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90-512: Soon after the outbreak of war between Great Britain and Germany on 4 August 1914, Earl Kitchener , the War Minister, laid plans to raise a " New Army " of volunteer recruits. To aid this scheme, he encouraged local councils to establish what became known as Pals battalions , made up of groups of friends and neighbours who were keen to fight alongside each other, rather than being individually assigned to regular army regiments. The raising of

180-425: A coalition government – and stripped of his control over munitions and strategy. On 5 June 1916, Kitchener was making his way to Russia on HMS  Hampshire to attend negotiations with Tsar Nicholas II when in bad weather the ship struck a German mine 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of Orkney , Scotland, and sank. Kitchener was among 737 who died; he was the highest-ranking British officer to die in action in

270-572: A customs and railway union with the Cape Colony and the Natal . During Kitchener's posting in South Africa, Kitchener became acting High Commissioner for Southern Africa , and administrator of Transvaal and Orange River Colony in 1901. Kitchener, who had been promoted to the substantive rank of general on 1 June 1902, was given a farewell reception at Cape Town on 23 June, and left for

360-726: A damn good dusting". As the British and Egyptians advanced in columns, the Khalifa attempted to outflank and encircle the columns; this led to desperate hand-to-hand fighting. Churchill wrote of his own experience as the 21st Lancers cut their way through the Ansar : "The collision was prodigious and for perhaps ten wonderful seconds, no man heeded his enemy. Terrified horses wedged in the crowd, bruised and shaken men, sprawling in heaps, struggle dazed and stupid, to their feet, panted and looked about them". The Lancers' onslaught carried them through

450-424: A drinking cup or ink well. Other historians state that he had the head buried unmarked in a Muslim cemetery. In a letter to his mother, Churchill wrote that the victory at Omdurman had been "disgraced by the inhuman slaughter of the wounded and ... Kitchener is responsible for this". There is no evidence that Kitchener ordered his men to shoot the wounded Ansar on the field of Omdurman, but he did give before

540-559: A formal welcome at St James's Palace . He also visited King Edward VII , who was confined to his room recovering from his recent operation for appendicitis , but wanted to meet the general on his arrival and to personally bestow on him the insignia of the Order of Merit (OM). Kitchener was created Viscount Kitchener , of Khartoum and of the Vaal in the Colony of Transvaal and of Aspall in

630-657: A further two months. In September 1915, exactly twelve months after their formation, the Preston Pals took a minor part in the Battle of Loos , and received their first casualties. The losses were reported by the Preston Guardian and the Lancashire Daily Post , with each soldier's obituary accompanied by details of his school and church associations, the firm he worked for before enlistment, and

720-512: A hell of whistling metal, exploding shells, and spurting dust – suffering, despairing, dying". By about 8:30 am, much of the Dervish army was dead; Kitchener ordered his men to advance, fearing that the Khalifa might escape with what was left of his army to the fort of Omdurman, forcing Kitchener to lay siege to it. Viewing the battlefield from horseback on the hill at Jebel Surgham, Kitchener commented: "Well, we have given them

810-449: A long war that would last at least three years, require huge new armies to defeat Germany, and cause huge casualties before the end would come. Kitchener stated that the conflict would plumb the depths of manpower "to the last million". A massive recruitment campaign began, which soon featured a distinctive poster of Kitchener , taken from a magazine front cover. It may have encouraged large numbers of volunteers, and has proven to be one of

900-659: A peace treaty proposed by Louis Botha and the other Boer leaders, although he knew the British government would reject the offer; their proposal would have maintained the sovereignty of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State while requiring them to sign a perpetual treaty of alliance with the UK and grant major concessions to the British, such as equal language rights for English with Dutch in their countries, voting rights for Uitlanders , and

990-465: A programme of restoring good governance. The programme had a strong foundation, based on education at Gordon Memorial College as its centrepiece – and not simply for the children of the local elites, for children from anywhere could apply to study. He ordered the mosques of Khartoum rebuilt, instituted reforms which recognised Friday – the Muslim holy day – as

