"In the first place, don't be slack in anything that you are doing. Whether it be work or play, do it with all your might. You will find that this great Empire can only be maintained by the exercise of self-denial, by training, by discipline, and by courage."
IMPORTANT DATES IN ROBERTS'S LIFE
1832. September 30. Frederick Roberts born. 1845. Entered Eton School. 1847. Entered military college at Sandhurst. 1852. Went as second-lieutenant of Bengal Artillery to India. 1857. Fought in the Mutiny, and won Victoria Cross. 1858. Returned to England on leave. 1859. Sent back to India, major. 1875. Quartermaster-general of Army of India. 1885. Commander-in-chief in India. 1891. Created a peer. 1895. Created field marshal. 1900. South African campaign. 1901. Commander-in-chief of British army. 1914. November 14. Died in France.
KITCHENER
THE SOLDIER OF DEEDS—NOT WORDS
When Chinese Gordon lost his life in Khartoum, Egypt, in 1884, because the British relief force reached him two days too late, a young officer accompanying the expedition was getting his first glimpse of a land that was destined to make him famous. "Kitchener of Khartoum" was to become as widely known in a later generation as Chinese Gordon was in his own. Each won his spurs in a foreign land.
Kitchener was then a cavalry officer of thirty-five, and did not seem destined to get much higher in army circles. Yet he had never lost faith in himself. After this first expedition to Egypt, when he was still only a major, he remarked drolly to a fellow officer:
"Never mind, my dear fellow, a few years hence you and I will be generals, and these people who annoy us now (meaning the red-tape departmental clerks) will be looking out of their club windows, with all their teeth falling out of their heads!"
During this same expedition, he spoke of the fact that their commanding officer had missed the key-point, by saying:
"It's the same with everybody. We must stop floundering, or people will forget that Khartoum is our objective and always will be."