal fairly by them.

When he went to Mandalay, in 1886, he saw that if he wished to win the confidence of the people of Upper Burmah, he must win over the Buddhist priests. This he did, and even persuaded his Government to pension the three head priests.

"They showed their gratitude," he says, "by doing all they could to help me, and when I was leaving the country, the old Thathana bain accompanied me as far as Rangoon. We corresponded till his death, and I still hear occasionally from one or other of my Phoonghi friends."

As for his own soldiers, they came fairly to worship him. To them he was not a Lord, or General, or Field Marshal, but just "Bobs" and "Our Bobs." Wellington commanded the respect of his men, but Roberts their love.

"Lord Roberts! Well, he's just a father," is the testimony of one gunner in the South African War. "Often goes around hospital in Bloemfontein, and it's 'Well, my lad, how are you today? Anything I can do for you? Anything you want?'—and never forgets to see that the man has what he asks for. Goes to the hospital train—'Are you comfortable? Are you sure you're comfortable?' Then it's 'Buck up! Buck up!' to those who need it. But when he sees a man dying, it's 'Can I pray with you, my lad?' I've seen him many a time praying, with not a dry eye near—tears in his eyes and ours. He is a lord!"

A favorite story about him relates to an audience with Queen Victoria. The famous veteran was then sixty-eight and for several years had been living in retirement. Now his sovereign asked him to buckle on his sword again, and go to retrieve the fallen British fortunes in South Africa.

"You do not think that you are too old for this arduous task?" asked the Queen. "You are not afraid of your health breaking down?"

"I have kept myself fit," replied the old soldier, "for the past twenty years, in the hope that I might command in such a campaign as this."

The remark, "I have kept myself fit," is a keynote of his life. The puny boy of the long ago was to survive this campaign with flying colors, and to lend his counsel in the Great War of our own time. It was a long life and full of service. In an address to a children's school, when a man of eighty, he summed up his creed by saying:

"In the first place, don't be slack in anything that you are doing. Whether it be work or play, do it with all your might. You will find that this great Empire can only be maintained by the exercise of self-denial, by training, by discipline, and by courage."

IMPORTANT DATES IN ROBERTS'S LIFE

1832. September 30. Frederick Roberts born. 1845. Entered Eton School. 1847. Entered military college at Sandhurst. 1852. Went as second-lieutenant of Bengal Artillery to India. 1857. Fought in the Mutiny, and won Victoria Cross. 1858. Returned to England on leave. 1859. Sent back to India, major. 1875. Quartermaster-general of Army of India. 1885. Commander-in-chief in India. 1891. Created a peer. 1895. Created field marshal. 1900. South African campaign. 1901. Commander-in-chief of British army. 1914. November 14. Died in France.



KITCHENER

THE SOLDIER OF DEEDS—NOT WORDS

When Chinese Gordon lost his life in Khartoum, Egypt, in 1884, because the British relief force reached him two days too late, a young officer accompanying the expedition was getting his first glimpse of a land that was destined to make him famous. "Kitchener of Khartoum" was to become as widely known in a later generation as Chinese Gordon was in his own. Each won his spurs in a foreign land.

Kitchener was then a cavalry officer of thirty-five, and did not seem destined to get much higher in army circles. Yet he had never lost faith in himself. After this first expedition to Egypt, when he was still only a major, he remarked drolly to a fellow officer:

"Never mind, my dear fellow, a few years hence you and I will be generals, and these people who annoy us now (meaning the red-tape departmental clerks) will be looking out of their club windows, with all their teeth falling out of their heads!"

During this same expedition, he spoke of the fact that their commanding officer had missed the key-point, by saying:

"It's the same with everybody. We must stop floundering, or people will forget that Khartoum is our objective and always will be."

Prophetic words for Kitchener of Khartoum.

Who was this strong, stern, silent soldier whose career linked up past wars with the great World War of our own day?

Like Wellington and Roberts, Kitchener came of Irish stock. He was born near Listowel, June 24, 1850, his father, Colonel Henry Kitchener, having bought a considerable estate in the counties of Kerry and Limerick.

Colonel Kitchener had seen a good deal of active service himself, and still more of garrison life. He determined to retire, and after buying some 2,000 acres of land in Ireland, at a bankrupt sale, he built a hunting lodge, called Gunsborough House. This was Herbert Horatio Kitchener's birthplace. Whether the name of the house had anything to do with his warlike career, history does not state. But certain it is, that he was a born soldier—a man of iron almost from his boyhood.

"Yes," said his old nurse, in talking about him only a few years ago, "I know that he is a great man; and they tell me that he has no heart, and that everybody is afraid of him; but they are wrong. He is really one of the most tender-hearted men in the world; and whenever he comes to see me, he is 'my boy' just as he was in the old days in Ireland, when he used to run to me in all his troubles, and fling his arms around me and hug me. Ah, there is nobody left who knows the real Master Herbert as I know him."

As a boy at school, Herbert Kitchener was not very brilliant. Like Wellington, whose mother called him "the fool of the family," Kitchener did too much day-dreaming to make much headway with his studies. His first teacher was a governess, who gave him up in despair. Then he was sent to a private school where he did not do any better.

His father lost his patience. Just before an examination, he made a dire threat.

"Young man," said the Colonel, "if you fail I'll make you toe the mark. I'll send you to a girl's school."

Apparently the threat did not have the desired effect. He flunked and was transferred to the other school. This time he was told that failure meant that he would be taken out of school entirely and apprenticed to a hatter.

The warning had the desired effect. Herbert buckled down to work and not only passed his examinations, but even began to show a decided liking for mathematics—which study was to be of good service in later life.

By this time the family had moved into a more pretentious home, known as the Crotta House. Little is related of his boyhood life there. It was quiet and uneventful. The boy was of reserved nature, preferring to sit quietly in the corner and listen while others did the talking. Yet when drawn out, he could talk well, preferring to reason rather than argue. His chief outdoor sport was swimming. The home was only a few miles inland from the Atlantic coast, and he and his brothers often rode over for a dip.

His father was of industrious and thorough-going type. The family motto was "Thorough," and the Colonel lived up to it. "K. of K." also became a master of detail; and here on his father's estate he learned his first lessons in it. Colonel Kitchener constantly preached the value of time—and practised what he preached. Instead of settling down to a life of ease, he was always at work on the estate. He reclaimed large tracts of bogs, turning them into fertile land. He raised breed horses and cattle. He set up his own factory for making bricks, tiles, and drain-pipes. His own life of energy and organization was the best possible example to his boys. That Herbert, with all his apparent indolence, was profiting by it, became evident years afterward.

When the boy was fifteen, his father determined on a complete change of environment for him. "I want you to see something else besides Ireland," he said. Herbert was accordingly sent to Switzerland, to a French school conducted by a Mr. Bennett. It was in Villeneuve, at the eastern end of Lake Geneva. In this scenic spot of Europe he remained for some four years, paying occasional visits home, but becoming more and more a cosmopolitan, instead of merely a shy Irish lad. He learned to speak French like a native, and got a start in German and Italian. Languages always came easy to him.

Meanwhile he trudged about the mountain country on many a long excursion, with a camera slung across his shoulders, learning an art that he was soon to put to good use. Thanks to this outdoor life he grew up into a strong, well-built fellow, with a physique that was to stand the test of many hard days to come.

