Field Marshal the Earl of Cavan: Soldier and Fox Hunter

By Michael Senior

Field Marshal Lord Cavan (1865-1946) was one of the most distinguished commanders of the modern British army, but he divided opinion among his contemporaries. Some senior soldiers were disdainful. Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson described him as ‘ignorant, pompous and vain’ and Brigadier General Sir James Edward Edmonds commented that Cavan ‘was bone from the neck upwards’. Yet many of Cavan’s subordinates praised him, saying ‘I had never seen Lord Cavan before and I was filled with admiration by the calm and quiet self-confidence of his manner’ and ‘Our new General, Lord Cavan, is simply A1 and the whole show runs like a well-oiled machine.’

So what were the real qualities and achievements of this remarkable but hitherto neglected officer who in a long career served in the Boer War and the First World War and then presided over the post-war reduction of the British army? Michael Senior, in the first full biography of Cavan, assesses him as a leader, a corps commander and an administrator, and places him among the front rank of the soldiers of his generation. He also explores Cavan’s personal life, his personality and how his aristocratic background, his wealth and his love of fox hunting affected his conduct in both war and peace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Jul 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781526758194

Michael Senior

Dr Michael Senior has had a life-long interest in the First World War and, since his retirement, he has devoted much of his time to research, lecturing and writing about aspects of the Western Front. He has had articles published by the Western Front Association of which he is a member. His books include Fromelles 1916, Haking: A Dutiful Soldier and Victory on the Western Front: The Development of the British Army 1914-1918.

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Introduction

Cavan – A Conundrum

The military career of Field Marshal the Lord Cavan presents a conundrum: what was it about Cavan’s generalship on the Western Front (1914–1917) and in Italy (1917–1919) that gained widespread praise and commendation while other British senior commanders of the First World War, almost without exception, have attracted a torrent of criticism and disapproval?

Cavan rose from being a subaltern in the Grenadier Guards (1885) to become an army commander (1918). While it took twenty-seven years (1885–1912) to rise in rank from lieutenant to colonel, a not unusual rate of progression¹, it took only four years (1914–1918) to move through the ranks of brigadier general, major general and lieutenant general to become a temporary general in command of the Tenth Army in Italy. In 1914 most of the BEF generals who were to become army commanders already held the rank of major general (Allenby, Birdwood, Byng, Gough, Horne, Monro and Rawlinson), while Haig and Plumer were lieutenant generals and Smith-Dorrien was a full general. Even allowing for the expansion of the British Army in the period 1914–1918, Cavan’s rise was rapid.²

Moreover, his progress through the senior officer ranks was accompanied by a stream of praise from all quarters for his military accomplishments. In November 1914 Captain F.S. Garwood wrote of Cavan: ‘I was filled with admiration by the calm and quiet self-confidence of his manner. Here stood a man whose mere presence seemed equivalent to a brigade.’³ Field Marshal French, the first commander of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914, commented that Cavan had ‘a marvellous influence’ on those under him, and that he served ‘with the utmost gallantry and success’.⁴ In July 1915 Major Herbert Trevor of the 50th Division, who in his letters home frequently passed critical judgement on his superior officers, commented about Cavan, then a major general: ‘Our new General … is simply A1 and the whole show runs like a well-oiled machine. He knows exactly what he wants and says so, which is a most delightful change from the past eleven months.’⁵ Also writing in 1915, General Horne considered Cavan ‘a most excellent commander and a very nice man indeed … in whom I have perfect confidence’.⁶ When the Guards Division left XI Corps in February 1916 Lieutenant General Haking said of Cavan that he was an officer ‘who had so greatly distinguished himself on every occasion’.⁷ In August 1916, when the question of a successor to Sir Charles Monro of the First Army was being discussed, Sir William Robertson, CIGS, wrote that he had ‘the highest opinion of Cavan and should myself select him’ – although General Horne was later appointed.⁸ In 1917 H.P. Croft, who had served in the Hertfordshire Regiment, described Cavan as

one of those exceptional personalities who gave confidence from the first moment you meet him, but unlike most famous Generals and Admirals he makes you feel his friendship at once and you realise that you are dealing with a very human man … a very unusual type of soldier, master of hounds, statesman, leader and friend all rolled into one.⁹