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1080-533: A special sealed letter from Salisbury that told him that Salisbury's real reason for ordering the conquest of the Sudan was to prevent France from moving into the Sudan, and that the talk of "avenging Gordon" had been just a pretext. Salisbury's letter ordered Kitchener to head south as soon as possible to evict Marchand before he got a chance to become well-established on the Nile. On 18 September 1898, Kitchener arrived at

1170-550: A stable, but that does not make him a horse". In 1864 the family moved to Switzerland , where the young Kitchener was educated at Montreux , then at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich . Pro-French and eager to see action, he joined a French field ambulance unit in the Franco-Prussian War . His father took him back to Britain after he caught pneumonia while ascending in a balloon to see

1260-708: A third soldier, Lt. George Witton , who served 32 months before being released. In late 1902 Kitchener was appointed Commander-in-Chief, India , and arrived there to take up the position in November, in time to be in charge during the January 1903 Delhi Durbar . He immediately began the task of reorganising the Indian Army . Kitchener's plan "The Reorganisation and Redistribution of the Army in India" recommended preparing

1350-631: Is more like a machine than a man. You feel that he ought to be patented and shown with pride at the Paris International Exhibition . British Empire: Exhibit No. 1 hors concours , the Sudan Machine". The shooting of the wounded at Omdurman, along with the desecration of the Mahdi's tomb, gave Kitchener a reputation for brutality that was to dog him for the rest of his life, and posthumously. After Omdurman, Kitchener opened

1440-460: Is that within eighteen months of the outbreak of the war, when he had found a people reliant on sea-power, and essentially non-military in their outlook, he had conceived and brought into being, completely equipped in every way, a national army capable of holding its own against the armies of the greatest military Power the world had ever seen. However, Ian Hamilton later wrote of Kitchener "he hated organisations; he smashed organisations ... he

1530-426: The Ansar first with artillery, then machine guns and finally rifles as the enemy advanced. A young Winston Churchill , serving as an army officer, wrote of what he saw: "A ragged line of men were coming on desperately, struggling forward in the face of the pitiless fire – black banners tossing and collapsing; white figures subsiding in dozens to the ground ... valiant men were struggling on through

1620-512: The Ansar had broken through the thin khaki line. At about 5 a.m. on 2 September 1898, a huge force of Ansar , under the command of the Khalifa himself, came out of the fort at Omdurman , marching under their black banners inscribed with Koranic quotations in Arabic; this led Bennet Burleigh , the Sudan correspondent of The Daily Telegraph , to write: "It was not alone the reverberation of

1710-534: The Ansar . Burleigh summed the general mood of the British troops: "At Last! Gordon has been avenged and justified. The dervishes have been overwhelming routed, Mahdism has been "smashed", while the Khalifa's capital of Omdurman has been stripped of its barbaric halo of sanctity and invulnerability. Kitchener promptly had the Mahdi's tomb blown up to prevent it from becoming a rallying point for his supporters, and had his bones scattered. Queen Victoria , who had wept when she heard of General Gordon's death, now wept for

1800-506: The Battle of Omdurman in September 1898. After marching to the walls of Khartoum, he placed his army into a crescent shape with the Nile to the rear, together with the gunboats in support. This enabled him to bring overwhelming firepower against any attack of the Ansar from any direction, though with the disadvantage of having his men spread out thinly, with hardly any forces in reserve. Such an arrangement could have proven disastrous if

1890-709: The Belgian Army would be unable to hold its ground against the Germans; Kitchener was proved right but, given the belief in fortresses common at the time, it is not surprising that the War Council disagreed with him. Broadgate, Lancashire Riversway was an electoral ward in Preston, Lancashire , England. The ward was named for its location close to the River Ribble , and the historical links to

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1980-745: The Delhi Durbar to assume the titles of Emperor and Empress of India. In June 1911 Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General in Egypt during the formal reign of Abbas Hilmi II as Khedive . At the time of the Agadir Crisis (summer 1911), Kitchener told the Committee of Imperial Defence that he expected the Germans to walk through the French "like partridges" and he informed Lord Esher "that if they imagined that he