His father wanted him to follow in his own footsteps and become a soldier. He used his influence to place him in the Royal Military Academy, at Woolwich. Herbert entered there as a cadet, in his nineteenth year.

Two years later, while still a cadet, we find him getting his foretaste of actual warfare. It was the summer of 1870. War had been declared by France against Prussia—the short but terrible war so skilfully engineered by Bismarck. Herbert Kitchener had gone to spend a summer vacation with his father, at Dinan in the north of France, and promptly got imbued with the war fever. He enlisted in a battalion, in the Second Army of the Loire, commanded by General Chanzy. This army, like other well-intentioned but poorly organized troops of the French, was driven steadily back by the superior German forces, until the enemy bombarded and captured Paris.

It is interesting to note that Kitchener's first and last military service was on behalf of the French against their hereditary enemies—and that history came dangerously near to repeating itself in the German drive of 1914 against Paris. That it did not do so, was due in no small measure to the grim veteran who was now Secretary of War, and to his wonderful army of volunteers, dubbed "Kitchener's Mob."

Whether or not Kitchener did any actual close-up fighting in these early days we do not know. One novel experience, however, is placed to his credit. He made an ascent in an observation balloon, with two French officers. In those days, the big bags were risky and unknown quantities, and an ascent was something to talk about.

The ill-starred war over, young Kitchener returned to Woolwich, and his school duties as though nothing special had happened.

"Why did you go off and join the French army?" he was asked by the commandant.

"Please, sir," came the straightforward answer, "I understood that I should not be wanted for some time, and I could not be idle. I thought I might learn something."

He had indeed—if nothing more than the power of a thoroughly prepared enemy against an unready land.

The next stage in Kitchener's career was picturesque but full of hardship. It was in connection with an exploring expedition to the Holy Land.

In 1865, a society called the Palestine Exploration Fund had been founded, its object being to study the history and geography of the country. Seven years later it had entered on the gigantic task of surveying a tract of about 6,000 square miles, much of it desert or mountainous country.

Kitchener was just graduating from the Military Academy, with the usual rank of lieutenant, and was casting about for active service. He could not brook the idea of settling down to garrison life. The post of assistant to the leader of this Palestine Expedition was offered him, and he accepted with alacrity. While a private enterprise, it had the sanction of the War Department, and promised to provide thrills as well as work. The fact that it was the Holy Land of Bible story also appealed to Kitchener. Witness one of the first entries in his Journal:

"Looking down on the broad plain of Esdraelon . . . it is impossible not to remember that this is the greatest battlefield of the world, from the days of Joshua and the defeat of the mighty hosts of Sisera, till, almost in our own days, Napoleon the Great fought the battle of Mount Tabor; and here also is the ancient Megiddo, where the last great battle of Armageddon is to be fought."

Lieutenant Kitchener reported for duty in Palestine, in the Fall of 1874. The exploration party was then working in the hill country south of Judah, which was still a sealed book to the rest of the world. Their job was "to search in every hole and corner of the country and see what is there, and classify everything in proper form"—to quote the words of their prospectus. For this work they required both the surveyor's instrument and the camera.

In the use of the latter, Kitchener had shown aptitude at school; and it is said that this fact had something to do with his appointment. It is evident from the first official report that he "made good." His chief, Lieutenant Conder, states that he succeeded in securing some excellent photographs "under peculiarly unfavorable circumstances."

The climate did not set well with him at first, and after two attacks of fever he recovered his health sufficiently to take part in the Dead Sea work of 1875.

At Wady Seiyal, reports Conder, "we were caught in the most tremendous gale which we have yet experienced in tents; and our next march of nineteen miles in a perfect hurricane of bitter wind, with showers of sleet and hail, necessitated by the fact that all our barley and other stores were consumed, was the hardest bit of experience we have yet encountered. Our dogs and two muleteers were unable to face the storm, and took refuge in caves. Old Sheikh Hamzeh fell off his pony twice, and had to be tied on. The brave beasts struggled for eleven hours, and crossed more than one torrent of cold water up nearly to the girths, but by eight at night they were in a warm stable, and we had found refuge in Hebron in the house of a German Karaite Jew, whose hospitality was as great as his subsequent charge was high."

At times the ground was so uneven and devoid of trails, that they could not march much faster than one mile an hour. The only human beings they encountered were the Bedouin Arabs—sly, furtive fellows who were always ready for a trade, but who would kill a man just as readily for his shirt.

The slow progress, however, did not worry Kitchener particularly. He made good use of the time in photographing old walls, caves, and natural strongholds. For instance, five days were spent in getting data and records of the ruins of a fortress erected at Ascalon by Richard Coeur-de-Lion, during his famous Crusade.

Here it was that Kitchener's skill in swimming and presence of mind were put to the test. Lieutenant Conder was swept off his horse while fording the stream, and was in imminent danger of drowning, when Kitchener sprang to his aid and towed him ashore.

Despite the danger and hardships, Kitchener revelled in this wild life. One of the party says of him: "He was as good company as a man could wish to have, full of life and good spirits. We none of us thought much about our toilets, and he least of all. Why, after a few months' travelling about in Palestine, he looked more like a tramp than an officer in Her Majesty's Army. His clothes wouldn't have fetched a three penny-bit at any 'old do' shop in Whitechapel."

It was in this first field service that he won a reputation which clung to him through his whole career. They said that his chief amusement was work, and his relaxation, more work. He was of seemingly tireless energy, and never could understand the let-downs of others. The boyhood trait of silence was also marked in the man. Although he picked up languages easily, he used them sparingly. It was said of him later that he could keep silent in ten languages.

In a letter home, from Palestine, he throws a sidelight on this working phase of his nature. "The non-commissioned officers," he says, "though ready to go through any amount of work or danger, are much discouraged at the prospect of an indefinite delay without employment, which, in my opinion, is more trying in this climate than work."

Not long after, the round of work and routine duty was varied by a first-class fight. A Moslem sheikh had become so impertinent one day, that Lieut. Conder ordered him out of his tent. The sheikh drew a knife and was promptly disarmed and made prisoner by the British. Instantly he lifted up his voice, calling for his men. The response was prompt. They seemed to spring up out of the very rocks, and soon there were two hundred of them howling and dancing around the handful of Englishmen. Conder thus relates the happening:

"Lieut. Kitchener and I were immediately surrounded. Three came to me and asked me with curses what I was doing. An old man thrust his battle-axe violently into my side, but I did not like to strike him, though I had now a hunting-crop in my hand. I told them they were mad and would be severely punished if they struck an Englishman. About this time other members of the party saw a gun levelled at me five yards off, but fortunately the man's hand was caught before he fired. A man now came into the crowd which surrounded me, and dealt me a blow on the head with a large club with great violence, causing two wounds on the side of my head, covering my face with blood. A second blow, directed with full force at the top of my head, must inevitably have brained me, had I not put my head down to his chest. My servants gave me up for dead. The blow fell on my neck, which ever since has been so stiff and swollen that it is impossible to turn it round. The rest of the party saw me fall.