After the Italian defeat at Caporetto, the War Cabinet instructed Haig to send two divisions to Italy under ‘a good man’. Haig selected the 23rd and 41st Divisions and appointed Cavan to command them.¹⁰ Shortly after Cavan’s transfer to Italy, the Guards Division, which had remained in France, was involved in a disastrous attack at Fontaine Notre Dame. This prompted Captain Dundas of the 1st Scots Guards to comment: ‘Would to God we could have Cavan back!’¹¹ Lord Derby considered Cavan ‘a first class soldier’.¹² General Diaz, the commander-in-chief of the Italian Army, praised Cavan as an ‘illustrious leader’. These numerous and glowing testimonies from Cavan’s contemporaries were summed up in the words of one commentator whose opinion was that Cavan ‘hardly put a foot wrong throughout the war’.¹³

Comments from historians have supported the view that Cavan was a highly competent commander. Sheffield and Todman wrote that he was ‘one of the outstanding Corps Commanders of the war’.¹⁴ Richard Holmes noted with approval that Cavan was ‘one of the few Corps Commanders who was known by name to more than divisional commanders’.¹⁵ Commenting on Cavan’s efforts to improve the operational skills of his troops, John Terraine wrote that ‘XIV Corps was very well instructed’.¹⁶ And Rudyard Kipling recorded the feelings of the Irish Guards when Cavan was transferred to the 50th Division in June 1915: ‘They had known and loved him as a man who understood their difficulties, who bore his share, and more, of their hardships, and whose sympathy, unsparing devotion, and, above all, abounding cheery common-sense, had carried them at every turn.’¹⁷

It should also be remembered that, apart from receiving numerous international decorations and awards, faith in Cavan’s ability was demonstrated by the support he received from those in the highest offices of state. It was Sir John French, the commander of the BEF, who asked that Cavan should be placed in command of the 4th Guards Brigade in 1914. Lord Kitchener, as Secretary of State for War, chose Cavan to lead the newly formed Guards Division in 1915 – a decision supported by HM the King. The Prince of Wales was put under Cavan’s care on the Western Front and in Italy. Winston Churchill, when he was temporarily absent from political office in 1915, was placed with Cavan on the Western Front. Cavan had close contacts with the royal family both socially and officially. He was selected by the King to be his aide-de-camp (general) in 1920, and in 1926 Cavan acted as chief of staff during the Duke and Duchess of York’s tour of New Zealand and Australia. In July 1929, when Cavan was appointed Captain of the Gentlemen at Arms, the King made it clear that the selection was ‘entirely his own’ and that Cavan was ‘his servant and not the Government’s’.¹⁸ The prime minister, Lloyd George, supported Cavan’s appointment as Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1922.

Such praise and evidence of respect for a senior army commander from royalty, politicians and officers of all ranks, through the whole period of the war and afterwards, was by no means common – quite the reverse. British generals of the First World War have long been the subject of controversy and even demonisation. They have been described as donkeys, boneheads, butchers and bunglers.¹⁹ Criticism of the way in which they fought the war, particularly on the Western Front, has been relentless. It began in earnest towards the end of the 1920s and into the 1930s, when both Lloyd George and Winston Churchill published their memoirs roundly condemning the conduct of the war. In 1927 Churchill criticised the BEF offensives on the Somme (1916) and at Passchendaele (1917) and was particularly scathing about the large casualty lists: ‘What is the sense of attacking only to be defeated; or ‘‘wearing down the enemy’’ by being worn down more than twice as fast?’ Commenting on the allied generals, Churchill wrote of ‘the inadequacy of unity and leadership’.²⁰ Lloyd George also criticised the generals: ‘They were not equipped with that superiority of brains or experience over an amateur … Their brains were cluttered with useless lumber, packed in every niche and quarter … They knew nothing except by hearsay about the actual fighting of a battle under modern conditions.’²¹