2070-637: The Egyptian Army . Egypt had recently become a British puppet state, its army led by British officers, although still nominally under the sovereignty of the Khedive (Egyptian viceroy) and his nominal overlord the Ottoman sultan . Kitchener became second-in-command of an Egyptian cavalry regiment in February 1883, and then took part in the failed Nile Expedition to relieve Charles George Gordon in

2160-679: The English Channel ; however, at Fashoda itself, despite the stand-off with the French, Kitchener established cordial relations with Marchand. They agreed that the tricolor would fly equally with the Union Jack and the Egyptian flag over the disputed fort at Fashoda. Kitchener was a Francophile who spoke fluent French, and despite his reputation for brusque rudeness was very diplomatic and tactful in his talks with Marchand; for example, congratulating him on his achievement in crossing

2250-667: The Flanders campaigns of 1917 , the 7th Battalion of the Loyals was officially disbanded in February 1918. The first officer of the Preston Pals to be killed in action, in February 1916, was Lieutenant Maurice Bannister, son of the vicar of St George's Church. Another recruit was Private Hugh Carnegie Rain, the son of Will Onda (Hugh Rain), a former stage acrobat and performer who was a film maker, distributor and cinema proprietor in Preston. Corporal Frank Wood, of Connaught Road, Broadgate ,

2340-557: The Horn of Africa . A French expedition under the command of Jean-Baptiste Marchand had left Dakar in March 1896 with the aim of conquering the Sudan, seizing control of the Nile as it flowed into Egypt, and forcing the British out of Egypt; thus restoring Egypt to the place within the French sphere of influence that it had had prior to 1882. Salisbury feared that if the British did not conquer

2430-582: The Irish Sea . The ward featured the terrace streets and student hostels along Fishergate Hill towards Preston railway station , the Royal Mail sorting office , and many shops and businesses along the docklands development. The Penwortham by-pass was in this ward, joining the campus of the University of Central Lancashire to traffic on the western side of the city. Riversway was also the home of

2520-582: The Middle East for several reasons: In 1878, having completed the survey of western Palestine, Kitchener was sent to Cyprus to undertake a survey of that newly acquired British protectorate. He became vice-consul in Anatolia in 1879. On 4 January 1883 Kitchener was promoted to captain , given the Turkish rank binbasi (major), and dispatched to Egypt, where he took part in the reconstruction of

2610-755: The Public Hall , and on 7 September 1914, the Pals paraded before an enthusiastic and patriotic crowd in the Market Place before marching along Fishergate to the railway station and leaving the town for their training. The 'Pals Battalions' required extensive training before they could be allowed onto the battlefield. The Preston Pals did their training at Tidworth Camp , Bulford and Swindon before crossing over to Boulogne on 17 July 1915. Once in France, training for trench warfare and gas attacks continued for

2700-994: The Second Boer War , and his central role in the early part of the First World War . Kitchener was credited in 1898 for having won the Battle of Omdurman and securing control of the Sudan , for which he was made Baron Kitchener of Khartoum . As Chief of Staff (1900–1902) in the Second Boer War he played a key role in Lord Roberts ' conquest of the Boer Republics , then succeeded Roberts as commander-in-chief – by which time Boer forces had taken to guerrilla fighting and British forces imprisoned Boer and African civilians in concentration camps . His term as Commander-in-Chief (1902–1909) of

2790-524: The Second World War ). The prime minister, H. H. 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. From 22 to 24 June 1911, Kitchener took part in the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary . Kitchener assumed the role of Captain of the Escort, responsible for

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2880-574: The Sudan in late 1884. Fluent in Arabic, Kitchener preferred the company of the Egyptians over the British, and the company of no-one over the Egyptians, writing in 1884 that: "I have become such a solitary bird that I often think I were happier alone". Kitchener spoke Arabic so well that he was able to effortlessly adopt the dialects of the different Bedouin tribes of Egypt and the Sudan. Promoted to brevet major on 8 October 1884 and to brevet lieutenant-colonel on 15 June 1885, he became

2970-521: The Survey of Western Palestine because it was largely confined to the area west of the Jordan River . The survey collected data on the topography and toponymy of the area, as well as local flora and fauna. The results of the survey were published in an eight-volume series, with Kitchener's contribution in the first three tomes (Conder and Kitchener 1881–1885). This survey has had a lasting effect on

