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 infantry brigades of the First World War battery assigned. At the outbreak of the war in August 1914, the British regular army was a small professional force. It consisted of 247,432 regular troops organised into four Guards, 69 line infantry and 31 cavalry regiments, along with artillery and other support arms. The regular Army was supported by the Territorial Force, and by reservists. In August 1914, there were three forms of reserves. The Army Reserve of retired soldiers was 145,350 strong. The Special Reserve had another 64,000 men and was a form of part-time soldiering, similar to the Territorial Force. The National Reserve had some 215,000 men,