He was a patron of Captain Douglas Haig, who had attracted his attention by reporting on French cavalry manoeuvres in the early 1890s, although they did not actually meet face-to-face until an 1895 staff ride where Haig was serving as an aide to Colonel John French. Haig wrote that Wood was "a capital fellow to have upon one’s side as he always gets his own way". He arranged Haig's posting to the 1898 Sudan War – with orders to write privately to him reporting on Kitchener, the general officer commanding, and on his expedition's progress. Wood, who had experience of commanding both infantry and cavalry, supported the concept of mounted infantry and proposed that each infantry battalion should have one mounted company. The concept of mounted infantry fell back into disfavour in the Edwardian period as French and Haig, pure cavalrymen, rose to the top of the Army. In 1898 Wood also acknowledged the abilities of Sir Charles Dilke, who had returned to Parliament after his divorce scandal of the 1880s and who hoped (in vain, as it turned out) one day to be Secretary of State for War: "You cannot think", remarked Wood, "how grateful I am to anyone who takes an intelligent interest in the Army."