"As soon as I got up, I dealt this man a blow in the face with the handle of my whip which staggered him, but my whip flew out of my hand and left me entirely unarmed. I must inevitably have been murdered but for the cool and prompt assistance of Lieut. Kitchener, who managed to get to me and engaged one of the clubmen, covering my retreat.

"A blow descending on the top of his head he parried with a cane, which was broken by the force of the blow. A second wounded his arm. His escape is unaccountable. Having retired a few paces from the thick of the fray, I saw that the Moslems were gradually surrounding us, stealing behind trees and through vineyards, and I well understood that in such a case, unless the soldiers arrived at once, we must all die. Many of the servants had indeed already given up hope, though no one fled. I gave the order to leave the tents and fly round the hill.

"Lieut. Kitchener was the last to obey this order, being engaged in front. He retreated to his tent, and whilst running he was fired at, and heard the bullet whistle by his head. He was also followed for some short distance by a man with a huge scimitar, who subsequently wounded with it more than one of our people."

The timely arrival of the regular soldiers undoubtedly saved the little party from massacre.

Another enemy, the Eastern fever, was more successful in attack. Both Conder and Kitchener had to return to England to recuperate. In 1877, Kitchener went back, this time in command of the expedition, and by midsummer had completed his survey of northern Palestine. He had covered all told one thousand miles of country, making photographs and maps which added immeasurably to the general knowledge.

On his way back to England, Kitchener stopped in Turkey, which was then at war with Bulgaria. His observations on the qualities of soldiers in the two peoples, as recorded in an article written for Blackwood's Magazine, are interesting in the light of later wars.

The publication of the results of the Palestine exploration first brought Kitchener to public notice. He was officially thanked and began to be regarded as a marked man. He had won his first spurs.

His next task was along similar lines. The Island of Cyprus occupied a strategic position in the Mediterranean, and moreover had been the scene of much turmoil. The British Government desired to set up a stable regime there, and to this end decided to make a careful survey of the Island and its resources. They naturally turned to Kitchener to do the work. The satisfactory way in which he carried it through earned for him the warm approval of Lord Derby, then Secretary of State for the Colonies. One of his associates in Cyprus says of him there: "We saw little of Kitchener at the club or anywhere else where Englishmen mostly congregated, although he sometimes turned up at the gymkhana meetings to contribute his share to their success. Kitchener was always a hard worker, a gentleman with a long head who thought much but said little. It is, of course, easy enough to prophesy when you know, but honestly, to my mind, he looked a man who would go far if he only had his chance."

As an immediate result of this work, Kitchener was given the rank of Major, and sent with Lord Wolseley's expedition into Egypt—then in the throes of civil war. One reason for his promotion was his ability to speak Arabic. His several years in the East had not only taught him the languages, but valuable insight into manners and customs.

The campaign was short and summary. The rebel forces were routed and order established in northern Egypt. Kitchener's ability to organize, and his knowledge of the people soon made him indispensable. His name occurred so frequently in the official reports, that Lord Cromer, in the home office, remarked: "This Kitchener seems to have a finger in every pie. I must see him and find out what he is like." Later, after seeing him, Cromer said: "That man's got a lot in him. He should prove one of our best assets in Egypt."

The next event—and a dramatic one—in Kitchener's life was concerned with the attempted rescue of Gordon, some three years later. This famous General had been sent to subdue the Soudan, which literally means "Land of the Blacks," and had not received sufficient reinforcements. It was a blunder on the part of the home Government for which Gordon was to pay with his life. A relief force under Wolseley was sent too late.

Kitchener was fully alive to the peril of the situation, but being only a subordinate could not do much to hasten affairs. He did know, however, that a widespread conspiracy was being hatched which threatened the safety of Wolseley's forces as well. How he got at the bottom of this conspiracy is related by Charles Shaw, a Canadian journalist who accompanied the expedition.

A group of Arabs who had been in a brawl were lying tied hand and foot in the guardhouse, when a tall man, also securely tied, was thrown in with them. Although dressed like a native, Shaw relates, "he looked a different brand of Arab than I had been accustomed to. He was Kitchener. He was after the conspiracy.

"I didn't know much Arabic in those days, but we could hear the Dongolese talk and talk in excited tones the whole night, the tall man occasionally saying a few words.

"When we paraded before the large open-faced orderly tent next morning, we were almost paralyzed to see Lord Wolseley himself seated at the little table with Kitchener beside him, both in full staff uniform. A tall, fine-looking Arab was being examined through the interpreter. He didn't seem impressed by the glittering uniforms or the presence of the Commander-in-chief, or embarrassed by their questions. Once or twice an expression of surprise flitted over his face, but his eyes were always fixed on Kitchener, who would now and again stoop and whisper something in Lord Wolseley's ear. Once he raised his voice. The prisoner heard its intonation and recognized him. With a fierce bound the long, lithe Arab made a spring and was over the table, and had seized Kitchener by the throat. There was a short, swift struggle, Wolseley's eye glistened, and he half drew his sword. Kitchener, athletic as he was, was being overpowered, and the Arab was throttling him to death.

"There was a rush of the guard—and within ten minutes a cordon of sentries surrounded the Mudir of Dongola's tent. Within three days he was a prisoner in his palace at Dongola, guarded by half a battalion of British soldiers. The conspiracy was broken.

"How widespread it was, only half a dozen white men knew at the time. . . . To it the treachery of the Egyptian garrison at Khartoum and the death of Gordon was due, and the preservation of the Desert Column (the relief force), can be placed to its discovery."

The next few years in Kitchener's life, which we can but summarize, show him wielding a masterful hand in the pacification of Egypt. After Gordon's death, the command was reorganized, and Kitchener became a Lieutenant Colonel of Cavalry. His duties took him to the extreme outposts.

Halfway down the Red Sea, over against Mecca, is Suakim, the southern outpost of Egypt. Suakim has the distinction of being one of the hottest stations on earth, and one of the most desolate, comparable to Central Arizona in the hot season. Here Kitchener served as Governor from 1886 to 1888, with distinction. The following year found him fighting on the frontier of the Soudan, the wild, vast back-country to the south and west.

From 1889 to 1892 he served as Adjutant-General of the Egyptian Army, nominally as an officer of the Sultan's viceroy, the Khedive; but in reality the visible presence of England's protecting power. He received several high decorations, which would show that he won the esteem and confidence of his Egyptian patrons. Finally in 1893 the Khedive made him Sirdar, or Commander-in-chief.

South of the Egyptian frontier, on the Upper Nile among the cataracts, the three cities, Dongola, Berber, and Khartoum form a triangle of trading centers. Kitchener saw that these were the strategic points in the control of Upper Egypt, and in 1896 led an expedition thither.

Ever since the death of Gordon, the country had been unsettled. It remained to Kitchener to wield the avenging sword. He laid a light railroad southward along the Nile, and marched swiftly, taking his supplies with him. At Omdurman he finally met the enemy and inflicted a crushing defeat. At Khartoum, where Gordon had been slain, he set up a stable government.

He came back to civilization a Major General in the British army, a peer of England—and "Kitchener of Khartoum." This popular title was speedily shortened to "K of K," and was as well known wherever English Tommies assembled as "Bobs," the affectionate nickname of Lord Roberts.