3060-468: The concentration camps , which had been conceived by Roberts as a form of control of the families whose farms he had destroyed, began to degenerate rapidly as the large influx of Boers outstripped the ability of the minuscule British force to cope. The camps lacked space, food, sanitation, medicine, and medical care, leading to rampant disease and a very high death rate for those Boers who entered. Eventually 26,370 women and children (81% were children) died in

3150-409: The de facto British ruler of Egypt, thought Kitchener "the most able (soldier) I have come across in my time". In 1890, a War Office evaluation of Kitchener concluded: "A good brigadier, very ambitious, not popular, but has of late greatly improved in tact and manner ... a fine gallant soldier and good linguist and very successful in dealing with Orientals" [in the 19th century, Europeans called

3240-493: The 12-men-deep Ansar line with the Lancers losing 71 dead and wounded while killing hundreds of the enemy. Following the annihilation of his army, the Khalifa ordered a retreat and early in the afternoon, Kitchener rode in triumph into Omdurman and immediately ordered that the thousands of Christians enslaved by the Ansar were now all free people. Kitchener lost fewer than 500 men while killing about 11,000 and wounding 17,000 of

3330-490: The Army in India saw him quarrel with another eminent proconsul , the Viceroy Lord Curzon , who eventually resigned. Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General ( de facto administrator). In 1914, at the start of the First World War , Kitchener became Secretary of State for War , a Cabinet Minister. One of the few to foresee a long war, lasting for at least three years, and having

3420-624: The Battalion served in the Flanders sector, only to return to the Somme again as the battle entered its final phase. By the time the Battle of the Somme ended, in mid-November 1916, the 7th Battalion of the Loyals retained little of its former identity. Many of the original Pals had joined other units, and casualties had been replaced by new drafts from the UK. Following further heavy casualties in

3510-654: The British government. Milner was a hard-line conservative and wanted to Anglicise the Afrikaans -speaking people (the Boers) by force, and both Milner and the British government wanted to assert victory by forcing the Boers to sign a humiliating peace treaty; Kitchener wanted a more generous compromise peace treaty that would recognize certain rights for the Afrikaners and promise them future self-government. He even entertained

3600-639: The British member of the Zanzibar boundary commission in July 1885. He became Governor of the Egyptian Provinces of Eastern Sudan and Red Sea Littoral (which in practice consisted of little more than the Port of Suakin ) in September 1886, also Pasha the same year, and led his forces in action against the followers of the Mahdi at Handub in January 1888, when he was injured in the jaw. Kitchener

3690-816: The Commander-in-Chief directly. In order to deal with the Military Member, a request had to be made 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, with the Commander-in-Chief disagreeing with himself as Military Member. This became known as "the canonisation of duality". Kitchener's successor, General Sir Garrett O'Moore Creagh ,

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3780-830: The County of Suffolk, on 28 July 1902. In the Breaker Morant case, five Australian officers and one English officer of an irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers , were court-martialed for summarily executing twelve Boer prisoners, and also for the murder of a German missionary believed to be a Boer sympathiser, all allegedly under orders approved by Kitchener. The celebrated horseman and bush poet Lt. Harry "Breaker" Morant and Lt. Peter Handcock were found guilty, sentenced to death, and shot by firing squad at Pietersburg on 27 February 1902. Their death warrants were personally signed by Kitchener. He reprieved

3870-510: The Egyptian Army with the local rank of brigadier in April 1892. Kitchener was worried that, although his moustache was bleached white by the sun, his blond hair refused to turn grey, making it harder for Egyptians to take him seriously. His appearance added to his mystique: his long legs made him appear taller, whilst a cast in his eye made people feel he was looking right through them. Kitchener, at 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m), towered over most of his contemporaries. Sir Evelyn Baring ,

