History Glossary

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Kitchener, Herbert Horatio
a southern Irish Protestant who had a distinguished military career in India, the Sudan and South Africa. In 1914, when he was a Field-Marshal and a peer of the realm, he was appointed Secretary of State for War. His portrait was on posters encouraging men to join the British armed forces against Germany. He died in 1916 when a cruiser he was on board struck a German mine.

Kitchener’s new armies
The United Kingdom was the only European state without conscription in 1914. Kitchener headed a campaign to raise volunteer recruits needed to fight on the Western Front in particular. Unionists were given their own division, the 36th (Ulster) Division, by Kitchener and the UVF was incorporated almost intact into it. Kitchener refused the Irish Volunteers their own division, though very many of them joined the 16th Division.