But Kitchener never won the deep affection of the rank and file, that Roberts inspired. He was taciturn, aloof, and a stern disciplinarian. His name evoked fear and respect, but never love. And yet, his men would follow him through fire and water, for they had unbounded confidence in his ability. It was his name that was placarded through London, when the recruiting began for the Great War—and not the King's.

"Will you serve with Kitchener?" the posters said. And they responded, three million strong—"Kitchener's Mob," which was to become so soon a skilled army under his guidance.

They tell of him that when he took the post of Secretary of War, on his first visit of inspection to the office he looked around and said, "Is there a bed here?" When answered in the negative, he gave the brief order, "Have one brought in."

Thereafter for several weeks he literally lived in his office night and day. He had at last found a job that measured up to his fullest requirements for hard work, and he revelled in it. Incidentally, he "delivered the goods"—but nobody marvelled at that; it was nothing more than was expected of him!

Says an anonymous writer in The Living Age: "England never fully understood Lord Kitchener, and perhaps he never fully understood his countrymen. They weaved innumerable myths around this shy and solitary man, who revealed himself to few. To them his figure loomed gigantic and mysterious through the sandstorms of African deserts and the mists of the Himalayas. In their hour of trial he came among them for a space, and then vanished forever in the wild Northern seas. He was a good man to fight for or to fight against, and he found a worthy end."

IMPORTANT DATES IN KITCHENER'S LIFE

1850. June 24. Herbert Horatio Kitchener born. 1865. Sent to Switzerland to school. 1868. Entered Royal Military Academy, at Woolwich. 1870. Volunteered in French army against Prussia. 1874. Sent as second-lieutenant to Palestine, with exploration party. 1878. Surveyed Island of Cyprus, for British Government. 1885. Lieutenant-colonel of cavalry in Egypt. 1893. Sirdar, or commander-in-chief, of Egyptian army. 1898. Created a baron. 1900. Chief of staff to Roberts in South Africa. 1902. Made general, and commander-in-chief in India. 1911. Consul-general in Egypt. 1914. Secretary of War. Field marshal. 1916. June 5. Lost his life at sea.



HAIG

THE MAN WHO LED "THE CONTEMPTIBLES"

"There goes young Haig. He says he intends to be a soldier."

The speaker was a young student at Oxford University, as he jerked his thumb in the direction of a slight but well-set-up fellow, a classmate, who went cantering past.

The chance remark, made more than once during the college days of Field Marshal Haig, struck the keynote of his career. From early boyhood Douglas Haig was going to be a soldier; and he stuck to his guns in a quiet, systematic way until he won out.

The story of Haig's life until the time of the Great War, was the opposite of spectacular, and even in it, his personal prowess was kept studiously in the background. With him it has always been: "My men did thus and so." Yet in his quiet way he has always made his presence felt with telling effect. He has been the man behind the man behind the gun.

By birth Haig was a "Fifer," which sounds military without being so. He was a native of Cameronbridge, County of Fife, and came of the strictest Presbyterian Scotch. If he had lived a few centuries back he would have been a Covenanter—the kind that carried a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other. He was born, June 19, 1861, the youngest son of John Haig, a local Justice of the Peace. His mother was a Veitch of Midlothian.

The family, while not wealthy, was comfortably situated. The Haig children grew up as countrywise rather than townbred, having many a romp over the rolling country leading to the Highlands. But more than once on such a jaunt would come the inquiry: "Where's Douglas?" (We doubt whether they ever shortened it to "Doug," as they would have done in America.) And back would come the answer: "Oh, he stayed by the house, the morn. He got a new book frae the library, ye ken."

Douglas was, indeed, bookish and was inclined to favor the inglenook rather than the heather. As he grew older he discovered a strong liking for books on theology. It was the old Presbyterian streak cropping out.

The last thing one would expect from such a boy, was to become a soldier. A divinity student, yes,—perhaps a college professor—but a soldier, never! Yet it was to soldiering that this quiet boy turned.

The one thing which linked him up with the field was horsemanship. He was always a devotee of riding, and soon learned to ride well, with a natural ease and grace.

He received a general education at Clifton, then entered Brasenose College, Oxford, at the age of twenty. He was never a "hail-fellow-well-met" sort of person. Reserve was his hallmark. But the longer he stayed in college, the more of an outdoorsman he became. Every afternoon would find him mounted on his big gray horse for a gallop across the moors, or perhaps an exciting canter behind the hounds on the scent of a fox. It was then that his habitual reserve would melt away, and he would wave his hat and cheer like a high-school boy.

The record of his classes is in no sense remarkable. He turned in neat and precise papers, without making shining marks in any particular study. Literature and science were his best subjects.

"Well, son, how goes it now?" his father would ask. "Ready to make a lawyer out of yourself?"

Douglas would shake his head. He could never share his father's enthusiasm for the law. "I guess not, father," he would reply quietly. "Somehow, I am not built that way. I want a try at soldier life."

So his father let him follow his bent, and procured for him a position in the Seventh Regiment of Hussars. His career as a soldier was threatened at the outset by the refusal of the medical board to admit him to the Staff College on the ground that he was color-blind; but this decision was over-ruled by the Duke of Cambridge, then commander-in-chief, who nominated him personally. This was in 1885. England was then as nearly at peace as she ever became, and it seemed that young Haig was destined to become a feather-bed soldier.

But it was not for long. They presently began to stir up trouble down in Egypt, and England found, as on many previous occasions, that she didn't have half enough regulars for the job in hand. The revolt of the Mahdi had occurred, Khartoum had fallen, and the brave Gordon had lost his life.

A relief expedition into the Soudan was organized under the command of a tall, stern soldier named Kitchener, who began his first preparations to march into the interior about the time that Haig was putting on his first Hussar uniform.

The campaign in Egypt dragged, despite the zeal of the leader. In disgust, Kitchener returned to England to demand more men. The request was at last granted, and by December, 1888, he was in command of a force of over 4,000 troops, of which number 750 were British regulars! Those were indeed the days of the "Little Contemptibles," but right manfully they measured up to their tasks. And in the British force was the Seventh Hussars, including Haig. He was about to achieve his life's ambition, at last—to see real service as a British soldier.

Haig was then a well-knit young man of twenty-seven. His outdoor exercise had browned and hardened him, until he looked thoroughly fit for the exacting job ahead. He was slightly under medium size, but tough and wiry to the last degree. His shoulders were broad, his head well set, and the bulging calves of his legs showed the born cavalryman. He had fair, almost sandy hair, a close-cropped mustache, and steel-blue eyes which met honestly and unflinchingly the gaze of any with whom he talked. He looked then, as in later years, "every inch a soldier," and speedily won the confidence of his superiors.

The silent Kitchener, who was a keen judge of men, soon took a fancy to this quiet young lieutenant. A friendship sprang up between them, that was destined to bear far-reaching fruit. The two men were both reserved in demeanor, but in a different sort of way. Kitchener was taciturn and often inclined to growl. Haig was a man of few words and no intimates, but greeted all with a pleasant smile. To this young Scotsman Kitchener unbent more than was his wont, and was actually seen shaking hands with him, at parting, on a later occasion; which all goes to show that even commanding officers can be human.

