Minister's charisma, and was almost persuaded that he had had nothing to do with his sacking in April 1918, until he remembered that both Esher and Birkenhead had told him the truth years earlier. Lloyd George, who may well have been keen to appease a potential critic, eventually sent Gough a letter (described as "carefully worded" by Farrar-Hockley) claiming that new facts had come to his attention since that date, and admitting that Gough had been "let down" and that "no General could have won that battle". In 1936 Gough complained to Liddell Hart that Haig had dominated his Army Commanders instead of taking them into his confidence and discussing matters, a view later made much of by the Canadian academic Tim Travers – Sheffield points out that this view not only needs to be treated with caution (Haig in fact held regular conferences) but sits ill with the evidence of Gough’s own command habits. He complained to Edmonds (in 1938) that other Army and corps commanders did not issue enough detailed guidance to their subordinates. Final military service Gough's colleagues continued to lobby the Government for him to receive an award (e.g. promotion to field marshal, a peerage and/or a cash grant) similar to that given the other army commanders at the end of the war. The Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin declined to do so in response to a Question in the Commons (10 November 1936), although he acknowledged that Gough's reputation had been vindicated. After further lobbying (in part by Master of the Rolls Wilfred Greene, a former major on Gough's staff) Gough was turned down for a GCB in King George VI's Coronation Honours in 1937, but was eventually given the award in the Birthday Honours of the same year. His GCB was seen as official rehabilitation. From 1936 until 1943, Gough was honorary colonel of the 16th/5th The Queen's Royal Lancers, at the insistence of the regiments concerned, despite some resistance from the War Office because of his role in the Curragh Incident. In the summer of 1938 Gough was invited by Hitler to visit a Nuremberg Rally, but declined as the Foreign Office refused to give him formal approval and advice (General Ian Hamilton accepted a similar invitation while visiting Berlin on behalf of the British Legion). In 1939, prior to the outbreak of war, Gough was initially appointed a "conducting officer" to supervise the