By this time the family had moved into a more pretentious home, known as the Crotta House. Little is related of his boyhood life there. It was quiet and uneventful. The boy was of reserved nature, preferring to sit quietly in the corner and listen while others did the talking. Yet when drawn out, he could talk well, preferring to reason rather than argue. His chief outdoor sport was swimming. The home was only a few miles inland from the Atlantic coast, and he and his brothers often rode over for a dip.
His father was of industrious and thorough-going type. The family motto was "Thorough," and the Colonel lived up to it. "K. of K." also became a master of detail; and here on his father's estate he learned his first lessons in it. Colonel Kitchener constantly preached the value of time—and practised what he preached. Instead of settling down to a life of ease, he was always at work on the estate. He reclaimed large tracts of bogs, turning them into fertile land. He raised breed horses and cattle. He set up his own factory for making bricks, tiles, and drain-pipes. His own life of energy and organization was the best possible example to his boys. That Herbert, with all his apparent indolence, was profiting by it, became evident years afterward.
When the boy was fifteen, his father determined on a complete change of environment for him. "I want you to see something else besides Ireland," he said. Herbert was accordingly sent to Switzerland, to a French school conducted by a Mr. Bennett. It was in Villeneuve, at the eastern end of Lake Geneva. In this scenic spot of Europe he remained for some four years, paying occasional visits home, but becoming more and more a cosmopolitan, instead of merely a shy Irish lad. He learned to speak French like a native, and got a start in German and Italian. Languages always came easy to him.
Meanwhile he trudged about the mountain country on many a long excursion, with a camera slung across his shoulders, learning an art that he was soon to put to good use. Thanks to this outdoor life he grew up into a strong, well-built fellow, with a physique that was to stand the test of many hard days to come.
His father wanted him to follow in his own footsteps and become a soldier. He used his influence to place him in the Royal Military Academy, at Woolwich. Herbert entered there as a cadet, in his nineteenth year.
Two years later, while still a cadet, we find him getting his foretaste of actual warfare. It was the summer of 1870. War had been declared by France against Prussia—the short but terrible war so skilfully engineered by Bismarck. Herbert Kitchener had gone to spend a summer vacation with his father, at Dinan in the north of France, and promptly got imbued with the war fever. He enlisted in a battalion, in the Second Army of the Loire, commanded by General Chanzy. This army, like other well-intentioned but poorly organized troops of the French, was driven steadily back by the superior German forces, until the enemy bombarded and captured Paris.
It is interesting to note that Kitchener's first and last military service was on behalf of the French against their hereditary enemies—and that history came dangerously near to repeating itself in the German drive of 1914 against Paris. That it did not do so, was due in no small measure to the grim veteran who was now Secretary of War, and to his wonderful army of volunteers, dubbed "Kitchener's Mob."
Whether or not Kitchener did any actual close-up fighting in these early days we do not know. One novel experience, however, is placed to his credit. He made an ascent in an observation balloon, with two French officers. In those days, the big bags were risky and unknown quantities, and an ascent was something to talk about.
The ill-starred war over, young Kitchener returned to Woolwich, and his school duties as though nothing special had happened.
"Why did you go off and join the French army?" he was asked by the commandant.