On 15 November 1892, Talbot was appointed a staff officer at army headquarters and he became Deputy Assistant Adjutant General on 1 September 1895, holding that position for two years.[13][14][15] Between 1897 and 1899, Talbot served on the staff of General Kitchener during the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of the Sudan.[16] He was mentioned in dispatches in September 1898 by Kitchener for his actions at the Battle of Omdurman.[17] He later served on secondment to the Egyptian Army (as a major-general) and was promoted to brevet lieutenant-colonel in the British Army on 15 November 1898.[18][1] On 1 March 1900, Talbot was granted the substantive rank of lieutenant-colonel; this was later antedated to 18 February 1900.[19][20]
In 1900, Talbot was appointed Director of Surveys in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.[16] On 2 August 1900, he was granted permission by Queen Victoria to accept an appointment as a third class member of the Ottoman Order of Osmanieh.[21] He received promotion to the brevet rank of colonel on 29 November 1900, later antedated to 6 January 1900.[22][23] On 21 December 1903, he was authorised to accept appointment to the second class of the Ottoman Order of the Medjidieh.[24] Talbot was placed on half pay from 1 January 1905 having reached the limit of five years in rank as a lieutenant-colonel and retired from the army on 22 April.[25][26] At some point after this, he served as military attaché to the British legation at Brussels.[27]
First World War
Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, he was recalled to service for special duties at the War Office as a General Staff Officer of the 1st grade, with effect from 22 September 1914.[16][28] Talbot, with Major-General Charles Edward Callwell, Captain Cecil Lambert, Captain Herbert Richmond and the Admiralty's Director of Transport, Graeme Thompson, was part of a committee put together in September 1914 to plan for a naval landing at Gallipoli. Talbot recorded that Callwell considered it was "likely to prove an extremely difficult operation of war" but thought a force of sixty thousand men could prevail. Callwell had previously been against such an operation and may well have been persuaded to change his mind by Winston Churchill's force of will.[29] Talbot had returned to the retired list by 14 January 1916 when he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB).[30] He assisted GeneralSir Reginald Wingate, Governor-General of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, with preparations for the defence of that country as a member of the Permanent Committee of Defence in 1916.[31]