3960-440: The French Army of the Loire in action. Commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 4 January 1871, Kitchener was reprimanded by the Duke of Cambridge , the commander-in-chief, as his service in France had violated British neutrality. He served in Palestine , Egypt and Cyprus as a surveyor, learned Arabic , and prepared detailed topographical maps of the areas. His brother, Lt. Gen. Sir Walter Kitchener , had also entered

4050-477: The French fort at Fashoda (present day Kodok , on the west bank of the Nile north of Malakal ) and informed Marchand that he and his men had to leave the Sudan at once, a request Merchand refused, leading to a tense stand-off as French and British soldiers aimed their weapons at each other. During what became known as the Fashoda Incident , Britain and France almost went to war with each other. The Fashoda Incident caused much jingoism and chauvinism on both sides of

4140-583: The German lines in late afternoon, but by this time, it was apparent that the initial assault had been a catastrophic failure, which brought about a cancellation of further attacks. Thus, the Preston Pals escaped the heavy losses that were suffered by many other Pals battalions that day. The Preston Pals were engaged in the Somme battle for the whole of July 1916, and they took part in the desperate fighting around High Wood, Delville Wood, Fricourt, and Guillemont. By mid-July, only 480 riflemen out of an original strength of 900 remained. During August and September 1916,

4230-401: The Hindu and Muslim populations are amongst the largest in the city; a Hindu temple is within the Broadgate area of the ward. Riversway had a population of 6351 in 2011. Here is a 2011 ethnic breakdown of the ward. The ward was in the southwest of the city, curving along the route of the Ribble from Broadgate to the docklands, where the river eventually meets the Fylde coast, and ultimately

4320-527: The Indian Army for any potential war by reducing the size of fixed garrisons and reorganising it into two armies, to be commanded by Generals Sir Bindon Blood and George 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 "Kitchener of Khartoum" took up too much time and space – Kitchener commented on

4410-522: The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. Will those who would like to join apply here any afternoon or evening this week – the earlier the better." Within two days, 250 local men had volunteered for service, and the "Preston Businessmen and Clerks' Company" — officially ' D' Company, 7th (Service) Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment —, was formed. Three other companies making up the 7th (Service) Battalion were filled by Pals from Blackpool , Kirkham , and Chorley . The men were medically examined at

4500-438: The Middle East the Orient]. While in Egypt, Kitchener was initiated into Freemasonry in 1883 in the Italian-speaking La Concordia Lodge No. 1226, which met in Cairo. In November 1899 he was appointed the first District Grand Master of the District Grand Lodge of Egypt and the Sudan, under the United Grand Lodge of England . In 1896, the British Prime Minister , Lord Salisbury , was concerned with keeping France out of

4590-406: The Preston Pals was first proposed by Mr Cyril Cartmell, son of the Mayor of Preston, Councillor (later Sir) Harry Cartmell . On 31 August 1914, Cyril Cartmell placed the following advertisement in The Lancashire Daily Post : "It is proposed to form a Company of young businessmen, clerks, etc, to be drawn from Preston and the surrounding districts, and be attached, if practicable, to a battalion of

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4680-410: The Russian Emperor Nicholas II that the Franco-Russian alliance applied only to Europe, and that Russia would not go to war against Britain for the sake of an obscure fort in the Sudan in which no Russian interests were involved; and the possibility that Germany might take advantage of an Anglo-French war to strike France. Kitchener became Governor-General of the Sudan in September 1898, and began

4770-404: The Sahara in an epic trek from Dakar to the Nile. In November 1898, the crisis ended when the French agreed to withdraw from the Sudan. Several factors persuaded the French to back down. These included British naval superiority; the prospect of an Anglo-French war leading to the British gobbling up the entire French colonial empire after the defeat of the French Navy ; the pointed statement from

4860-513: The Sudan, the French would. He had supported Italy 's ambitions to conquer Ethiopia in the hope that the Italians would keep the French out of Ethiopia. The Italian attempt to conquer Ethiopia , however, was going very badly by early 1896, and ended with the Italians being annihilated at the Battle of Adowa in March 1896. In March 1896, with the Italians visibly failing and the Mahdist State threatening to conquer Italian Eritrea , Salisbury ordered Kitchener to invade northern Sudan, ostensibly for