On the march into the Soudan, Kitchener was in command of the Egyptian Cavalry also. The Khedive was exceedingly anxious that the rebellion be crushed speedily, and had made Kitchener the "sirdar." One of the first actions in this campaign was the Battle of Gemaizeh. Three brigades were sent to storm the forts held by the dervishes, and a heavy and sustained fire from three sides soon drove the enemy out in disorder. Some 500 dervishes were slain, and the remainder numbering several thousand fled across the desert toward Handub—closely pursued by the British Hussars and the Egyptian cavalry.

This was only the first of many such actions. Further and further south the rebels were driven. Kitchener pushed a light railroad across the desert as he advanced, so that he would not suffer from the same mistake which had ended Gordon—getting cut off from his base of supplies.

And in the thick of it was Haig—learning the actual trade of war in these frequent brushes on the desert—riding hard by day, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion at night. On more than one occasion the Chief sent him on a special quest with important messages, and always Haig got through. He seemed to bear a charmed life. "Lucky Haig," the men began to call him, and the title stuck.

Entering the desert as a Lieutenant, he was promoted to Captain, then brevetted a Major. He was mentioned in the despatches for bravery, and won a medal from the Khedive.

All this was not done in a few short months. The Egyptian campaign stretched into years, and at times must have seemed fearfully monotonous to these soldiers so far removed from home comforts. Here is the way one writer describes the Soudan:

"The scenery, it must be owned, was monotonous, and yet not without haunting beauty. Mile on mile, hour on hour, we glided through sheer desert. Yellow sand to right and left—now stretching away endlessly, now a valley between small broken hills. Sometimes the hills sloped away from us, then they closed in again. Now they were diaphanous blue on the horizon, now soft purple as we ran under their flanks. But always they were steeped through and through with sun—hazy, immobile, silent."

One of the culminating battles of the campaign was that of Atbara, where the backbone of the dervish rebellion was broken. It is estimated that here 8,000 dervishes were killed, 2,000 wounded, and 2,000 made prisoners. The battle began with a bombardment by the field guns. Then came the British cavalry at a gallop—the Camerons in front, and columns of Warwicks, Seaforths, and Lincolns behind. Bugles, bagpipes, and the instruments of the native regiments made strange music as the army pressed forward intent on reaching the river bank.

The native stockades were reinforced with thorn bushes, but these were torn away by the men, with their bare hands, in their eagerness to advance. Haig's regiment was one of the first to penetrate, but once past the stockade they encountered many of the defenders who put up a fierce fight. Several British officers lost their lives, and it was due to Haig's agility and presence of mind that he was not at the least severely wounded. Two dervishes attacked him at once from opposite sides. One aimed a slashing blow at his head with a scimitar. Haig quickly ducked and the scimitar went crashing against the weapon of the other dervish. Haig's luck again!

Others were not so fortunate. "Never mind me, lads, go on," said Major Urquhart with his dying breath. "Go on, my company, and give it to them," gasped Captain Findlay as he fell. At the head of the attacking party strode Piper Stewart, playing "The March of the Cameron Men," until five bullets laid him low. Truly the spirit of the fiery old Covenanters was there!

The final battle of the Soudanese campaign, Khartoum, put the finishing touches to the rebellion, and gave to Kitchener the title "K. of K."—Kitchener of Khartoum. This battle was noteworthy in employing the cavalry in an open charge across the plains against the dervish infantry. It was just such a charge as a skilled horseman such as Haig would keenly enjoy, despite the danger. Winston Churchill, the British Minister, thus describes it:

"The heads of the squadrons wheeled slowly to the left, and the Lancers, breaking into a trot, began to cross the dervish front in column of troops. Thereupon and with one accord the blue-clad men dropped on their knees, and there burst out a loud, crackling fire of musketry. It was hardly possible to miss such a target at such a range. Horses and men fell at once. The only course was plain and welcome to all. The Colonel, nearer than his regiment, already saw what lay behind the skirmishers. He ordered 'Right wheel into line' to be sounded. The trumpet jerked out a shrill note, heard faintly above the trampling of the horses and the noise of the rifles. On the instant the troops swung round and locked up into a long, galloping line.

"Two hundred and fifty yards away, the dark blue men were firing madly in a thin film of light-blue smoke. Their bullets struck the hard gravel into the air, and the troopers, to shield their faces from the stinging dust, bowed their helmets forward, like the Cuirassiers at Waterloo. The pace was fast and the distance short. Yet before it was half covered the whole aspect of the affair changed. A deep crease in the ground—a dry watercourse, a khor—appeared where all had seemed smooth, level plain; and from it there sprang, with the suddenness of a pantomime effect and a high-pitched yell, a dense white mass of men nearly as long as our front and about twelve deep. A score of horsemen and a dozen bright flags rose as if by magic from the earth. The Lancers acknowledged the apparition only by an increase of pace."

In such a melee as then followed, that trooper was lucky indeed who escaped without a scratch.

As a result of his bravery at Atbara and Khartoum, Haig's name was mentioned in the official despatches. He returned to England wearing the Khedive's medal and the honorary title of Major.

It is probable, however, that little more would have been heard of him, had not the South African War broken out, soon after. It is the lot of military men to vegetate in days of peace. They live upon action. Haig was no exception to this rule. He welcomed new fields. He went to South Africa as aide and right-hand man to Sir John French—the general whom he was to succeed in later years on the battlefields of France.

In this war, Haig is not credited with many personal exploits. His was essentially a thinking part. Yet he served as chief of staff in a series of minor but important operations about Colesburg, which prepared the way for Roberts's advance. As usual Haig pinned his faith upon the cavalry. All his life he had made a close study of this arm of the service, and was of opinion that it was not utilized in modern warfare nearly so much as it should be. He was a warm admirer of the American officer, J. E. B. Stuart, the Confederate General whose dashing tactics turned the scale in so many encounters.

Now he tried the same strategy in the operations around Colesburg—and paved the way for later victory.

Haig somewhat resembled another Southern leader, Stonewall Jackson, in his piety. It was not ostentatious, but simply part and parcel of the man, due to his Presbyterian training. Haig did not swear or gamble or dance all night. He was more apt to be found in his tent, when off duty, either reading or writing.

They tell of him that, one day at the officers' mess, after a particularly lively brush with the Boers, the quartermaster asked him if he had lost anything.

"Yes," replied Haig solemnly, "my Bible!"

Not once did his countenance relax its gravity, as he met the grinning faces across the table.

But despite their chaffing, there was not a man there who did not respect the courage of his convictions, no less than the bravery of the man himself. Almost daily he risked his life in these cavalry operations—until the "Haig luck" became a watchword.

The end of the South African War found Haig promoted to acting Adjutant General of the Cavalry, and soon after his return home he was made Lieutenant Colonel, in command of the Seventeenth Lancers. This was in 1901.

About this time he paid a visit to Germany, then at peace and professing a warm affection for England. One result of this visit was a letter which showed him possessed with wonderful powers of analysis and foresight. He practically predicted the war that was to come. He summed up his observations in a long letter to a friend which, in the light of events of the War, is little short of uncanny. It gave the German plan with a mastery of detail, shrewd prophecy, and earnest warning. The future commander-in-chief of the British armies in France was convinced of the certainty of the conflict and besought the authorities to make better preparation—but his warnings fell upon deaf ears.

