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Crofton Bury Vandeleur was born on 28th March 1867 in India. His father, Crofton Toler Vandeleur, was an Army Captain stationed there with his wife Charlotte. Crofton Toler was the second son of Colonel Crofton Moore Vandeleur and Lady Grace Toler of Kilrush House, West Clare in Ireland.

Crofton Bury was the eldest of four children, with a younger brother Robert Seymour and two younger sisters. During his early years he lived in Ryde on the Isle of Wight and later in Dresden. Crofton Bury spent some considerable time in Germany as a young boy, and learnt to speak the language fluently.

Following the the family military tradition, Crofton Bury signed up to join The Cameronians in 1886.

Following his time at Sandhurst, he joined the regiment in India, where he loved hunting and earned the reputation of being an excellent shot. The outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 gave the young soldier his first taste of active service.

Returning to London after the Boer War, aged 35, Crofton married a young widow ten years his junior, Evelyn Mary Hamilton. He served in India and South Africa before going to France in 1914 as a senior Major of the 1st Battalion The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). There, he took part in fighting at Mons and on the Marne and was appointed Lieutenant Colonel.

Towards the end of 1914, Vandeleur was wounded and taken prisoner whilst in command of the 1st Battalion Cheshire Regiment. Writing in an offical report some time later, he later reported that

"he and his fellow prisoners were treated with the grossest inhumanity on their way to Germany".

He was subsequently taken towards the German border and eventually placed in a detention centre at Krefeld, close to the Dutch border. With great ingenuity, he managed to escape after only six weeks, and made his way back to allied lines via Holland. Vandeleur's ability to speak German would have been invaluable, and he was the first British officer to escape from the Germans during the First World War.

On his return to Britain, Vandeleur was granted an audience with King George V (a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm II), to recount the story of his capture and ill-treatment whilst being held as prisoner.

Although he returned to active duty with the 2nd Battalion in France in 1915, Vandeleur's war did not last much longer, as he was wounded at the Battle of Festaubert near Aubers Ridge. He received serious wounds to his hip, which led to the arthritis which plagued him for the rest of his life.