Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC was an Irish-born senior British Army officer and colonial administrator. Kitchener came to prominence for his imperial campaigns, his scorched earth policy against the Boers, his expansion of Lord Roberts' concentration camps during the Second Boer War and his central role in the early part of the First World War.
Kitchener was credited in 1898 for winning the Battle of Omdurman and securing control of the Sudan for which he was made Baron Kitchener of Khartoum. As Chief of Staff 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 civilians in concentration camps. His term as Commander-in-Chief of 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.
In 1914, at the start of the First World War, Kitchener became Secretary of State for War, a Cabinet Minister.