"I do not expect it will make me very popular in France..." A 24 November 1945 typed letter signed from Winston S. Churchill to his friend and stalwart 1930s anti-appeasement ally Lady Ava Anderson, accompanied by, and referencing, a copy of his 14 November 1945 letter to former French Prime Minister Pierre Flandin, defending Flandin against charges of treasonous collaboration with Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
Hyde Park Gate, London: 1945. Letter. This is a 24 November 1945 typed letter signed by Winston S. Churchill to Lady Ava Anderson, his friend and stalwart 1930s anti-appeasement ally, providing her with a copy of his 14 November 1945 letter to former French Prime Minister Pierre Flandin defending him against charges of treason for his actions during the Second World War. Together, these two letters are significant testimony to Churchill’s principled loyalty, his willingness to take stands contrary to prevailing public sentiment, and his moral inclination, as he would state in his Second World War memoirs, to “In victory: magnanimity”.
The Letters
The letter to Lady Anderson is typed on a single sheet of Churchill’s Chartwell stationery, with his “28, Hyde Park Gate” address typed at the head. After his warm salutation “My dear Ava,” Churchill writes “You may be interested to see the letter Flandin wrote to me and the reply which I have authorized him to make use of. I do not expect it will make me very popular in France, but I know you will be in sympathy with it.” Churchill closes with his autograph signature and valediction “Winston S. Churchill”. Appended are four sheets on thin stock comprising an apparent carbon copy of Churchill’s 14 November letter to Flandin. The copy of the letter to Flandin bears a secretarial duplication of Churchill’s autograph salutation and signature. All five sheets are complete apart from file holes punched at the upper left corners. Condition of Churchill's letter to Ava is very good plus, substantially clean and complete with what appear to be paper clip rust stains at the upper left. The four leaves comprising the copy of Churchill's letter to Flandin are very good, showing mild wear to extremities and a rust stain, perhaps from a paperclip, in each left margin. The sheets of both letters show two horizontal creases, all placed similarly, presumably from original posting. This correspondence was part of the Forbes family’s incomparable Churchill collection, thereafter part of the Churchill collection of Richard C. Marsh, from whence it came to us. The letter is protected within a clear, removable, archival sleeve housed in a rigid, crimson cloth folder. Ava Anderson, Viscountess Waverly (1895-1974) had been the diplomatically and socially adept wife of the influential Foreign Office official Ralph Wigram until the latter’s death in 1936, and the two had collaborated in the anti-appeasement cause in Britain in the 1930s. Pierre Etienne Flandin (1889-1958), about whom Churchill wrote in this letter provided to Ava, was Prime Minister of France from November 1934 to June 1935 and Minister for Foreign Affairs from January to June 1936. After France’s subjugation by Nazi Germany, collaborationist Vichy chief of State Phillipe Petain appointed Flandin Foreign Minister and Vice-Premier on 13 December 1940. Flandin occupied those positions only until 9 February 1941.
The moment
A year before he wrote this letter, then-wartime Prime Minister Churchill had been extravagantly feted in newly liberated Paris and greeted with “unrestrained welcome” by the French people. A year later, after losing his premiership in the British General Election of 1945, Churchill was now Leader of the Opposition. In France, former French Prime Minister Pierre Etienne Flandin was on trial for treason.