4950-461: The United Kingdom in the SS Orotava on the same day. He received an enthusiastic welcome on his arrival the following month. Landing in Southampton on 12 July, he was greeted by the corporation, who presented him with the Freedom of the borough . In London, he was met at the train station by the Prince of Wales , drove in a procession through streets lined by military personnel from 70 different units and watched by thousands of people, and received

5040-406: 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

5130-532: The army and was Governor of Bermuda from 1908 to 1912. In 1874, aged 24, Kitchener was assigned by the Palestine Exploration Fund to a mapping-survey of the Holy Land , replacing Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake , who had died of malaria. By then an officer in the Royal Engineers , Kitchener joined fellow officer Claude R. Conder ; between 1874 and 1877 they surveyed Palestine, returning to England only briefly in 1875 after an attack by locals at Safed , in Galilee . Conder and Kitchener's expedition became known as

5220-399: The authority to act effectively on that perception, he organised the largest volunteer army that Britain had seen, and oversaw a significant expansion of material production to fight on the Western Front . Despite having warned of the difficulty of provisioning for a long war, he was blamed for the shortage of shells in the spring of 1915 – one of the events leading to the formation of

5310-432: The battle what the British journalist Mark Urban called a "mixed message", saying that mercy should be given, while at the same time saying "Remember Gordon" and that the enemy were all "murderers" of Gordon. The victory at Omdurman made Kitchener into a popular war hero, and gave him a reputation for efficiency and as a man who got things done. The journalist G. W. Steevens wrote in the Daily Mail that "He [Kitchener]

5400-456: The concentration camps. The biggest critic of the camps was the English humanitarian and welfare worker Emily Hobhouse . She published a prominent report that highlighted atrocities committed by Kitchener's soldiers and administration, creating considerable debate in London about the war. Kitchener blocked Hobhouse from returning to South Africa by invoking martial law provisions. Historian Caroline Elkins characterized Kitchener's conduct of

5490-421: The defeat of the conventional Boer forces, Kitchener succeeded Roberts as overall commander in November 1900. He was also promoted to lieutenant-general on 29 November 1900 and to local general on 12 December 1900. He subsequently inherited and expanded the successful strategies devised by Roberts to force the Boer commandos to submit, including concentration camps and the burning of farms. Conditions in

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5580-436: The entire war. Kitchener was born in Tarbert near Listowel , County Kerry , in Ireland , son of army officer Henry Horatio Kitchener (1805–1894) and Frances Anne Chevallier (1826–1864); daughter of John Chevallier , a clergyman, of Aspall Hall, and his third wife, Elizabeth ( née Cole). Both sides of Kitchener's family were from Suffolk , and could trace their descent to the reign of William III ; his mother's family

5670-406: The estate's owners by recalling the Irish names of many of the fields. Although sometimes labeled by military historians as Irish or Anglo-Irish (a group which provided a disproportionate number of senior British officers - see Irish military diaspora ), Kitchener did not regard himself as such and was known to quote the saying misattributed to the Duke of Wellington that "a man may be born in

5760-422: The football or cricket teams he had played with. The fact that the men had fought under the particular identity of the town meant their deaths were mourned not only by their families, but by the community as a whole. The 7th Battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment was in the order of battle for the first day of the Battle of the Somme , on 1 July 1916. The battalion was to take part in an assault against

5850-514: The former Port of Preston. The ward comprised three distinct areas; the former Docklands, now a shopping area and residential community, with new build apartments and housing overlooking the dock; Broadgate, the residential area built during the Industrial Revolution; and Christ Church, a community of traditional terraced housing. The ward contained the administrative headquarters of Lancashire County Council . Riversway returned three members to Preston City Council , elected 'in thirds' in first past

5940-438: The job himself as a stopgap following the resignation of Colonel Seely over the Curragh Incident earlier in 1914. Kitchener was in Britain on his annual summer leave, between 23 June and 3 August 1914, and had boarded a cross-Channel steamer to commence his return trip to Cairo when he was recalled to London to meet with Asquith. War was declared at 11pm the next day. Against cabinet opinion, Kitchener correctly predicted

