to the modern rank of brigadier) on the General Staff at Headquarters Aldershot Command on 29 November 1907. He had hoped for command of a brigade. In 1909 he reconnoitred the likely route of a German invasion – Belgium, the Meuse and Luxembourg – with Smith-Dorrien and Rawlinson. Commandant, Staff College During Brigadier General (later Field Marshal Sir) Henry Wilson's tenure as Commandant at Staff College, Camberley (1906–10), Robertson lectured on Belgium, the Canadian frontier and the Balkans. Robertson's patron Nicholson, now Chief of the Imperial General Staff, appointed him Commandant at Staff College, effective 1 August 1910. However, Nicholson had initially (according to Wilson) opposed Robertson "because of want of breeding", while Wilson also opposed Robertson's appointment, perhaps feeling that Robertson's lack of private means did not suit him for a position which required entertaining. Robertson thought the Camberley job "greatly underpaid". He wrote to his friend Godley of a "pestilential circle" in top appointments which left "no chance for the ordinary man" and that the combination of Wilson as Director of Military Operations at the War Office (a job which Robertson may well have coveted for himself), Ewart as Adjutant-General and Stopford as Commandant of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, was "enough to make one sick". On 28 July 1910, shortly before taking up his new position, Robertson visited Camberley with Kitchener, who criticised Wilson. Relations between Wilson and Robertson deteriorated thereafter, beginning a rivalry which was to feature throughout the Great War. Robertson was a practical lecturer at Camberley whose teaching included withdrawals as well as advances. Edmonds, who had been Robertson's classmate in the 1890s, said he was a better lecturer than even Henderson. He taught officers that they "were at the Staff College to learn Staff Duties and to qualify for Staff Captain, not to talk irresponsible trash" about "subjects of policy or strategy". These and a number of similar recollections, written up after the Great War, may exaggerate the differences in style between Robertson and Wilson. He was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order on 16 July 1910 and promoted to major-general on 26 December 1910. He was advanced to Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order on 26 September 1913; on being knighted he mistakenly rose and shook the King's proffered hand instead of kissing it as required by protocol. The King was privately amused and the two men soon formed