That serious doubts existed, even within the army, about the conduct and abilities of many of its senior commanders is shown by the frequent dismissals (‘degumming’) of members of that group on the grounds of incompetence of one kind or another. The most senior officers removed from their posts included Lieutenant General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, who was sent back to England in 1915 by FM Sir John French allegedly because of his pessimistic assessment of the situation at Ypres. Considered out of his depth, Sir John French was himself removed at the end of 1915 and replaced by Sir Douglas Haig. General Sir Edmund Allenby was considered a failure in 1917 and was demoted to become the commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in Palestine. General Sir Hubert Gough was ‘degummed’ by Haig following the collapse of the Fifth Army in March 1918, and in the same month Lieutenant General Sir Frederick McCracken was sent home because he was considered weak and lazy. Haig seriously considered dismissing General Sir Herbert Plumer in February 1916 for an inadequate defence system in front of Ypres and it is likely that Prime Minister Lloyd George would have dismissed Haig in 1918 if he could have found a suitable replacement. Among the major generals, Sir Edward Montagu-Stuart-Wortley was sent home in 1916 and Sir Robert Fanshawe was dismissed by Cavan in 1918. At the other end of the hierarchy of generals – at brigadier general level – Haig commented that ‘he had sent home more than a hundred brigadiers’. A bizarre situation arose in April 1917. A battalion commander, Colonel F. Rayner, was dismissed by his brigadier general, E.W.S.K. Maconchy, who was himself ‘degummed’ by Major General A.E. Sandbach, who was also sent home. They all travelled back to England on the same cross-Channel boat.²²

Criticism of the BEF senior commanders has long continued. In 1979 the historian John Keegan referred to ‘that hideously unattractive group, the British Generals of the First World War’.²³ In August 1983 a contributor to the Western Front Association publication Stand To! expressed his opinion of BEF commanders with some feeling: ‘an inefficient, incapable, inconsiderate, callous gang of morons called Generals’. An eminent historian wrote in 1994 that at the beginning of the war ‘the higher commanders were not adequate to the task’ and that ‘leadership problems at the high command level … plagued the British Army throughout the war’.²⁴ An article in the Daily Telegraph of 29 July 2009 complained of ‘the terrible and futile sacrifice’ of the war and of the ‘incompetent generalship’. These extremely negative views of First World War generals have been reinforced in the minds of the British public by many of the war poems written, for example, by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon during the war and by popular entertainments such as Oh, What a Lovely War (1963) and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989). Field Marshal Haig, who led the BEF from 1916 to 1919, has particularly been accused of gross incompetence and of being callous with the lives of his troops. Such has been the venom directed against Haig that in November 1998, the eightieth anniversary of the end of the war, a campaign was launched to remove his statue from Whitehall. All in all, history has not been kind to First World War generals.

However, it defies probability that all the British generals performed incompetently all the time. Rawlinson can be said to have performed less than well in the early days of the Somme, but he received praise for his work in 1918. Byng had success at Vimy, but suffered a major reverse at Cambrai. Plumer, nearly dismissed in February 1916, was responsible for the major victory at Messines in 1917. Allenby was removed from the Western Front in 1917 because of the failure of the Battle of Arras, but was conspicuously successful in Palestine. Gough did well in the early months of the war and his Reserve Army bore the brunt of the final days of the Somme, yet he was sent home in disgrace after the collapse of the Fifth Army in 1918. Although Cavan did not command an army until the final stages of the war, it can be said that, in terms of consistency of praise and promotion, he fared considerably better than most other generals.

