Horatio Herbert Kitchener

Kitchener, Horatio Herbert 

Born June 24, 1850, in Listowel, Ireland; died June 5, 1916, near the Orkney Islands. British field marshal (1909); named Earl of Khartoum in 1914.

Kitchener graduated from the Royal Military Academy in 1868 and held a commission with the British colonial forces beginning in 1874, serving as governor general of Eastern Sudan from 1886 to 1888. From 1895 to 1898 he commanded British forces in Egypt and led the suppression of the Mahdist revolt. In 1899–1900 he was chief of staff of the British troops in the Boer War, commanding the troops in 1900–02. From 1902 to 1909 he served in India, and from 1911 to 1914 he was the British agent and consul general in Egypt, functioning as the actual ruler of the country. In 1914 he became Great Britain’s secretary of state for war. He was killed when the cruiser Hampshire, on which he had set out for an official visit to Russia, sank after striking a mine.