It required thirteen years to demonstrate the truth of Haig's predictions, and then the blow fell. The Kaiser viewed his strong hosts and boasted that he would soon wipe out England's "contemptible little army." He very nearly did so, and would certainly have succeeded, had it not been for the fighting spirit of such men as Haig.

During the intervening years since the South African campaign he had risen by fairly rapid stages to Inspector-General of the Cavalry in India—a situation which he handled with great skill for three years—then Major General, and Lieutenant General.

At the outbreak of the World War, he was hurriedly sent to France, under the command of Sir John French, his old leader in Africa. French was generosity itself in his praise of Haig in these early days of disaster.

In the retreat from Mons it was "the skilful manner in which Sir Douglas Haig extricated his corps from an exceptionally difficult position in the darkness of the night," that won his laudation. At the Aisne, on September 14, 1914, "the action of the First Corps on this day, under the direction and command of Sir Douglas Haig, was of so skilful, bold, and decisive a character, that he gained positions which alone have enabled me to maintain my position for more than three weeks of very severe fighting on the north bank of the river."

In the first battle of Ypres, the chief honors of victory were again awarded to him:

"Throughout this trying period, Sir Douglas Haig, aided by his divisional commanders and his brigade commanders, held the line with marvelous tenacity and undaunted courage."

Again and again, the generous French pays tribute to his friend, which while deserved reflects no less honor upon the speaker. He was big enough to share honor.

It is not strange, therefore, when French was superseded, for strategic reasons, that Haig should have been given the chief command. The appointment, however, left most of the world frankly amazed. Haig had come forward so quietly that few save those in official circles knew anything about him. It was nevertheless but a matter of weeks, possibly days, before a quiet confidence born of the man himself was manifest everywhere.

One war correspondent who visited headquarters in the midst of the War's turmoil, thus describes his visit:

"The environment of the Commander-in-chief is strongly suggestive of his conduct of the war. Before war became a thing of precise science, the headquarters of an army head seethed with all the picturesque details so common to pictures of martial life. Couriers mounted on foam-flecked horses dashed to and fro. The air was vibrant with action; the fate of battle showed on the face of the humblest orderly. But today 'G. H. Q.'—as headquarters are familiarly known—are totally different. Although army units have risen from thousands to millions of men, and fields of operations stretch from sea to sea, and more ammunition is expended in a single engagement than was employed in entire wars of other days, absolute serenity prevails. It is only when your imagination conjures up the picture of flame and fury that lies beyond the horizon line that you get a thrill.

"An occasional motorcar driven by a soldier-chauffeur chugs up the gravel road to the chateau and from it emerge earnest-faced officers whose visits are usually brief. Neither time nor words are wasted when myriad lives hang in the balance and an empire is at stake. Inside and out there is an atmosphere of quiet confidence, born of unobtrusive efficiency."

The same writer on meeting Haig says: "I found myself in a presence that, even without the slightest clue to its profession, would have unconsciously impressed itself as military. Dignity, distinction, and a gracious reserve mingle in his bearing. I have rarely seen a masculine face so handsome and yet so strong. His hair and mustache are fair, and his clear, almost steely-blue eyes search you, but not unkindly. His chest is broad and deep, yet scarcely broad enough for the rows of service and order ribbons that plant a mass of color against the background of khaki. . . .

"Into every detail of daily life at General Headquarters the Commander's character is impressed. After lunch, for example, he spends an hour alone, and in this period of meditation the whole fateful panorama of the war passes before him. When it is over the wires splutter and the fierce life of the coming night—the Army does not begin to fight until most people go to sleep—is ordained.

"This finished, the brief period of respite begins. Rain or shine, his favorite horse is brought up to the door, and he goes for a ride, usually accompanied by one or two young staff-officers. I have seen Sir Douglas Haig galloping along those smooth French roads, head up, eyes ahead—a memorable figure of grace and motion. He rides like those latter-day centaurs—the Australian ranger and the American cowboy. He seems part of his horse."

Such was the man who did his full share in turning the German tide. Throughout the four long years of war, he faced the enemy with a calm courage which if it ever wavered gave no outward sign. And that is one reason why the Little Contemptibles grew and grew until they became a mighty barrier stretching across the pathway of the invader from sea to sea, and saying with their Allies:

"You shall not pass!"

IMPORTANT DATES IN HAIG'S LIFE

1861. June 19. Douglas Haig born. 1880. Entered Brasenose College, Oxford. 1885. Joined 7th Hussars, British army. 1898. Served in Soudan, mentioned in despatches, and brevetted major. 1899. Served in South Africa. D. A. A. G. for cavalry; then staff officer to General French. 1901. Lieutenant-colonel commanding 17th Lancers. 1903. Inspector-general, cavalry, India. 1904. Major-general. 1910. Lieutenant-general. 1914. General, commanding First Army in France. 1915. Commander-in-chief of British forces. 1917. Field marshal. 1919. Created an earl. 1928. January 30. Died in England.



JOFFRE

THE COOPER'S SON WHO REMADE THE ARMIES OF FRANCE

"Let's name him Joseph," said Gilles Joffre to his wife, as they viewed their first child with much pride.

"That doesn't seem to be enough," responded Mme. Joffre. So unusual a baby deserved better treatment, she thought.

"Then how about Joseph Jacques? That's a good, sensible sounding name."

"That sounds well," she admitted, "but still it lacks something. I'll tell you. Let's call him Joseph Jacques Cesaire."

"Sounds like a soldier," said the father.

"Well, who knows? Perhaps he will be a general some day," Mme. Joffre replied.

So the infant who lay quietly blinking on his natal day, January 12, 1852, was to be known as Joseph to his friends; but tucked away in his name for future reference was Cesaire—as the French folk pronounced the name of the great Roman conqueror.

Truly there was nothing very auspicious in the start of Joseph Joffre. His father was merely a cooper in a straggling hillside town of the Pyrenees in Southern France, Rivesaltas—but he was a good cooper. His neighbors had a saying that is preserved to this day: "Barrels as good as those made by old Gilles Joffre."

The town itself had some six thousand inhabitants, and was situated on the River Agly, about nine miles from the city of Perpignan. The Joffre home was a very plain and humble dwelling set alongside of the cooper shop, and neither better nor worse than its neighbors—but the well-to-do workman of today would turn up his nose at it. Nevertheless in this home were born eleven children, the oldest of whom was the future Marshal of France. And the father continued to live there for thirty years or more.

It is related of him that even as a baby Joseph never cried, but endured his various troubles with silent stoicism. As he grew older, this trait of silence became ingrown; it was alluded to as "Joffre's taciturnity." But as a matter of fact the gift of silence in him as both boy and man did not indicate a sullen or unfriendly disposition. It was merely that he had his head in the clouds. He made a life job of thinking—like the seated statue by Rodin.

As one result of this trait, little is reported concerning his childhood. No anecdotes are related of him at all, except one doubtful story about a fight which he had with a schoolmate. The latter wanted him to stop and take part in some game. Joffre replied that he didn't have time. The other fellow came back with a taunt—and then Joseph "waded in."

