Rudolph Lambart, 10th Earl of Cavan
British Field Marshal (1865-1946)
Field Marshal Frederick Rudolph Lambart, 10th Earl of Cavan (16 October 1865 – 28 August 1946), known as Viscount Kilcoursie from 1887 until 1900, was a British Army officer who served as chief of the imperial general staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army, in the 1920s. After being commissioned into the Grenadier Guards in 1885, he served in the Second Boer War as a company commander, then served with distinction during the First World War as a brigade, divisional, corps, and army commander, and later advised the British government on the implementation of the Geddes report, which advocated a large reduction in defence expenditure; he presided over a major reduction in the size of the British Army.
Early life and military career
Born into an aristocratic family of Anglo-Irish descent, he was the son of the 9th Earl of Cavan and Mary Sneade Lambart (née Olive). He was educated at Eton College, Christ Church, Oxford, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst; As there were no vacancies at that time for his preferred regiment, the Coldstream Guards, so he was instead commissioned as a lieutenant into the Grenadier Guards on 29 August 1885. He gained the courtesy title of Viscount Kilcoursie in 1887 when his father succeeded to the Earldom and was appointed aide-de-camp to Frederick Stanley, the Governor General of Canada, in 1891.
He was promoted to captain on 16 October 1897, after he had been appointed regimental adjutant on 25 August 1897, a position he held until 17 March 1900. By then, the Grenadier Guards were involved in the Second Boer War in South Africa. He saw action as a company commander in the Battle of Biddulphsberg in May 1900, and, having succeeded to his father's titles on 14 July 1900, took part in operations against the Boers in 1901 and for which he was later mentioned in despatches. Following the end of the war in June 1902, which prompted him to write in his diary that it was "not far removed from the happiest day of my life", he left Cape Town on the SS Sicilia and returned to Southampton in late July.
After promotion to major on 28 October 1902, he became second-in-command of the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards in July 1905.
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