The British field marshal and statesman Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum and Broome (1850-1916), is best known for his service in British colonial wars and administration.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener was born on June 14, 1850, at Crotter House, Ballylongford, County Kerry, Ireland; his father, an English lieutenant colonel, had settled in Ireland. Educated in Switzerland, Kitchener entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1868, served briefly with the French against the Prussians in 1870, and took his commission in the Royal Engineers in 1871. He entered routine army service at home but in 1874 began his connection with the Near East on loan to the Palestine Exploration Fund. In 1878 he began a survey of Cyprus after its acquisition by Britain, serving briefly as a vice-consul in Asia Minor and visiting Egypt unofficially in 1882 to join the British campaign against the nationalists.

Years in Egypt

At the end of 1882 Kitchener was...