"Ready to make a
lawyer out of yourself?"
Douglas would shake his head. He could never share his father's
enthusiasm for the law. "I guess not, father," he would reply quietly.
"Somehow, I am not built that way. I want a try at soldier life."
So his father let him follow his bent, and procured for him a position
in the Seventh Regiment of Hussars. His career as a soldier was
threatened at the outset by the refusal of the medical board to admit
him to the Staff College on the ground that he was color-blind; but
this decision was over-ruled by the Duke of Cambridge, then
commander-in-chief, who nominated him personally. This was in 1885.
England was then as nearly at peace as she ever became, and it seemed
that young Haig was destined to become a feather-bed soldier.
But it was not for long. They presently began to stir up trouble down
in Egypt, and England found, as on many previous occasions, that she
didn't have half enough regulars for the job in hand. The revolt of
the Mahdi had occurred, Khartoum had fallen, and the brave Gordon had
lost his life.
A relief expedition into the Soudan was organized under the command of
a tall, stern soldier named Kitchener, who began his first preparations
to march into the interior about the time that Haig was putting on his
first Hussar uniform.
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