 The Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, was sympathetic to Kitchener but was unwilling to overrule Morley, who threatened resignation, so Kitchener was finally turned down for the post of Viceroy of India in 1911.In June 1911 Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General in Egypt during the formal reign of Abbas Hilmi II as Khedive.At the time of the Agadir Crisis (summer 1911), Kitchener told the Committee of Imperial Defence that he expected the Germans to walk through the French “like partridges” and he informed Lord Esher “that if they imagined that he was going to command the Army in France he would see them damned first”.