to direct strategy, though other ministers gradually took
over economic matters and armaments production. In
1915, William Louis King wrote a poem in honor of
Kitchener entitled “When the War is Done.”
In May 1916, Czar Nicholas II of Russia requested
that Kitchener visit Russia to confer on military coop-
eration with the western Allies. Kitchener left England
on the HMS Royal Oak and met Admiral John Jellicoe
before he transferred to the HMS Hampshire, which was
to take him and his staff to Russia via the Orkney Is-
lands. On 5 June 1916, while sailing near the Orkneys,
the Hampshire struck a German mine and sank in 10
minutes, taking Kitchener and 642 of the 655 men on
board to their deaths. Britain was shocked by the loss of
Kitchener, who had become the most important British
military leader of the war. The lord mayor of London
asked the nation to donate money for a national memo-
rial fund, which still provides university scholarships for
the children of servicemen.
Lord Kitchener was a great British military leader,
ranking with Lord nelson and Arthur Wellesley, duke
of Wellington. While his public life has been re-
searched extensively, his private life remains a mystery,
primarily because that was the way he wanted it. In
1958, the historian Philip Magnus published Kitchener:
Portrait of an Imperialist, in which he alleged that Kitch-
ener was a closet homosexual who did not allow enemy
troops at Omdurman to be treated for their wounds.
Recent historical examinations of Kitchener’s and his
contemporaries’ papers reveal these accusations to be un-
true. Nearly a century after his tragic death, Lord Kitch-
ener remains a private man whose accomplishments are
known more than the man ever will be.
References: Arthur, Sir George, Life of Lord Kitchener, 3
vols. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1920); Lanning, Mi-
chael Lee, “Horatio Herbert Kitchener,” in The Military
100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Military Leaders of
All Time (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1996),
306–309; Holt, Peter Malcolm, The Mahdist State in the
Sudan (Oxford, U.K.: The Clarendon Press, 1958); Neil-
lands, Robin, The Dervish Wars: Gordon and Kitchener in
the Sudan, 1880–1898 (London: John Murray, 1996);
Burleigh, Bennet, Sirdar and Khalifa; or, the Reconquest
of Soudan [sic], 1898 (London: Chapman & Hall, 1898);
Ziegler, Philip, Omdurman (London: Collins, 1974);
Bruce, George, “Omdurman,” in Collins Dictionary of
Wars (Glasgow, Scotland: HarperCollins Publishers,
1995), 183; “Britain’s War Ended; The Boers Finally Sur-
render. Gen. Kitchener Telegraphs, Peaces Terms Con-
cluded,” The New York Herald (Paris edition), 2 June
1902, 1; Reference to the William Louis King poem in the
Papers of Horatio Herbert Kitchener, first earl Kitchener
of Khartoum, Public Record Office series PRO 30/57/1,
Public Record Office, Kew, England; Wallace, Edgar,
Kitchener: The Man and His Campaigns (London: George
Newnes, 1914); “Kitchener and Staff Perish at Sea; Lost
on Cruiser, Perhaps Torpedoed; England Suspects Spies of
the Deed,” The New York Times, 7 June 1916, 1.Kluge, Hans Günther von (1882–1944)
German general
Hans Günther von Kluge was born into an aristocratic
Prussian family in the village of Posen, Prussia (now
Poznan, Poland), on 30 October 1882. Little is known
about his early life, except that he entered the German
army at an early age, saw action as an artillery officer
during the First World War, and was seriously wounded
at Verdun. Following the end of that conflict, he re-
mained in the army, becoming a major general in 1933.
Dismissed in 1938 because he disapproved of Hitler’s
war aims, he was recalled at the outbreak of the Sec-
ond World War in September 1939, commanding the
Fourth Army in the German invasion of Poland. In
1940, he commanded an equally successful invasion of
France. Promoted to field marshal on 14 July 1940, in
1941 he led the attack on Russia, staying there until he
was wounded in battle in October 1943. He returned to
his command after recuperation and showed remarkable
skill in meeting the massive Russian offensive.
Following the Allied landings on the coast of Nor-
mandy in France on 6 June 1944, Hitler replaced the
commander of German forces in Western Europe, Field
Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, with Kluge on 3 July- However, Kluge was unable to halt the advance
of Allied forces through France, and he came to believe
that Hitler needed to be removed from power and peace
made with the Allies. Kluge never acted on his beliefs,
but a number of men to whom he was close formulated
a plan to assassinate Hitler, and they used his name,
without his permission, to gain increased acceptance
of the plot. The assassination attempt failed on 20 July
1944, and Hitler, who soon came to believe that Kluge
had been a part of it, dismissed him as commander on
17 August 1944. Realizing he was about to be arrested
kluge, hAnS güntheR von