In May 1904 , shortly after the house re-opened , Lieutenant General Sir John French , Commanding military.military_command Troops at Aldershot , hosted a visit by the Prince and Princess of Wales there and in July 1914 Lieutenant General Sir Douglas Haig , Commander-in-Chief Aldershot Command , was waiting anxiously inside the house when he heard that the First World War had broken out .

He took part in World War I and , as General Officer Commanding military.military_command Corps , was blamed for the failure to attack following the Suvla Bay Landing in August 1915 during the Battle of Gallipoli ; however , responsibility ultimately lay with Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener , who had appointed the elderly and inexperienced general to an active corps command , and with Sir Ian Hamilton , who had accepted Stopford 's appointment .

Air Officer Commanding military.military_command AOC ) RAF Bomber Command Marshal Arthur Harris did not want to divert his bomber force away from their strategic campaign against German industry ( known to the Germans as the Defence of the Reich campaign ) .

When Japanese forces invaded Malaya on 8 December 1941 , Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival , the General Officer Commanding military.military_command GOC ) Malaya in charge of Malaya Command , with a force of 88,600 faced the 70,000 strong Twenty Fifth Army of the Imperial Japanese Army under the command of General Tomoyuki Yamashita .