While Cavan gained an impressive amount of praise throughout his career as a senior officer, he did not entirely escape some critical comment. In 1918, when in command of the British Army in Italy, he was considered as a possible replacement for FM Haig in France. But Maurice Hankey, Secretary to the War Cabinet, carried out an interview and reported negatively on the grounds that Cavan had no idea of how to deal a fatal blow to the Austrians.²⁵ Major General J.F.C. Fuller, referring to a period during which Cavan was CIGS, considered that ‘the British Government and General Staff went to sleep for twenty years and not until Hitler was thundering against Poland did they wake up’.²⁶ Fuller also criticised Cavan as being ‘about eight hundred years out of date’ because he prevented the publication of Fuller’s book on the mechanisation of the army.²⁷ The author Francis Mackay, writing about Cavan in Italy, was unable to say anything more favourable than ‘sound if stolid’.²⁸ When, in late 1921, discussions began concerning Sir Henry Wilson’s successor as CIGS, Wilson himself supported General Allenby, not Cavan. In 1922 Wilson described Cavan as ‘ignorant, pompous, vain, and narrow’.²⁹ The role of CIGS was pre-eminently a staff function and Lord Derby made his view known that Cavan ‘was anything but a good Staff man’.³⁰ Brigadier General Edmonds, the official historian, allegedly described Cavan as ‘bone from the neck up’,³¹ and in correspondence with Charles Carrington reported that it was said in France ‘[Cavan’s] great heart doesn’t thump the good red blood above his waist’.³²

Perhaps the most enigmatic comments about Cavan came from Lieutenant Colonel Sir Cuthbert Headlam.³³ As a subaltern, Headlam served as Cavan’s ADC between July 1915 and January 1916. He was also the husband of Beatrice, the sister of Cavan’s first wife Inez. Headlam’s comments concerning Cavan in his letters to his wife and in his diary ranged from near-adulation to outright personal abuse. For example, on 14 July he wrote to Beatrice: ‘Cavan is charming and I like being with him.’ On 15 July 1915 he wrote: ‘Cavan is tremendously popular with all the Staff here. They swear by him although they have only had him for about three weeks. He is certainly a first class soldier – quiet, sensible and tremendously thorough … He is undoubtedly one of the great successes of the war.’ And on 17 October 1915 he wrote: ‘Cavan keeps up his wonted cheerfulness. He is certainly a born leader – everybody has implicit faith in him and he is always full of resource and never loses heart or is at a loss for another plan because the one he has employed has proved unsuccessful.’ On the other hand, in the same letter to his wife he added: ‘And yet, between ourselves, I always find something lacking in him. He just fails somewhere, though where it is hard to say.’ Writing home on 29 June 1916, Headlam confided to Beatrice: ‘Cavan is a great disappointment to me. The more you know him, the less there is really to like in him. He is, as we know only too well, a moral coward and there is that black streak that goes through his whole character. He has attractive qualities, but they are all on the surface. At bottom he is not a big man.’ On 22 March 1919 Headlam referred to Cavan as a ‘swollen-headed little bounder’. And in his diary entry for 22 February 1924 he described Cavan as a ‘mean, little, second-rate worm’ and ‘a cur’ who has no ‘moral guts’. Of course, Headlam may have been voicing purely personal or family opinions and at one point, referring to his perceived lack of promotion, he hinted that ‘at the bottom of my heart my grievance against Cavan is that he has done nothing for me’³⁴ – hardly an issue that called for such extreme abuse. It should also be noted that Headlam’s highly derogatory views were not directed at Cavan’s abilities as a soldier, nor did it stop the Headlams and the Cavans socialising. On 23 June 1923 they dined together at the Headlams’ home in Montagu Place, London.³⁵ So, despite Headlam’s negative comments and those of other critics, it can still be said that the balance of opinion as to Cavan’s military accomplishments is emphatically in his favour.

What follows is a review of Cavan’s life and military career. The aim is to assess his contribution as a commander on the Western Front and in Italy during the First World War, and later as Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Did he deserve the considerable amount of praise that he received?