He did not have any chums for the same reason, lack of time, and doubtless he missed a great deal out of boyhood from this fact. It is said that in the study hall he would erect a great pile of books between himself and the next boy, so as not to be disturbed. Yet he didn't shine particularly as a student. He was simply busy—thinking.

It was not until he was sent to college at Perpignan, that he really began to take an interest in books, and his favorites were the more solid studies—algebra, descriptive geometry, surveying, and draftsmanship. His bent even at this early day seemed to be civil engineering.

The ambition of every middle-class French home, in those days, was to send a son to the army—have him study to become an officer. Mamma Joffre had not forgotten the Caesar in her oldest son's name; and in a family conclave it was decided that he should be sent to Paris, to try for the entrance examinations in the Ecole Polytechnique.

Gilles Joffre accompanied his son to the capital, and left him in a private school. Like his son, the cooper was a man of few words; but what he must have done at parting was to clap the boy on the shoulder, and say: "Now, go to it!"

Joseph Joffre did. When he returned to his boyhood's home, only four years later, he was wearing the shoulder straps of a lieutenant, and had seen active service. But this is getting ahead of our story.

There was really nothing else for him to do but to "go to it" here in Paris. He was a big, hulking lad of fifteen, with a bullet head set upon a thick neck and broad shoulders—an awkward figure dressed in ill-fitting clothes. All his life Joffre paid little attention to dress. Here at the awkward age he looked out of place with the well-dressed city boys. They tried to have fun at his expense, but he withdrew into his shell more than ever, and they soon learned to let him alone.

It must have been a lonely life that young Joffre led—but we have no direct evidence that he ever felt lonely. His books and his day dreams seem always to have made up for a lack of human companionship. The other fellows contented themselves with saying of him: "He is too slow, and methodical to amount to much."

He did not, indeed, make a specially brilliant record in his entrance examinations to the Polytechnique; but his stumbling block was not mathematics or science, it was—German! He never could abide the language!

Joseph Joffre entered this famous military training school in 1869, at the age of seventeen. Within a few months the school course was broken up by the German invasion, and Joffre with other cadets promptly volunteered for service. Much to the delight of his family, he was made a second lieutenant, attached to the Engineering Corps. His first practical field work was in throwing up fortifications in defence of Paris. But the Germans were not to be stopped by Joffre in their march on the French capital at this time. That was reserved for a later day and another war.

The short but terrible conflict of 1870 over, Joffre returned to college, and graduated therefrom in 1872, with the rank of full lieutenant. One of his classmates of this time was Ferdinand Foch, but if the two future Marshals there became acquainted no story of their meeting has come down to us.

Joffre's first work at fort building had been so well done that immediately upon graduation the government set him to work. The memory of the stinging German defeat was with them stirring them to action. They wanted defenses everywhere. Joffre was employed upon them at Paris, Versailles, Montpellier, and even in faraway Brittany—until he was disposed to grumble at his fate.

"This is all very fine," he said; "but I don't want to spend the rest of my days building forts. I want to command troops and see some real fighting."

It was the Caesar cropping up in him again.

Without question he was a born builder of fortifications. One day the great Marshal MacMahon came by on a tour of inspection, and was much delighted with a series of defenses he had built near Paris.

"I congratulate you, Monsieur le Capitaine!" he said.

By one sentence he had promoted the young lieutenant to a captaincy.

It was about this time that a fall from his horse very nearly cut short his military career. He was so severely injured that the doctors feared that his mind was affected, and he was sent home for a complete rest.

At home he did not complain—that was not his nature—but he spent several days pacing back and forth in his little upper room. Then came a day when he burst in to the downstairs room where sat his parents, his face beaming—showing the strain which he had overcome.

"It's all right, mon pere!" he cried joyfully. "I have solved it. I will get well!"

What he had been doing was to set himself an abstruse and difficult problem in mathematics, in order to see if his brain would respond. It did so, he solved it and thus had no more fears as to his own ultimate recovery.

Another story told by his sister, of these early army days, shows further his power of mental abstraction.

"My brother was always lost in thought," says Mme. Artus. "No matter what he did, his thoughts never left him. Once they caused his arrest as a spy."

It seems that at Vauban, not far away from his home town of Rivesaltas, they were constructing a fort. Joffre sauntered over to inspect it. He was clad in civilian dress and he evinced so much interest in what was going on that the commanding officer promptly seized him for a suspicious character.

"Did my brother protest? Not he. But when they brought him before the military court, his Catalonian brogue was enough to convince anybody as to where he was born.

"'Why didn't you tell them who you were?' I asked him.

"'Too busy thinking about the fort,' was his reply."

One other anecdote of this time has come down to us and is worth repeating. His father had bought a piece of farm land that was badly in need of ditching, in order to drain it properly during the wet season, and irrigate it during the dry. The son sketched out a scheme of cross trenches, but his father demurred—then Joseph exploded:

"Trenches! What the devil! I know all about trenches; trenches are my specialty."

The Great War of later years was to show whether or not this confidence in his own abilities was misplaced.

By the year 1884, his reputation as a builder of trenches and forts was firmly established, although official promotion had come slowly. When Admiral Courbet telegraphed to the Home Office from the Isle of Formosa for a reliable officer to place in charge of this work, Joffre was sent. He spent nearly a year there and it was a year of the hardest kind of work. He could get only indifferent help, so he worked early and late to make up the deficit.

From there he was sent on similar work to the province of Tonkin, Indo-China. Here he practically rebuilt the town of Hanoi, clearing and guttering the streets, draining the neighboring marshes which had made the settlement a pest-hole, and building permanent roads. The town of Vietri was similarly cleaned up.

For these important labors he received the first recognition in nearly ten years. He was given official thanks, and decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor.

A fellow officer who knew him at this time says: "Captain Joffre was a solidly-built Pyrenean, calm and clear-headed, with a firm walk and a hard blue eye. He seldom smiled and he spoke still more rarely. He never punished except in extreme cases, and then hard. Natives feared him for his silence, but loved him for his justice."

This portrait of him about a quarter of a century before the Great War is easily recognizable in the commander of the later day.

In 1891 he paralleled the career of General Foch somewhat by taking a professor's chair. He was appointed instructor in fortifications at the Military School at Fontainebleau, where he remained for two years. The work did not appeal to him particularly and he is spoken of there as a thorough teacher, but not popular. He had not mingled enough with others to get their point of view.

A welcome change from this was a summons from headquarters to go to Timbuctoo, and help suppress a native rebellion. It was all the more welcome as here, for the first time, he was promised a chance to do some real fighting.

Timbuctoo was then being overrun by the Tuaregs, a tribe of terrible brigands called "the veiled men" of Western Soudan. They had massacred the European settlers, and ended by killing two French officers, Colonel Bonnier and Lieutenant Boiteux, who had recently headed expeditions against them. It was a wild and treacherous land, and the relief expedition would scarcely have child's play of it.

Joffre went at it without the slightest misgiving. Like many another soldier he was a firm believer in "Luck," and here certainly the fates were propitious. He set forth on his journey from Segou, on Christmas Day, 1893, commanding a force of thirty French and three hundred natives. They crossed deadly swamps and dry, trackless deserts. There were some deaths by the wayside, but Joffre pushed on. His progress was slow, as he stopped to make friends with native chiefs, and enlist their aid where possible.

