In December, the battalion was present at the Battle of Magersfontein, and the following year took part in the march to take the Boer capitals of Bloemfontein and Pretoria.

[13] In October 1911 he was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel while assigned to the personal staff of the governor general of Canada, becoming his military secretary.

[14] In October 1913, on the eve of the First World War, and having reverted to major upon relinquishing his previous assignment, he was promoted to the substantive rank of lieutenant colonel and became commanding officer (CO) of the 1st Battalion, Scots Guards, succeeding Colonel Frederick James Heyworth.

Promoted to brevet colonel in February 1915,[16] he then commanded the 1st (Guards) Brigade, 1st Division, which was broken up in August 1915, and in September he succeeded Major General Sir William Lambton as military secretary at the general headquarters (GHQ) of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France.

[citation needed] He had married late, on 28 June 1920, to Dorothy Maude Isabel Harvey, a widow of Gordon Bois.