Chapter 1

The Making of a General

In seeking clues that might throw light on Cavan’s military career it is appropriate to examine his background, upbringing and character development. Frederick Rudolph Lambart, the future Viscount Kilcoursie (from 1892), 10th Earl of Cavan (from 1900), general (promoted 1921), Chief of the Imperial General Staff (1922–1926) and field marshal (from 1932) was born in the Rectory of the small Hertfordshire village of Ayot St Lawrence, the home of his maternal grandmother, on 16 October 1865. He was the eldest of five children, with two brothers and two sisters. Cavan spent relatively few years of his life in the family home, Wheathampstead House in Hertfordshire, but they were among his happiest. In 1924 he moved to London and Wheathampstead House was sold. It was, however, entirely appropriate that on his death on 28 August 1946, he was buried in the Ayot St Lawrence churchyard – a place he described as ‘a gem’.¹ As he said on many occasions, he was proud to be ‘a Hertfordshire man’.²

The development of Rudolph Lambart’s character was made up of many strands, most of which were the result of privilege, good fortune and personal endeavour. It was much influenced by close family and friends, by his schooling, by fellow officers of his regiment, the Grenadier Guards, and also by interests and attitudes which he adopted in his boyhood and which became important aspects of his personality and behaviour as he matured. From these various sources he gained values and principles that influenced the course of his life and shaped his conduct as a military leader.

Rudolph’s early education was undertaken by his mother with the assistance of the local curate, who gave daily tuition in ‘elementary Latin and Greek’. At the age of 10 he was sent to the Revd Stephen Cornish’s School in Walton Lodge, Clevedon, Somerset. His school reports commented that, while he was not ‘consistently attentive to his work’, he showed ‘great powers of application and concentration if he was interested in the subject or if he had a definite objective in doing so’. Even at that early age, Rudolph showed signs of being highly competitive. Subject marks were posted fortnightly and in a letter home dated February 1878, Rudolph was clearly delighted to announce that he had achieved top marks – 732 against the 725 total of his main rival, Hammond. ‘I beat Hammond.’³ The school reports also spoke ‘in appreciation of his character and his good influence on the school’. Rudolph left Clevedon, aged 13, as Head of School, and Stephen Cornish wrote: ‘His conduct has been excellent and he deserves my best thanks for the example he has set to others…. I think he owes his happiness to his trustful disposition.’⁴ However, Rudolph’s main memory of Clevedon was that he was continuously hungry.

Without doubt, Rudolph’s most important and formative educational experience took place at Eton, where he went in 1879 at the age of 13. He was placed in the House of H.E. Luxmoore, who became his guide and friend not only during his time at Eton, but for many years afterwards. Rudolph later wrote: ‘I always loved that man with the piercing eyes … he made me solve difficulties myself … All through my life, I felt that I had behind me the man who guided my early steps.’ Rudolph was not particularly outstanding academically. He later considered that he was not good enough to pass the Staff College entrance examination and decided not to take it. He described mathematics as his ‘bugbear’. In his Recollections he recalls writing to Luxmoore about a friend who had failed to get into Eton: ‘Is he really an utter dunce or has the standard gone up since my day?’ Luxmoore replied: ‘My dear Rudolph, in your day there was no standard.’ Even when Rudolph entered the army he wrote frequently to Luxmoore ‘from South Africa, from Flanders and from Italy always receiving a stimulating reply … I think I have chosen the right word when I called his letters ‘‘stimulating’’. At any rate they had that effect on me.’

To Rudolph, Eton was ‘bliss’. He was proud of ‘the old school tie’ and made friendships that were to last a lifetime.⁵ During his final year he became an enthusiastic member of the elite Eton Society (Pop). When elected to Pop he wrote home: ‘Pop cares at Eton – a kind of knighthood for the initiated.’⁶ He took part in the Society’s 1884 debates with some distinction. His first speech was on the subject of smoking: ‘Lambart made a good maiden speech and pointed out the various inconveniences arising from the habit of smoking … Majority of 1 against smoking. He was loudly applauded.’ The records of the Society note that in March of 1884 ‘Lambart made a capital speech’; in October ‘Lambart made a powerful speech’; and in the same month ‘Lambart was distinctly good’.⁷