6030-441: The man who had vanquished Gordon, asking whether it had been really necessary for Kitchener to desecrate the Mahdi's tomb. The body of the Mahdi was disinterred and beheaded. This symbolic decapitation echoed General Gordon's death at the hands of the Mahdist forces in 1885. The headless body of the Mahdi was thrown into the Nile. Kitchener is sometimes claimed to have kept the Mahdī's skull and rumoured that he intended to use it as

6120-484: The most enduring images of the war, having been copied and parodied many times since. Kitchener built up the " New Armies " as separate units because he distrusted the Territorials from what he had seen with the French Army in 1870. This may have been a mistaken judgement. The British reservists of 1914 tended to be much younger and fitter than their French equivalents a generation earlier. Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey wrote of Kitchener: The great outstanding fact

6210-401: The official day of rest, and guaranteed freedom of religion to all citizens of the Sudan. He attempted to prevent evangelical Christian missionaries from trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. At this stage of his career Kitchener was keen to exploit the press, cultivating G. W. Steevens of the Daily Mail who wrote a book With Kitchener to Khartum . Later, as his legend had grown, he

6300-479: The personal protection of the royals during the coronation. In this capacity, Kitchener was also the Field Marshal, In Command of the Troops, and assumed command of the 55,000 British and imperial soldiers present in London. During the Coronation ceremony itself, Kitchener acted as Third Sword, one of the four swords tasked with guarding the monarch. Later, in November 1911, Kitchener hosted the King and Queen in Port Said , Egypt while they were on their way to India for

6390-497: The pettiness of this (Curzon simply signed himself "Curzon" as a 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 . After what Curzon's most recent biographer described as "prolonged intrigue" and "deceitful methods", including correspondence which Kitchener asked

6480-660: The post elections each year. The ward formed part of the Lancashire County Council electoral division of Preston City. The ward was abolished for the 2019 Preston City Council election . The Docklands area was transferred to Ashton ward; areas east of the A582 Strand Road/Guild Way became part of the new City Centre ward. From the 2001 census, Riversway ward had a population of 5,823. Of this figure, just over half (53.9) described themselves as Christian. With 11% and 10% respectively,

6570-718: The purpose of distracting the Ansar (whom the British called " Dervishes ") from attacking the Italians. Kitchener won victories at the Battle of Ferkeh in June 1896 and the Battle of Hafir in September 1896, earning him national fame in the United Kingdom and promotion to major-general on 25 September 1896. Kitchener's cold personality and his tendency to drive his men hard made him widely disliked by his fellow officers. One officer wrote about Kitchener in September 1896: "He

6660-495: The recipients to destroy after reading, the Commander-in-Chief won the crucial support of the government in London, and the Viceroy had no option but 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 offices of Commander-in-Chief and Military Member were now held by a single individual, senior officers could approach only

6750-419: The spot in Market Place where the Preston Pals first paraded before heading for Preston railway station . Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener ( / ˈ k ɪ tʃ ɪ n ər / ; 24 June 1850 – 5 June 1916) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator. Kitchener came to prominence for his imperial campaigns, his involvement in

6840-470: 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 Indian Councils Act 1909 , for a serving soldier to be Viceroy (in the event, no serving soldier was appointed Viceroy until Lord Wavell in 1943, during

6930-458: The title of chief of staff, he was in practice a second-in-command and was present at the relief of Kimberley before leading an unsuccessful frontal assault at the Battle of Paardeberg in February 1900. Kitchener was mentioned in despatches from Roberts several times during the early part of the war; in a despatch from March 1900 Roberts wrote how he was "greatly indebted to him for his counsel and cordial support on all occasions". Following

7020-427: The tread of horses and men's feet I heard and seemed to feel as well as hear, but a voiced continuous shouting and chanting-the Dervish invocation and battle challenge "Allah e Allah Rasool Allah el Mahdi!" they reiterated in vociferous rising measure, as they swept over the intervening ground". Kitchener had the ground carefully studied so that his officers would know the best angle of fire, and had his army open fire on

