Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener

Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who rose to the rank of field marshal. Born in County Kerry in Ireland in 1850, he came to prominence through imperial campaigns, above all the Sudan campaign of 1898, in which he won the Battle of Omdurman and secured control of the Sudan, and for which he was made Baron Kitchener of Khartoum. In the Second Boer War he served as chief of staff to Lord Roberts and then succeeded him as commander-in-chief, and from 1902 to 1909 he commanded the Army in India before returning to Egypt as British agent and consul-general. In 1914, at the start of the First World War, he became secretary of state for war and organised the largest volunteer army Britain had seen. He was blamed for the shortage of shells in the spring of 1915 and lost control of munitions and strategy. He died in June 1916 when HMS Hampshire, carrying him to Russia, struck a German mine off Orkney.