Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener - India

India

Following this, Kitchener was made Commander-in-Chief, India (1902–1909) – his term of office was extended by two years — where he reorganised the Indian Army. Kitchener's plan “The Reorganisation and Redistribution of the Army in India” recommended preparing the Indian Army for any potential war by reducing the size of fixed garrisons and reorganising it into two armies, to be commanded by the splendidly-named Generals Blood and Luck. While many of the Kitchener Reforms were supported by the Viceroy Lord Curzon of Kedleston, who had originally lobbied for Kitchener's appointment, the two men eventually came into conflict. Curzon wrote to Kitchener advising him that signing himself “Lord Kitchener of Khartoum” took up too much time and space – Kitchener commented on the pettiness of this (Curzon simply signed himself "Curzon" as if he were an hereditary peer, although he later took to signing himself “Curzon of Kedleston”). They also clashed over the question of military administration, as Kitchener objected to the system whereby transport and logistics were controlled by a "Military Member" of the Viceroy's Council. The Commander-in-Chief won the crucial support of the government in London, and the Viceroy chose to resign.

Later events proved Curzon was right in opposing Kitchener's attempts to concentrate all military decision-making power in his own office. Although the jobs of Commander-in-Chief and Military Member were now held by same person, senior officers could approach only the Commander-in-Chief directly – they still had to deal with the Military Member through the Army Secretary, who reported to the Indian Government and had right of access to the Viceroy - there were even instances, when the two separate bureaucracies produced different answers to a problem, of the Commander-in-Chief disagreeing with himself as Military Member! This became known as “the canonisation of duality”. Kitchener's successor General O’Moore Creagh was nicknamed “no More K” and concentrated on establishing good relations with the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge.

Kitchener presided over the Rawalpindi Parade 1905 to honour the Prince and Princess of Wales' visit to India. Later, still in India, he broke his leg badly in a horse-riding accident, leaving him with a slight limp for the rest of his life.

In 1905 Kitchener founded the Indian Staff College at Quetta (now the Pakistani Command and Staff College), where his portrait still hangs.

Kitchener was promoted to the highest Army rank, Field Marshal, in 1910 and went on a tour of the world. He aspired to be Viceroy of India, but the Secretary of State for India, John Morley, was not keen and hoped to send him instead to Malta as Commander-in-Chief of British forces in the Mediterranean, even to the point of announcing the appointment in the newspapers. Kitchener pushed hard for the Viceroyalty, returning to London to lobby Cabinet ministers and the dying King Edward VII, from whom, whilst collecting his Field Marshal's baton, Kitchener obtained permission to refuse the Malta job. However, Morley could not be moved. This was perhaps in part because Kitchener was thought to be a Tory (the Liberals were in office at the time); perhaps due to a Curzon-inspired whispering campaign; but most importantly because Morley, who was a Gladstonian and thus suspicious of imperialism, felt it inappropriate, after the recent grant of limited self-government under the 1909 Indian Councils Act, for a serving soldier to be Viceroy. (In the event, no serving soldier was appointed Viceroy until Archibald Wavell in 1943, during World War II.) The Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, was sympathetic to Kitchener but was unwilling to overrule Morley, who threatened resignation, so Kitchener was finally turned down for the post of Viceroy of India in 1911.