In particular, Rudolph took great pleasure and interest in the Eton College Rifle Volunteers, especially on occasions such as the Annual Inspection – ‘I love a bit of pomp and ceremony.’ It was an aspect of military life that gave Rudolph much satisfaction throughout his career. He recalled that he was ‘a proud man when I decked myself out in a General’s full dress and unveiled the memorial to Grenadier Etonians’. As Representative Peer for Ireland he took part in many ceremonial occasions and King’s Birthday parades and always looked forward ‘to the crash of massed bands in the music from the ‘‘Huguenots’’.’ As a military commander he felt that ceremony played a valuable part in a soldier’s life: ‘The men love a bit of pomp and every county heart beats faster as the Regimental March begins.’

Rudolph was a member of the Eton Volunteers from 1881 until his entry to Sandhurst in 1885. The Eton records noted that ‘he was a good shot, but poor at signalling and failed the St John’s Ambulance Certificate’. Nevertheless, he rose through the ranks to become a colour sergeant in a corps of 300 and commented on his promotion with commendable modesty: ‘Why, I never knew, for I can lay claim to no military merit except very regular attendance at Field Days, which I thoroughly enjoyed.’ It was a style of casual self-deprecation that was to be repeated during his future army career.

In 1882 Rudolph was successful in the preliminary examination for entry into Sandhurst, where in January 1885 he became a cadet, having passed direct from Eton. Rudolph acquitted himself well and became an under-officer. In July, just before leaving Sandhurst, ‘he drilled the whole Battalion of cadets before the Duke of Cambridge’.⁸ A shortage of officers at that time meant that after only six months he received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant.⁹ His preferred regiment was the Coldstream Guards, but there were no vacancies. Helped by his father’s contact with the Duke of Cambridge, Rudolph was informed ‘that if he would join the Grenadier Guards he could join them at once’, which he did.¹⁰ The Army and Navy Gazette of 29 August 1885 duly announced: ‘Gentleman cadet the Hon. Frederick Rudolph Lambart to be Lieutenant vice Lord W. Cecil (promoted) Grenadier Guards.’

It was when he was trying on his first Guards’ uniform that he gained his nickname ‘Fatty’. This came about not because Rudolph was particularly fat, but because of his small stature. He had been rejected when he first applied to join the Eton Corps in 1880 by Sergeant Major Charles Osborn (‘a villain with a black beard’) because of his lack of height – ‘he was not tall enough to be considered fit to bear arms’ – and was only allowed to join a year later when he reached 5ft 4in.¹¹ After joining the Grenadiers, Rudolph was given a uniform that was massively too large and baggy, and in it Rudolph appeared as an exaggerated corpulent figure – hence ‘Fatty’.

An Eton schoolboy, present at a parade following the First World War, referred to the then General Lord Cavan as ‘a short little man’¹² and Cavan described himself as ‘short and stumpy’. When he joined the Grenadier Guards he noted that the adjutant and the sergeant major ‘made my stumpy figure as much like a Guardsman as possible with but five foot four inches to work on’. In John Singer Sargent’s 1922 portrait of British First World War generals, Cavan, towards the far right of the canvas, is a relatively diminutive figure. However, while fully aware of his lack of inches, Cavan in no way considered it a disadvantage either in his military career or in life generally, and nor did any of his contemporaries. In 1917 H.P. Croft described him as: ‘Short in stature, very strongly built with a somewhat large head. He meets you with a merry twinkle in his eyes.’¹³ An army colleague wrote, perhaps with some exaggeration, that Cavan ‘was not particularly tall, but hefty and broad shouldered and with the build of Hercules’.¹⁴ It is worth noting that Field Marshal Sir John French, the first commander of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914, was known as ‘the little Field Marshal’.¹⁵ He was 5ft 6in in height, as was Napoleon.

