Description:

Churchill Winston

Winston Churchill's Letter foreseeing World War I

"FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING THAT IS HAPPENING OR HAS HAPPENED IN THIS COUNTRY IS THE GRAVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EUROPEAN SITUATION."

Bi-fold letter signed. Penned on three pages with final page blank. Signed by Winston Churchill on the recto of second page as "Winston S. Churchill". [London], September 13, 1911. On imprinted stationery of The Home Office, as Home Secretary, to Lord Northcliffe. Fine condition with expected folds.

"I shall be very much obliged to you if you will tell the Times to report me when I speak at Dundee on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of October. These are the only meetings I am undertaking in the Parliamentary recess, and I shall have to deal with one or two difficult questions. I am notifying the Press Association so that they can arrange for a verbatim report, & the meetings will be held early enough for this to be telegraphed in time. Far more important than anything that is happening or has happened in this country is the grave development of the European situation. I wish you were accessible or near London, so that we could have a talk about it. I motored quite close to Sutton Place a fortnight ago, when I was staying at Reigate, & would have looked in upon you had I not heard that you were on the Continent. I think that both the Times & the Daily Mail have taken a very good line, & no one can justly say that they have been at all provocative."

A crisis had erupted in North Africa which threatened Europe with war during the summer of 1911. "In an attempt to secure a naval base on the Atlantic Ocean, the German Government sent a gunboat, the Panther, to the Moroccan port of Agadir. France, which under the Anglo-French Entente of 1904 had a predominant sphere of influence in Morocco, asked Britain to challenge the German action by sending a British gunboat.... On August 30, as the Moroccan negotiations continued, Churchill suggested to Grey that if the negotiations failed, Britain should propose a triple alliance of herself, France and Russia, to safeguard the independence of Belgium, Holland and Denmark....  The Agadir crisis had given Churchill a sense of Britain's naval strengths and weaknesses. He was convinced that he had the energy and foresight, and could quickly acquire the knowledge, to make Britain invulnerable at sea"   [Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life].

This important letter earmarks the beginning of Europe's (and thus England's) slide to war.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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