he toured British troops in the Far East, and in the summer of 1910 he inspected the Canadian Militia, at the request of the Canadian Dominion administration. He declined to express an opinion on the mooted introduction of conscription in Canada, replying that the existing system of voluntary recruitment had not been tested for long enough yet. This period also saw the beginning of the feud between French and Smith-Dorrien, his successor at Aldershot with whom he had been on relatively cordial terms at the end of the Boer War. Smith-Dorrien annoyed French by insisting that cavalry improve their musketry, by abolishing the pickets which trawled the streets for drunken soldiers, by more than doubling the number of playing fields available to the men, by cutting down trees, and by building new and better barracks. By 1910 the feud was common knowledge throughout the Army. Smith-Dorrien, happily married to a young and pretty wife, also objected to French's womanising. French was made an Aide-de-Camp General to the King on 19 June 1911. The Second Moroccan Crisis was occasion for French to push again for greater Army-Navy co-operation. Admiral Fisher, recently retired as First Sea Lord, wrote (20 August 1911) that French had been to see him "as the tool of Sir William Nicholson. I told him to go to Hell." On 23 August Henry Wilson carried a CID meeting with a lucid presentation of the Army's plans for deployment to France; Admiral Wilson's plans to land on the Baltic Coast were rejected. French spoke to the Navy Club that year on the need for co-operation between the two services. The autumn 1911 manoeuvres were cancelled, supposedly because of shortage of water but in reality because of the war scare. French accompanied Grierson and the French military attaché Victor Huguet to France for talks with de Castelnau, Assistant Chief of the French General Staff (Wilson—Director of Military Operations since August 1910—had already been over for talks in July). On the journey, French talked of how Douglas and Paget would command armies under him in the event of war, with Grierson as chief of staff. Plans for British deployment were especially welcome as French war plans were in a state of flux, with Joffre having been appointed commander-in-chief designate on 28 July. After his return from France in 1911 French inspected German cavalry manoeuvres in Mecklenburg, and was summoned from his bath