Height: 24.5cm (9.7in)
Patinated bronze. Standing figure modelled in field marshal’s full dress uniform with baton in his right hand. Raised on integral bronze base. Signed and dated Sydney March, 1914. Cast by the Birmingham art founder Elkington & Co.
March’s figure depicts Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (1850-1916) at the height of his powers and at a time when he helped build Britain’s first mass army as face of the First World War in Britain with his ‘Your Country Needs You’ recruiting drive.
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After serving as a volunteer with a French ambulance in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1871. Following survey work in Cyprus and Palestine, he was promoted to captain and attached to the Egyptian Army. During the failed Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884-85, he served as an ADC and was then commandant at Suakin (1886-88). Kitchener was wounded at Handub in January 1888, commanded a brigade from 1889 until 1892 and was then made Sirdar of the Egyptian Army. He became a household name for the conquest of the Sudan. He built a railway to ensure logistical support and used river steamers to move his Anglo-Egyptian Army down the Nile. On 2 September 1898, he defeated the Dervishes at Omdurman. Rewarded with a peerage, Kitchener was made lieutenant-general in 1900 and posted to South Africa as Lord Roberts’s chief of staff. His organisational talents and energy did much to reverse the early defeats of the Boer War (1899-1902) and ensure British victory.
However, while Roberts’s heroic image remained unsullied at the end of the war, blame for its darker aspects - including the use of scorched earth tactics and concentration camps - fell on Kitchener. Kitchener was appointed Commander-in-Chief in India in 1902. He re-organised the Indian Army, merging the three Presidency armies into a unified force with enough troops for internal security needs alongside a striking force of nine divisions and five cavalry brigades.
In 1911, he was made British agent in Egypt. His programme of reforms did much to improve the country. Although he possessed great organisational skills and was a successful colonial campaigner and administrator, Kitchener found it difficult to delegate. His austere demeanour did nothing to advance his personal popularity with those who served alongside him. During this period, Kitchener clashed with the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, who resigned his position.
Promoted to field marshal in 1909, Kitchener then turned his attention to reforming the colonial and dominion forces. Kitchener’s influence declined following the 1915 ‘shell crisis’ and the failed Gallipoli campaign, an operation he had supported in Cabinet. Dispatched to Russia on a fact-finding mission, he drowned on 5 June 1916 when his vessel HMS 'Hampshire' struck a mine off Orkney.