Herbert Kitchener

Biography

Cold, methodical, and relentlessly organised, Herbert Kitchener rebuilt the Egyptian army and led the reconquest of the Sudan as a masterpiece of logistics — advancing up the Nile behind a specially built desert railway and a flotilla of gunboats that carried his supplies and his firepower into the heart of Africa. Battle by battle, at Ferkeh and the Atbara, he ground his way south. At Omdurman in 1898 his patient preparation paid off in a battle of annihilation, as Maxim guns and magazine rifles destroyed the Khalifa's charging army for trivial loss. He avenged Gordon, reconquered the Sudan, and defused the Fashoda crisis with France that followed. Made a national hero and a lord, Kitchener went on to become the imperial soldier of his age — Boer War commander, and the recruiting face of 'Your Country Needs You' in 1914 — before drowning when his ship struck a mine in 1916.

Key Battles