Army. On this trip he was accused of giving unauthorised interviews to the French press, after uttering what Grierson called "a few platitudes" to the Figaro correspondent. Haldane confirmed to Esher (26 September 1906) that French was to be Commander-in-Chief of the BEF during the next war. He visited France unofficially in November 1906 in an attempt to improve his French, although he never became fluent in the language. A Special Army Order of 1 January 1907 laid down that in the event of war Britain would send an Expeditionary force of six infantry and one cavalry division to assist the French. French was promoted to full general on 12 February 1907. In the summer of 1907 he entertained General Victor Michel, French Commander-in-Chief designate, at Aldershot to observe British manoeuvres. The cavalry controversy French testified to the Elgin Commission that cavalry should be trained to shoot but that the sword and lance should remain their main weapons. Hutton wrote to French (1 April 1903) that cavalry should retain some shock capacity but that the real issue was recruiting "professional" officers in place of the present rich and aristocratic ones. French strongly disagreed, although he remained on friendly terms with Hutton and recognised that the expense of being a cavalry officer deterred many able young men. The Adjutant-General's memorandum (10 March 1903) recommended the retention of the sword—which Roberts had wanted replaced by an automatic pistol—but not the lance. Roberts also chaired a conference on the topic six months later, at which Haig was the leading traditionalist. Haig's heavily traditional "Cavalry Training" appeared in 1904, leaning heavily on the 1898 Cavalry Drill Book which he had helped French to write, although with a "reforming" preface by Roberts. In response to a request from Arnold-Forster, French submitted a memorandum (7 March 1904) arguing that cavalry still needed to fight the old-fashioned way as a European War would begin with a "great cavalry battle". He also sent a copy to the King. In response to Roberts' claim that he wanted to give cavalry the ability to act independently, French wrote in the margin that the campaigns of early 1900 had seen cavalry acting independently, although he replied politely that their differences were not as great as Roberts seemed to think. Roberts had the support of Kitchener (who thought cavalry should be able to seize and hold positions, but not to roam about