The soubriquet ‘Fatty’ stuck with Rudolph throughout his life, though he was also known within the family as ‘Ru’ and in later years he became known to his friends as ‘K’.¹⁶ ‘Fatty’ was used by those who knew him well not in any disrespectful sense, but as an informal term of familiarity and affection. Captain E.D. Ridley of the Grenadier Guards noted in his diary in November 1914: ‘Saw Fatty and Douglas who promised to send a letter home’, and in February 1915 ‘The General with Fatty and C O came round this morning’. General Maude wrote from Mesopotamia in October 1916: ‘My Dear Fatty – I was much interested in all you told me about your doings in France …’ The Prince of Wales wrote in 1917 that he ‘had a v. comfortable journey to Italy with Fatty’.¹⁷ General Rawlinson, when Cavan was about to take over the Aldershot command in September 1920, made a note to himself: ‘I must get Fatty over next week …’¹⁸ In the same month an article in the Daily Express commented: ‘Everyone in the Army called him ‘‘Fatty Cavan’’. Why? A short and sturdy figure suggests no such epithet. Lord Cavan indeed looks like the typical country gentleman that he is.’¹⁹ It was an informal mode of address during an era when nicknames were widely used. Captain E. Pike of the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards referred to Prince Alexander of Batten-burg as ‘Drino’. Captain Ridley mentioned that he saw ‘Fatty’ and ‘Meat’ (Brigadier General Cecil Lowther) with ‘Ma’ (Major Jeffreys). Ridley, who seems to have been a frequent user of nicknames, also refers to ‘Goose’, ‘China’, ‘Gramophone’, ‘Bagman’, ‘Paddy’ and ‘Soccer’, but omits to reveal their surnames. When, at the age of 78, Cavan wrote a personal note to Major General Sir John Ponsonby, he signed himself ‘Fatty’. In February 1925, when serving as CIGS, Cavan wrote to a newly appointed aide, Lieutenant Colonel A.F.N. Thorne, addressing him as ‘Dear Bulgy’.²⁰ Cavan and Thorne had known one another at Eton, as was the case among many Guards officers, and school-boy familiarity frequently offset differences in rank. Lieutenant C.P. Blacker, who attended the traditional Old Etonians dinner on 4 July 1917, noted that the 300 guests were seated not by army seniority but according to the dates when they had been at school.²¹

Rudolph’s father, Frederick Edward Gould Lambart, the 9th Earl, was a man of discipline and conviction. He had served as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and had seen action during the Crimean War at Sebastopol (1854) and at Canton and Pei-Ho during the Second Opium War with China (1856–1858). He left the Navy in 1864 and moved gradually into politics in the West Country, his home area.²² After two defeats in 1882 and 1884, he was elected in 1885 as MP for South Somerset as a Liberal, a seat he held for seven years. He was a supporter of Home Rule for Ireland and Gladstone’s 1885 Reform Bill, both of which put his slender majority at risk. Nevertheless, he gained considerable respect from his Conservative opponents and was said to ‘have distinguished himself as a skilful warrior on behalf of right against might, justice against oppression, and for the reform of many longstanding abuses’.²³ In Somerset the 9th Earl became a justice of the peace and a deputy lieutenant. In 1892, however, he failed to gain re-election and accepted Gladstone’s offer of the post of vice-chamberlain of the royal household and membership of the Privy Council. To be closer to London, the family left Somerset for Hertfordshire and moved into Wheathampstead House, conveniently sited near the railway line to London. The 9th Earl was appointed a justice of the peace in Hertfordshire.

To the young Rudolph, his father was an imposing figure who commanded both respect and admiration: ‘I was always awestruck in the presence of my father.’ Rudolph received a strict but caring upbringing. His sister Ellen recalled that ‘his parents belonged to the old-fashioned school of strict discipline’. In his memoirs he wrote that he ‘was often whipped, but always hugged afterwards’. He wrote from his Clevedon school: ‘Tomorrow three weeks I shall return to happy, happy Home and all its joys!!’²⁴ However, ‘a bad school report brought trouble … Appreciation, loving and warm-hearted was received from his mother after a good report, and praise from his father, but a bad report brought retribution and reproaches and severe warnings from both.’ When Rudolph persuaded his father that he should stay on at Eton for a sixth year and become captain of his house, it was on the firm understanding that he would do his best to get into Sandhurst direct, ‘but it foretold purgatory if I failed’.