7110-522: The war as a " scorched earth policy", as his forces razed homesteads, poisoned wells and implemented concentration camps, as well as turned women and children into targets in the war. The Treaty of Vereeniging ending the war was signed in May 1902 following a tense six months. During this period Kitchener struggled against the Governor of the Cape Colony ( Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner ), and against

7200-582: Was James Collier Nickeas. He died in 1986, in a Barrow hospital, aged 93. His father once ran the Alexandra ballroom and cinema in Walker Street, Preston. The Preston Pals are commemorated by a memorial tablet at Preston railway station , from where they left Preston for training on 7 September 1914. A war memorial was raised up in 1926 to commemorate Preston's dead in the Great War. It overlooks

7290-565: Was a Master of Expedients". At the War Council (5 August) Kitchener and Lieutenant General Sir Douglas Haig argued that the BEF should be deployed at Amiens , where it could deliver a vigorous counterattack once the route of German advance was known. Kitchener argued that the deployment of the BEF in Belgium would result in having to retreat and abandon much of its supplies almost immediately, because

7380-635: Was able to be rude to the press, on one occasion in the Second Boer War bellowing: "Get out of my way, you drunken swabs". He was created Baron Kitchener , of Khartoum and of Aspall in the County of Suffolk , on 31 October 1898. During the Second Boer War , Kitchener arrived in South Africa with Field Marshal Lord Roberts on the RMS Dunottar Castle along with massive British reinforcements in December 1899. Officially holding

7470-513: Was always inclined to bully his own entourage, as some men are rude to their wives. He was inclined to let off his spleen on those around him. He was often morose and silent for hours together ... he was even morbidly afraid of showing any feeling or enthusiasm, and he preferred to be misunderstood rather than be suspected of human feeling." Kitchener had served on the Wolseley expedition to rescue General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum, and

7560-622: Was convinced that the expedition failed because Wolseley had used boats coming up the Nile to bring his supplies. Kitchener wanted to build a railroad to supply the Anglo-Egyptian army, and assigned the task of constructing the Sudan Military Railroad to a Canadian railroad builder, Percy Girouard , for whom he had specifically asked. Kitchener achieved further successes at the Battle of Atbara in April 1898, and then

7650-540: Was extended by two years in 1907. Kitchener was promoted to the highest Army rank, field marshal , on 10 September 1909 and went on a tour of Australia and New Zealand . 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

7740-449: Was going to command the Army in France he would see them damned first". He was created Earl Kitchener , of Khartoum and of Broome in the County of Kent , on 29 June 1914. During this period he became a proponent of Scouting and coined the phrase "once a Scout, always a Scout". At the outset of the First World War , the prime minister, Asquith, quickly had Kitchener appointed Secretary of State for War ; Asquith had been filling

7830-688: Was nicknamed "no More K", and concentrated on establishing good relations with the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge . Kitchener presided over the Rawalpindi Parade in 1905 to honour the Prince and Princess of Wales's visit to India. That same year Kitchener founded the Indian Staff College at Quetta (now the Pakistan Command and Staff College ), where his portrait still hangs. His term of office as Commander-in-Chief, India,

7920-590: Was of French Huguenot descent. His father had only recently sold his commission and bought land in Ireland, under the Encumbered Estates Act of 1849 designed to encourage investment into Ireland after the Irish Famine . In later life Kitchener only once revisited his childhood home, in the summer of 1910 at the invitation of Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne ; he astonished

8010-582: Was promoted to brevet colonel on 11 April 1888 and to the substantive rank of major on 20 July 1889 and led the Egyptian cavalry at the Battle of Toski in August 1889. At the beginning of 1890 he was appointed Inspector General of the Egyptian police 1888–92 before moving to the position of Adjutant-General of the Egyptian Army in December of the same year and Sirdar (Commander-in-Chief) of

8100-614: Was the first member of Orchard Methodist Church to become a casualty in the war. He had formerly worked for Merigold Brothers in the Old Vicarage. Lieutenant Harold Fazackerly, of Ashton , won the Military Cross and Bar before being killed in action in August 1916. Lieutenant Horace J. Lancaster, of Penwortham , also won the Military Cross. One of the last surviving members of the Preston Pals who served in France

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