(1) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The British Campaigns in Europe: 1914-1918 (1928)

Kitchener grew very arrogant. He had flashes of genius but was usually stupid. He could not see any use in Munitions. He was against tanks. He was against Welsh and Irish divisions. But he was a great force in recruiting. Asquith said of him, "he is not a great man. He is a great poster."

 

(2) In his book Margin Released, J. B. Priestley described meeting Lord Kitchener in 1915.

I had a close view, finding him older and greyer than the familiar pictures of him. The image I retained was of a rather bloated purplish face and glaring but somehow jellied eyes. A year later, when we heard he had been drowned, I felt no grief, for it did not seem to me that a man had lost his life: I saw only a heavy shape, its face now an idol's going down and down into the northern sea. yet it was he - and he alone - who had raised us new soldiers out of the ground.

 

(3) Lord Northcliffe, Daily Mail (21st May, 1915)

Lord Kitchener has starved the army in France of high-explosive shells. The admitted fact is that Lord Kitchener ordered the wrong kind of shell - the same kind of shell which he used largely against the Boers in 1900. He persisted in sending shrapnel - a useless weapon in trench warfare. He was warned repeatedly that the kind of shell required was a violently explosive bomb which would dynamite its way through the German trenches and entanglements and enable our brave men to advance in safety. This kind of shell our poor soldiers have had has caused the death of thousands of them.

 

(4) Charles Repington, diary entry (9th June, 1916)

The torpedoing or mining of the Hampshire, and the drowning of nearly every one on board, including Lord Kitchener, O'Beirne, and FitzGerald, is a great tragedy. They were on their way to Russia, and were blown up off the Orkneys. The news came while many of our friends were selling at a bazaar in the Caledonian Market, and the women of the East End shed tears at the news. We hoped against hope, but no doubt now remains. A great figure gone. The services which he rendered in the early days of the war cannot be forgotten. They transcend those of all the lesser men who were his colleagues, some few of whom envied his popularity. His old manner of working alone did not consort with the needs of this huge syndicalism, modern war. The thing was too big. He made many mistakes. He was not a good Cabinet man. His methods did not suit a democracy. But there he was, towering above the others in character as in inches, by far the most popular man in the country to the end, and a firm rock which stood out amidst the raging tempest.