As a young subaltern Rudolph took up the habit of betting on the horses. At one point he lost £1,300 and his total debts amounted to £2,100. His mother wrote that: ‘[Rudolph] had owned it by letter to his Father and wrote to me and it was a terrible shock to us both. I felt angry and dreadfully humiliated at such a downfall for our successful son, and the want of principle after a religious training. His father was bitter and unforgiving.’²⁵ Rudolph’s approach to his father for help was met by the terse reply: ‘Can and will do nothing.’ This was followed by a second telegram: ‘Meet me at solicitors’ office 12 noon tomorrow.’ At that meeting his father undertook to pay off the debt on condition that Rudolph would make a full statement of all his debts and would place no bets for a year. Rudolph’s hand-written list of debts was headed: ‘The Crisis!’ Rudolph’s allowance from his father was reduced from £500 to £300 a year ‘and if, because of that you feel that you cannot stay in the Regiment [the Grenadier Guards], you must go elsewhere’. It was an incident that caused a rift between Rudolph and his father. However, Rudolph had little option but to accept the arrangement and, having learnt his lesson, he noted that his father was ‘a generous, but stern parent’ and that ‘a young man who takes to betting ought to get a good jerk of the bit to steady him’. After a difficult period of around six months Rudolph wrote to his parents hoping that ‘there may be peace and love once more among us’ and harmony was restored in the family. However, he was unable to keep to his promise of ‘never betting largely again’. His close friend Eustace Crawley approached Rudolph at the time of a meeting at Sandown saying that he needed £400 urgently: ‘You’ve got to back Isinglass for me, to win £400, and you’ve got to give me the lot if it wins, and pay yourself if it loses.’ Fortunately, Isinglass won the Eclipse Stakes, albeit by less than half a length. Rudolph’s comment was: ‘[Eustace] repaid me in more than cash by the charm of his friendship.’

Horse-racing remained an exciting sport for Rudolph and he rarely missed an opportunity to gamble, claiming that he won ‘every bet in 1912, ’13, ’14, ’19, ’20, ’28 and 29’. He would ‘dearly have loved to keep a racehorse or two as I can get a big thrill out of a great race and I love the thoroughbred – but I well remember Lord Derby telling me that every horse in his stable had to win £700 before it could be considered to have paid its way and therefore I could not afford the luxury’.

Rudolph’s father was himself a keen sportsman and particularly enjoyed riding, stalking and tennis. He built four grass tennis courts at Wheathampstead House, together with a covered court with an asphalt floor, one of the first in the country, where he entertained ‘all the shining Lawn Tennis lights of those days’. He was one of the first Presidents of the Lawn Tennis Association. Lady Cavan, Rudolph’s mother, apart from indulging ‘freely in a soothing cigarette’,²⁶ was widely known as ‘the Queen of Croquet’.²⁷ A local paper reported that ‘the Lambart family have always been notable for their prowess in athletics and sport’.²⁸ It was consistent with this sporting ambience at Wheathampstead House that Rudolph was allowed to ride with the hounds from the age of 13. Fox-hunting became an important part of his life. When Rudolph came seventh among the ninety-six successful candidates who passed the direct examination for entry into Sandhurst, his father, showing a benevolent side to his character as well as an awareness of his son’s interests, offered to finance a trip – salmon fishing in Norway, deer stalking in Scotland or hunting in Devon and Somerset. Rudolph chose the hunting option.

Rudolph later said: ‘It was fox-hunting that stirred [my] blood.’²⁹ This near-obsession was encouraged by his father, who also hunted and, who, characteristically, allowed his son to fall from his pony on more than forty occasions before declaring him proficient to follow the hounds.³⁰ Years later Rudolph told a local Hertfordshire reporter that he had ‘always been devoted to hunting’ and he took every opportunity to indulge his passion. Even during his periods of leave during the First World War he spent much of his time hunting. As he said: ‘All through the war one