The Man Who Killed Kitchener

In June 1916, Field Marshal Lord Kitchener set sail from Orkney on a secret mission to bolster the Russian war effort. Just a mile off land and in the teeth of a force 9 gale, HMS Hampshire suffered a huge explosion, sinking in little more than fifteen minutes. Crew and passengers numbered 749; only twelve survived. Kitchener's body was never found. Remembered today as the face of the famous First World War recruitment drive, at the height of his career Kitchener was fêted as Britain's greatest military hero since Wellington. By 1916, however, his star was in its descent. A controversial figure who did not make friends easily in Cabinet, he was considered by many to be arrogant, secretive and high-handed. From the moment his death was announced, rumours of a conspiracy began to flourish, with the finger pointed variously at the Bolsheviks, Irish nationalist saboteurs and even the British government. Using newly released files kept secret for almost 100 years, former Cabinet minister David Laws unravels the true story behind the demise of this complex figure, debunking the conspiracy theories and revealing the crucial blunders that the government and military sought to cover up. The result is the definitive account of an event that shook the country and which has been shrouded in mystery ever since.

Lord Kitchener and Lord Haig are two monumental figures of the First World War. Their reputations, both in their lifetimes and after their deaths, have been attacked and defended, scrutinized and contested. They have been depicted in film, print and public memorials in Britain and the wider world, and new biographies of both men appear to this day. The material representations of Haig and Kitchener were shaped, used and manipulated for official and popular ends by a variety of groups at different times during the twentieth century. The purpose of this study is not to discover the real individual, nor to attack or defend their reputations, rather it is an exploration of how both men have been depicted since their deaths and to consider what this tells us about the nature and meaning of First World War commemoration. While Haig's representation was more contested before the Second World War than was Kitchener's, with several constituencies trying to fashion and use Haig's memory - the Government, the British Legion, ex-servicemen themselves, and bereaved families - it was probably less contested, but overwhelmingly more negative, than Kitchener's after the Second World War. The book sheds light on the notion of 'heroic' masculinity - questioning, in particular, the degree to which the image of the common soldier replaced that of the high commander in the popular imagination - and explores how the military heritage in the twentieth century came into collision with the culture of modernity. It also contributes to ongoing debates in British historiography and to the larger debates over the social construction of memory, the problematic relation between what is considered 'heritage' and 'history', and the need for historians to be sensitive and attentive to the interconnections between heritage and history and their contexts.

Some historians contend that femininity was "disrupted, constructed and reconstructed" during World War I, but what happened to masculinity? Using the evidence of letters, diaries, and oral histories of members of the military and of civilians, as well as contemporary photographs and government propoganda, Dismembering the Male explores the impact of the First World War on the male body. Each chapter explores a different facet of the war and masculinity in depth. Joanna Bourke discovers that those who were dismembered and disabled by the war were not viewed as passive or weak, like their civilian counterparts, but were the focus of much government and public sentiment. Those suffering from disease were viewed differently, often finding themselves accused of malingering. Joanna Bourke argues convincingly that military experiences led to a greater sharing of gender identities between men of different classes and ages. Dismembering the Male concludes that ultimately, attempts to reconstruct a new type of masculinity failed as the threat of another war, and with it the sacrifice of a new generation of men, intensified.

In Kitchener's Men John Hutton provides a absorbing account of the raising, training and fighting experiences of the Service and Territorial battalions of the Kings Own Royal Lancasters in France during the Great War. His book gives a graphic insight into the daily routine and grim reality of warfare on the Western Front for men who were mostly recruited from the Furness area of the northwest. They came from the steel mills, shipyards and engineering workshops of this heavily industrialized part of Britain. They responded to the call to defend their country and its values at a critical moment in the nations history, and the endured incredible hardship, suffering and violence as a result. All together, these battalions of the King's Own took part in every major campaign on the Western Front from the spring of 1915 until the end of the war. They had a remarkable record, and John Hutton's meticulously researched history allows the reader to follow them through every phase of the fighting. His account makes compelling reading.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl of Khartoum and of Broome, was Britain's last great military hero, a legend in his own time, and in ours. His face became known to millions before his death in 1916 because it appeared on the recruiting posters of World War I over the caption 'Your Country Needs You', part of a campaign he'd been called upon to undertake in order to build up the British Army for World War I. ... Kitchener's ambition was all for his country, and his travels as surveyor for the army in many foreign countries had made him believe that British influence was good, and that the strengthening and extension of the British influence was essential for world harmony. It was a crowning moment when he was asked to return to Britain as Secretary of State of War. ... His untimely death in 1916 .. stunned the nation. In this lucid and exceptionally readable book, written with the full consent of Kitchener's family, Philip Warner tells a story ... of a man who had an astonishingly highly developed sense of duty, even for a Victorian; who enjoyed popularity, yet never sought it; and whose self-discipline, instilled in him very early on, never left him, even in the moments before his tragic death.--Book jacket.

Anthony Sattin illuminates the passions and intrigues of an extraordinary cast of characters in Egypt. Ever since the first intrepid European explorers ventured up the Nile, an eclectic crowd of tourists, soldiers, fortune-seekers, tomb-raiders and empire-builders has travelled to Egypt. Whether sparked by its rich history and compelling landscapes, the elusive ruins of a once-magnificent civilisation or the country's strategic importance in world politics, the west's fascination with Egypt has flourished over the past two centuries. From Florence Nightingale to Lord Nelson, Giovanni Belzoni to Howard Carter, Somerset Maugham to E.M. Forster and Gustave Flaubert to Noel Coward, they scrambled up the pyramids, floated down the Nile, partied on the terrace of Shepheard's Hotel, plotted, ransacked, lived, loved and were forever changed by their experience - as Egypt was by them. Lifting the Veil is a fast-paced narrative, richly adorned with gossip, anecdote and adventure.

Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography blends what we already know of the great sleuth's career with carefully documented social history to answer the questions admirers have long puzzled over. Nick Rennison reveals for the first time Holmes's influence on the political events of late 19th-century England and his connections to the British criminal underworld. It also brings to light his close friendships with key figures of the day, including Oscar Wilde and Sigmund Freud, and exposes the truth about his cocaine use.

In the early days of the First World War, Lord Kitchener made his famous appeal for volunteers to join the New Army. Men flocked to recruiting offices to enlist, and on some days tens of thousands of potential soldiers responded to his call. Men had to be at least eighteen years old to join up, and nineteen to serve overseas, but in the flurry of activity many younger boys came to enlist: some were only thirteen or fourteen. Many were turned away, but a lot were illegally conscripted, and as many as 250,000 underage boys found themselves fighting for King and Country in the First World War. Over half would never return home. In this groundbreaking new book, John Oakes - whose own father-in-law walked out of the Welsh valleys to join the Royal Navy at the age of fourteen - delves into the complex history of Britain's youngest Great War recruits. Focusing on the recruitment crisis of 1914, he reveals why boys joined up, what their experiences were and how they survived to endure a lifetime of memories. For those who didn't, an unknown grave awaited, and in some cases their mothers never knew what had become of their children.