Paget was promoted captain and lieutenant-colonel on 1 April 1882. His battalion, the 2nd Scots Guards, went to Suakin in the Sudan in 1885. He served in Burma in 1887–8 (the aftermath of the Third Anglo-Burmese War) and, again, in the Sudan in 1888–9. He was promoted brevet colonel on 24 June 1895.
