A Remarkable and Unpublished Letter: Days After the Armistice on November 11, 1918, Winston Churchill Foresees the Alliance of Britain and France in the World War to Come, and Indeed the Atlantic Alliance It Created

This letter has been in the recipient’s family until just recently; It has never before been offered for sale.

Speaking of Britain and France, Churchill stresses the “affection between our great countries, which is one of the most valuable results of the war, and one of the surest pledges for the future of peace, liberty, & civilization.”

He responds to one of France’s senior admirals, who had written him praising his part in crafting the great Allied victory, and saying without Churchill’s navy World War I would have been lost

While Winston Churchill is known for his leadership during the Second World War, and for having saved Western civilization at that time, fewer people are aware of the extraordinary contribution he made to victory in the First World War. And it was these earlier experiences that led him to realize the importance of British/French unity, and indeed of an Atlantic Alliance.

Churchill saw World War I coming. In July 1911, when the German Kaiser sent a gunboat to French Morocco and started blustering about Germany’s ‘place in the sun’, he immediately saw this as a threat that should be faced sooner rather than later. He wanted the government not just to declare its solidarity with France, but for that to be made quite clear to Germany. In the period from October 1911, when Churchill was appointed Lord of the Admiralty, to August 4, 1914, when Britain declared war on Germany, he expended a great deal of time and effort on readying the Royal Navy for a trial of strength against Germany. A naval staff was created, new ships were designed and ordered, more powerful weapons were introduced, steps were taken to create a naval aviation service, pay and conditions for both officers and men was improved in the quest to ensure that the service could both recruit and retain the number and quality of personnel that it would need, and plans of various kinds were drawn up for what to do should the conflict come.

He held a test naval mobilization in July 1914, and the main fleet of dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers was therefore already assembled and crewed when the moment of destiny arrived soon after. On July 27, he sent pre-war warnings to the Mediterranean fleet; and on July 28 he assured the King that the Navy was ready for anything. On August 2, 1914, on his own responsibility, he ordered naval mobilization that was therefore well under way when war was declared. Thus the British got the jump on the Germans. The war breaking out, the Admiralty was charged with making sure that when Britain sent an army to France, it would get there safely. Come the day, the Navy was prepared to protect the transports carrying the troops across the Channel; in fact the first great Allied achievement of the war was the transportation of the British Expeditionary Force to France with no delays and not one single casualty. The men were soon in line fighting beside the French, as were may troops from India that Churchill’s fleet transported. Then Churchill made an agreement with France that, if the French looked after the Mediterranean, the British would look after the Channel and the North Sea. Since Germany had access to the ocean only through the places under British responsibility, he took much pressure off the French.

In 1915, Churchill became an enthusiast for the Dardanelles expedition as a way out of the costly stalemate on the Western Front. The campaign aimed at taking the straits and forcing the German-allied Ottomans out of the war, and also at opening up direct communications with Russia. This would effectively surround the Germans and their Austrian allies. When the naval attack failed because of the delays and errors of others, and the operation was called off, Churchill came under heavy political attack and was made the fall guy. He was forced out, and his reputation wrongly tarnished; it remained an albatross around his neck until World War II.

In 1917, Churchill was named Minister of Munitions, and in that capacity made very frequent visits to France to consult with its military and civilian leadership. As a prime promoter of the tank, he rushed tanks to France at the earliest moment, a wise decision (though some claimed a premature one). He put all his energy into supporting the work of Marshal Foch, and his boss, French Premier Georges Clemenceau. He was also involved in urgent appeals to America, newly in the war, to speed up the despatch of troops to France. Soon 120,000 a month were on their way (to be fully equipped by Britain and France once they had arrived).

In 1914 Vice Admiral Charles-Eugène Favereau was in command of the 2nd Naval Battle Squadron, one of only two squadrons in the French Navy. Thus he was a major figure in the naval affairs of France during World War I. He was soon also known for his organization of anti-submarine warfare in the English Channel. He had numerous military contacts with Winston Churchill, particularly at the beginning of the war when Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty.

The Allied powers signed a ceasefire agreement with Germany at Compiégne, France, at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918, bringing World War I to a close. Perhaps that very day, but surely within a few days of the Armistice, Favereau wrote to Churchill, praising his part in “crafting” the great Allied victory, and saying without Churchill’s navy all would have been lost. He wrote: “In these hours of rebirth and joy, my thoughts seek to thank those who were the great craftsmen of our victory. You are among those, Sir, who are owed the greatest gratitude. A Frenchmen would indeed be ungrateful to not express to England the greatest and most profound recognition that, not yourself under attack, you came to us in our danger, from the first hours, in chivalric spirit, with a sentiment of indignation against the violation of a solemn word, to benefit us, while at the same time scorning those things that a sovereign without honor dared to offer it to buy its acquiescence to inequity. And a Frenchmen would indeed need to be blind to not see that without the protection of the British Navy, that nothing that happened would have been possible and that our side would have lost in a matter of weeks. Having the honor to find myself at your side at the moment of these grand events, I permit myself to express those things that have put my mind at ease and to address myself to you, who was the head of the British Navy and for whom the warmth of these sentiments has been, I truly believe, a great influence on the decisions your country has taken at this moment.” This is Favereau’s retained draft, and it is included.

Churchill responded, and with his typical foresight looked past the celebrations of the moment to the importance of the war’s establishment of a French/British alliance, and its significance to the future of mankind. Autograph letter signed, on his Minister of Munitions letterhead, London, November 19, 1918, eight days after the Armistice. “My dear Admiral, I am greatly touched by the kind letter which you have felt moved to send me. You speak in terms which I value highly of our own harmonious cooperation at the beginning of the war, & you realize as I do that the growth of mutual confidence, admiration, and affection between our great countries, which is one of the most valuable results of the war, and one of the surest pledges for the future of peace, liberty, & civilization.”

This previously unknown and unpublished interchange between in two men foreshadows not merely British/French cooperation in World War II, but the Atlantic Alliance that survived that conflict and endures today.

This letter has been in the Favereau family until just recently. It has never before been offered for sale.