This is an interesting biography of Field Marshal Kitchener that I am happy I read. For many years, I had this vision of Kitchener as the man responsible for the mass casualties of British soldiers on the Western front. Turns out that others were mostly responsible as Kitchener never held a field command on that front, being by this time in high military and civil positions.
This book follows Kitchener through his childhood, his time in military schools, and then his career from lieutenant to the top in the British military and his position as Minister of War in early World War I. It especially concentrates on his reconquest of the Sudan and the improvements he made in the governments and military structures of Egypt and India.
It also offers some interesting thoughts on what might have happened in World War I if Kitchener had been posted to some positions he wanted as well as received support for ideas he had. Hundreds of thousands of lives might have been saved. If even partially true, the United States might never have been drawn into that war, and that raises some interesting ideas that this author never broached.
This book follows Kitchener through his childhood, his time in military schools, and then his career from lieutenant to the top in the British military and his position as Minister of War in early World War I. It especially concentrates on his reconquest of the Sudan and the improvements he made in the governments and military structures of Egypt and India.
It also offers some interesting thoughts on what might have happened in World War I if Kitchener had been posted to some positions he wanted as well as received support for ideas he had. Hundreds of thousands of lives might have been saved. If even partially true, the United States might never have been drawn into that war, and that raises some interesting ideas that this author never broached.
