Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, (; 24 June 1850 – 5 June 1916), was a senior British Army officer and colonial administrator who won notoriety for his imperial campaigns, most especially his scorched earth policy against the Boers and his establishment of concentration camps during the Second Boer War, and later played a central role in the early part of the First World War. Kitchener was credited in 1898 for winning the Battle of Omdurman and securing control of the Sudan for which he was made Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, becoming a
British home army in the First World War and protracted affair, and that the full British military strength could not be brought to bear until 1917. He regarded the existing military arrangements as suitable only for a limited war and immediately began the process of significantly expanding the army. Although the Territorial Force had been designed for precisely this purpose, Kitchener by-passed it and, with full approval from the army, raised instead a 'New Army' of volunteers. The County Territorial Associations were initially invited to assist, but this was rescinded in September. The territorials found themselves competing for recruits, training staff and equipment, and the War Office prioritised