"No I think he offered to tender his resignation, no letter of resignation was ever written"
Of course this was the case; it may have been a short cut on my part to say he resigned - of course he didn't - he was not allowed to for the good of the war effort.
The principle remains the same - his incompetence led to his position being untenable - the Government decided that his actual resignation would be detrimental to the War, so he stayed where he was.
All this was covered by Lloyd George's attacks on Kitchener - all statements at the time of the events were political and military face-saving, just as the present defence of Kitchener as the saviour of the war is word-juggling semantics.
Jim Carroll