At last they reached Timbuctoo, only to find orders awaiting them to "prepare for evacuation," in the face of a threatening Tuareg army. Joffre for once disobeyed orders, and decided, instead, to attack. He did so, and administered a crushing defeat to the brigands. He followed this up so thoroughly, that the whole district was restored to peace.

Then the soldier gave place to the engineer. He cleaned up the town (in another sense) and returned home.

"Luck was on my side," he said briefly after receiving official congratulations, and the rank of lieutenant colonel. "I might have met the fate of Bonnier and Boiteux, had the Goddess of Good Fortune not attended me."

But those who knew him believed that it was something more than luck.

That Joffre was a fatalist is evinced by another incident of this march in Soudan. An insect's sting had poisoned his left eye so severely that the sight was threatened. The doctor of the force advised him to wear a bandage. Joffre would not agree.

"I could not command my troops if I were blindfolded," he said.

"Then it must be blue glasses," said the doctor.

But eyeglass shops are not found in the desert, and Joffre went on without protection. A few days later a soldier received a packet from home and brought it to him. It was a pair of blue glasses!

"I told you that I was in luck," said Joffre.

However, he narrowly escaped blindness, and ever afterward a thin veil-like film covered the injured eye.

One result of the Timbuctoo campaign was an official report written by Joffre, and afterwards published in book form under the title (translated) "Operations of the Joffre Column before and after the Capture of Timbuctoo." The story is a straightforward soldierly narrative. One French critic recently said of it, apropos of Joffre's election to the French Academy, a rather unique honor: "I defy anybody who knows the pleasure which words can give us in evoking things, to deny that this report is a piece of most effective writing. . . . With Joffre who has no idea or desire to give us 'fine writing,' the effect produced is that of reality itself. The names of the tribes he meets or describes take on a strange virtue, as if we heard them on the spot. Even the French officers' names scattered over a narrative from which all attempt at picturesqueness is banished, produce picturesqueness. . . . On the whole he is a primitive, and with all the primitive's simple charm and power."

After the Soudanese adventure, came a trip to Madagascar—this time, more fort constructing, from which it seemed that he could never escape. The problem down there was a vexatious one, due to a do-nothing policy of a predecessor. Things were in bad shape. Joffre arrived, after a long sea voyage, gave one look around, and then things began to happen.

"If men are responsible for this disorder," he said sententiously, "it is easy to suppose that men can restore the needed order."

And the forts and barracks went up in record time.

"We never expected to see that job done," reports one soldier. "The thing was so old that it had cobwebs over it. When Joffre took hold it went up by magic."

They concocted another saying about him, down in that distant island, which was:

"There goes old man System!"

At another time an officer remarked: "Joffre wants what he wants when he wants it—and furthermore he knows why he wants it!"

In 1901, at the century's turn, and when he was rounding out his half century, his long-delayed promotions began to arrive. He was made Brigadier General, and thenceforth began to forge rapidly to the front. One reason for his slow advancement was that he was no politician or time-server. He never pushed himself forward. And so much of his work was done in remote provinces that the General Staff hardly knew him at all. We remember, too, that he had made no friends at school, who would follow his career, or speak a good word for him in official ears.

When he did at last receive recognition it was upon absolute merit. But when he reached the General Staff, the remark was frequently heard: "Who is this Joffre? We never heard of him."

It was not long, however, before he made his presence felt in Paris official circles. They came to depend more and more upon this stocky, hard-headed Gascon and his opinions. He never minced words and he went to the root of the matter.

In 1911, when the need was universally felt, of a thorough reorganization of the French army—a much-needed house-cleaning—they cast about for some man big enough for the job. In a conference General Pau, a warm adherent of Joffre, shook his single good fist in the faces of the Staff officers, and exclaimed: "There is only one man who can do the job!"

So they sent for Joffre and made him chief of the General Staff, with full power to reorganize. It was well for France that they did so, and fortunate that he had three full years to work before the blow fell, and the invaders were again at their gates.

"No German could be more thorough than Joffre," said one officer. "For him no lasting results can be obtained without the utmost care. He has limitless patience, joined with a wonderful breadth of view. His methods resemble the head of a great business."

In his intricate work of reconstructing the army, he revealed another, and surprising side to his nature. From being cold and aloof, he showed a human sympathy for his men, down to the last private. It was as though the man who had held himself aloof from intimates wanted to take the whole French army into his heart. And the men responded with an affection and a confidence which were later to produce the fine results of leadership in the War. He was no longer "Joffre the Silent," but "Papa Joffre."

Says one writer: "Joffre is the soldier of democracy. That is why he sets America aflame with enthusiasm, as he did France. His thickset frame, firmly knit and vigorous, his clear eyes, which observe you from beneath bushy eyebrows, his firm and kindly mouth, his bristling mustache, the simplicity of his manners, his clean-cut, reserved language,—all that goes to show that there is nothing in him of bluster and affectation. He is truly 'Papa Joffre,' the father and even the grandfather of the poilus. It is the poilu himself beneath the white panache of this unique Marshal of France."

When in 1914 the Germans struck, they anticipated an easy march upon Paris—such as that of forty odd years before. But this time a different Joffre stood in their path. In place of the young lieutenant not yet out of his 'teens, they found a grizzled veteran who matched them with methods as thorough-going as their own, but who preferred to control his men by love rather than fear.

"Your French soldiers are brave," said one German officer contemptuously, "but as for discipline—bah! Our legions will brush you aside."

"Our men may not have the machine-like discipline that you affect," was the French officer's reply. "But we replace it with something far better—a love of country that will cause us to sacrifice the last drop of blood."

"But your great Generals—where are they?" asked the other.

"They will make themselves felt in due time. At their head stands one who is yet to fight his first great battle—yet I advise you not to arouse him!"

The world knows the rest of the story of that mighty invasion—how the black, invading line curved onward and inward until it threw its shadow upon Paris. Then when the final blow was about to be struck—the coup-de-grace as the Germans firmly believed—up from the South came the army of Joffre. It had retreated and retreated, until the moment for its counter-blow.

Now with the precision of a sledge-hammer it struck, and struck again—until the surprised enemy turned and fell back. Paris was saved.

In the gallery of the world's great soldiers, the homely, kindly figure of Joffre may well find place. He seems to occupy a niche quite by himself. He is not spectacular, nor a "hero," but a simple man among men, whose results are built upon a lifetime of patient endeavor.

He is Rodin's statue of "The Thinker" come to life.

IMPORTANT DATES IN JOFFRE'S LIFE

1852. January 12. Joseph Jacques Cesaire Joffre born. 1867. Entered preparatory military school, Paris. 1869. Entered Polytechnic Academy. 1870. Volunteered in army to defend Paris against Prussians. 1870. Commissioned second-lieutenant. 1876. Commissioned captain for work on fortifications. 1884. Sent to Formosa to construct barracks and trenches. 1885. Decorated, Legion of Honor, Tonkin. 1891. Professor in military school, Fontainebleau. 1893. Sent to Madagascar on construction work. 1894. Headed expedition to Timbuctoo. 1901. Brigadier-general. 1911. Chief of general staff. 1914. Commander-in-chief, French army. 1916. Marshal of France.