ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the varied reactions to Kitchener's death and the impressive scale of commemorative activity arranged in response to it, during and immediately following the war. Shock and grief at the news of Kitchener's death in 1916 was, mixed with disbelief and anger. Disbelief was a natural psychological reaction to the loss of a larger than life figure and tells us something about the mindset of much of the population during the war. Kitchener's death could not be accidental or due to circumstance; it could only be explained by treachery which, persisted and developed into wilder and more far-fetched conspiracy explanations after the war. Indeed, as John Wolffe notes, the amount of news coverage given Kitchener's death is striking when juxtaposed to the long lists of the war dead in the same news sources. As the Memorial Chapel in St Paul's and the Kitchener School of Medicine in Khartoum were now completed and permanent monuments to Kitchener's memory.