Churchill’s Defense of Flandin
Flandin asked Churchill to write a letter on his behalf for submission to the court. This Churchill did, in a letter that is an extraordinary piece of exculpatory presentation, carefully constructed to credibly align and exonerate Flandin’s actions, without any undermining misrepresentation, hyperbole, or disrespect to the authorities with power over Flandin’s fate. Churchill’s letter to Flandin opens by discussing Flandin’s 1936 “endeavors to bring about a more decisive joint action” between Britain and France. Aware that his own status as an early and ardent opponent to Nazi Germany was beyond dispute, Churchill refers to his and Flandin’s efforts to thwart Hitler as “we” and “in common”. More delicately handled is Flandin’s congratulation of Hitler on “the peaceful settlement” after Munich, in which, Churchill rightly points out, Flandin was “supported by very large majorities on both sides of the Channel”. Churchill handles Flandin’s short tenure as Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister in the Vichy government by saying “I was glad. I thought to myself ‘here is a friend of England in a high position… I also thought that the Germans would have you out. This is exactly what happened…” Churchill substantiates this interpretation “I have heard that in your period of Office, you managed to stop an expedition being sent from Dakar against the Free French centre at Tchad…” which “would have added greatly to the troubles which General de Gaulle and I were facing together”. This was a particularly intentional alignment; over Churchill’s strenuous objections, de Gaulle had imprisoned Flandin in 1943. Churchill’s political history is replete with examples of his working with, and often befriending, those who differ with him if he believes in their integrity and intention. In closing, Churchill makes this plain: “I have always regarded you as on our side and against the common foe and his collaborators… I feel I should be failing in a duty of friendship… if I did not set forth the facts as I saw them…” Churchillian friendship proved Flandin’s salvation. With Churchill’s permission, Flandin used Churchill’s letter in his defence and it reportedly “caused a considerable stir when read out in court.” On 23 January 1946 the charges against Flandin were dropped and he was released from custody.
Churchill, Ava, Flandin, and the doomed anti-appeasement cause
Flandin had earned Churchill’s loyalty, and Ava Churchill’s respect and regard. “The event that brought Churchill, Flandin, and the Wigrams together in common cause was Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Rhineland demilitarized zone on March 7, 1936.” In March 1936, then-French Foreign Minister Flandin visited London to attempt to galvanize British support for decisive, immediate, combined Franco-British action to resist Hitler’s aggression. There he found staunch allies in Ralph Follet Wigram (1890-1936) and his equally dedicated and capable wife, Ava. Wigram had been supplying Churchill with secret British government information about growing German military strength since 1934. Churchill, then out of power and out of favor, shared with the Wigrams and with Flandin a sense of urgency to resist Hitler before it became too late. Wigram “thought it was within the compass of his duty to bring Flandin in touch with everyone he would think of… from the press, and from the Government…” to hear Flandin’s exhortations. Wigram and his wife, Ava, hosted meetings – and even a press conference – with Flandin at their London home. The British Government steadfastly refused to act, summed by Lord Lothian’s cavalier dismissal of Nazi ambitions: “After all, they are only going into their own back-garden.” Wigram took the failures of the French and British governments deeply personally and died, suddenly, in December 1936. Churchill, who attended his funeral and gave a luncheon at Chartwell for the mourners, praised Wigram’s “profound comprehension” and regarded his “untimely death” an “irreparable loss”. Churchill would later write of Flandin in his Second World War Memoirs “In view of what I saw of Flandin’s attitude during these anxious days, I felt it my duty, in spite of his subsequent lapses, to come to his aid, so far as I was able, in later years. I used all my power in the winter of 1943/44 to protect him when he was arrested in Algeria by the De Gaulle Administration… When after the war Flandin was brought to trial, my son Randolph, who had seen much of Flandin during the Africa campaign, was summoned as a witness, and I am glad to think that his advocacy, and also a letter which I wrote for Flandin to use in his defence, were not without influence in procuring the acquittal which he received from the French tribunal.” After her husband’s death in December 1936, “Ava was able to carry on Wigram's opposition to Nazism and to flourish as a hostess at her home, 4 Lord North Street, Westminster, near parliament and Whitehall. Playing to her strengths as an informed and well-connected society figure, she created an environment valued by many senior diplomats and politicians.” Ava became Lady Anderson by marriage to Sir John Anderson (1882-1958) in December 1941, and Viscountess after Sir John’s elevation to the peerage in 1952.
The enduring bond between Ava and Winston
“Winston was devoted to Ava for the rest of his life, as she was to him. Ava had taken a photograph of Winston and Ralph Wigram walking on the grounds of Chartwell. Winston signed it and Ava inserted a press cutting of Winston’s June 18, 1940 ‘finest hour’ speech. This framed photograph stood at her bedside until her death in 1974.” References: Marsh, Churchill, Flandin, and Wigram: The Rest of the Story; Gilbert, Vol. VIII; Churchill, The Second World War: The Gathering Storm; ODNB. Item #008401
Price: $8,500.00