On this day twenty-four years ago the British Empire stood aghast at the news of the death of Lord Kitchener, the man who in effect, by his realization of the character of the struggle which commenced in 1914, did so much to ensure the Allied victory. It was he who warned the nation that the war would last a long time, and he who did so much to put the Empire in a position to carry on the struggle he foresaw. It was early in May, 1916, that the Tsar urged that Kitchener should be sent to Russia, promising that his counsel would be taken to the full even if it meant the transfer of certain controls into British hands. The consent of King George V was obtained, and it was decided that Lord Kitchener should embark at Scapa Flow on June 5 for Archangel. He was asked to examine throughly the whole Russian situation: he was given a free hand to make arrangements and conditions which he thought advisable; he was to use all the influence he had already acquired with the Tsar and the Russian military authorities to set Russia's military house in order, and was asked to return to England with all speed. On the afternoon of June 5 he embarked in H.M.S.
Hampshire. It now appears that an unswept channel was chosen for his passage, and that under stress of weather the Hampshire's escort of destroyers turned back leaving the vessel with her priceless treasure to steam on to her doom. Then "the same electrical impulse which the next morning proclaimed Kitchener's death produced an emotional current so intense as to lack precedent or parallel. For a moment it seemed as if a hush had fallen "as universal as it was profound, and when the hush was broken there was exposed in full the sway which Kitchener had established over the hearts and minds of all sorts and conditions of men, and that the one man in England, who had taken the least pains to win popularity, was the hero of many peoples." A week later King George V and his Consort passed through throngs in and around St. Paul's Cathedral to a simple service of hymn and prayer, while at two mile intervals from the sea to the Somme, British soldiers bade a vale to the great soldier. And throughout the world where two or three Britons were gathered together, the name of a great Briton was commemorated. Now to the north of the west entrance of St. Paul's in a small chapel of white marble before an altar, flanked with solid silver candlesticks, lies the recumbent statue of the great leader, all as beautiful in its conception as the man was great in his life. It is well to remember him in such days as these, for it was his great, and courageous leadership which heartened the Allies during the most desperate periods of the last war, and to give thanks that Britain is still the birthplace of great men devoted to the cause of the Empire.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.