The World Crisis 1911-1918, a superb association copy, inscribed by Churchill upon publication to Admiral of the Fleet Roger Keyes, later first Baron Keyes, a senior naval officer during the Dardanelles campaign and a critical ally and friend during both world wars and the years between.
London: Thornton Butterworth, Ltd., 1931. First abridged and revised edition, first printing. Full leather. This a remarkable presentation copy of the British first edition, first printing of the first Abridged & Revised edition of Churchill's monumental and acclaimed history of the First World War. This copy was inscribed by Churchill in black ink on the front free endpaper in the month of publication: “To | Roger Keyes | from | Winston S. Churchill | March 1931”. Keyes was Churchill’s staunch naval supporter during the First World War Dardanelles debacle, and his friend and anti-appeasement ally during the interwar years. He played an essential, dramatic role in elevating Churchill to his storied wartime premiership, and served as Churchill’s emissary and director of combined operations during the Second World War.
We commissioned the fine binding for this presentation copy in green goatskin that closely echoes, while dramatically improving upon, the publisher’s original green cloth. The top and bottom edge blind rules, gilt spine title, subtitle, and author print, and upper left front cover blind stamped print all closely match those of the original cloth binding. Churchill’s facsimile signature “Winston S. Churchill” is rendered in gilt on the lower right front cover. The first printing contents are bound with green marbled endpapers framed by gilt-ruled turn-ins, gilt top edges, and green and white silk head and tail bands. The cover edges are beveled and the binding is housed in a stout, green cloth slipcase.
Condition of the binding and slipcase are pristine, as new, executed with customary quality and skill by Felton Bookbinding Ltd. The contents are very good plus, clean apart from light spotting that is substantially confined to the fore and bottom edges of the text block, with just a few internal spots to the inscribed front free endpaper and following prelims. Churchill’s presentation inscription is clear and distinct.
The association between Keyes and Churchill was long, significant, and eventful, including a noteworthy moment of history-making drama nine years after this volume was inscribed.
A naval officer
British naval officer Roger John Brownlow Keyes, first Baron Keyes (1872-1945), entered the Royal Navy as a cadet in the autumn of 1885. In his early, late 19th century combat commands, he showed “what would be a characteristic taste for action, quick thinking, initiative, and a willingness to take responsibility.” Commanding the Submarine Service at the beginning of the First World War, Keyes clashed with First Sea Lord Fisher, “but thanks to Keyes’s friendship with the First Lord [of the Admiralty] Winston Churchill he was named chief of staff to Vice-Admiral Carden commanding the British naval forces off the Dardanelles.” This tied the fates of the two men.
The Dardanelles and their first world war
Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911 until 1915, until he was scapegoated and forced to resign over the Dardanelles disaster and the slaughter at Gallipoli. Keyes was “closely associated with the maritime aspects of the Dardanelles campaign from its early stages to the final evacuation” and “one of the most outspoken supporters of the Dardanelles campaign.” His more aggressive preferences were subordinated to his more timid superiors. (“I am spoiling to have at it again,” he wrote to his wife on 21 March 1915) In accord with, and vindicating Churchill’s own perspective, “Keyes would remain convinced until the end of his life that a renewed naval attack would have succeeded and that an Anglo-French fleet off Constantinople would have meant Turkey’s exit from the war”.
Churchill went from the Admiralty to the Front, volunteering as a Lieutenant Colonel in the trenches of the Western Front before he was exonerated and returned to Government. Keyes ended the First World War at admiral rank and as director of plans at the Admiralty, having achieved substantial success against German submarines. He was created a KCBO in December 1918 and received the thanks of parliament, a grant of £10,000, and was created a baronet in October 1919.
“we had long jolly talks about the war & what they killed each other for”
Their association persisted in the interwar years, manifesting in both friendship and collaboration. In August 1923, Churchill wrote to his wife: “Keyes came down last night & we had long jolly talks about the war & what they killed each other for… This morning we rode.” In late 1926, Churchill “accepted the Admiral’s invitation to join him at Messina… for a week or ten days cruising in the Mediterranean.” The two also interacted more officially on naval matters during Churchill’s stints in government. And, from the mid-1930s, the two collaborated as fellow Members of Parliament and shared a concern about Britain’s readiness to thwart Hitler’s Germany. Keyes wrote to Churchill in November 1935 “I hope [Prime Minister] Baldwin will have the wisdom to persuade you to look after defence.” In 1938, Keyes pressed another prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, to “delegate to Mr. Churchill the task of reorganizing the British Navy.”
March 1931
After various postwar commands, in May 1930 Keyes was promoted to the highest rank in the British Navy, admiral of the fleet, before retirement. This presentation copy of the first printing of the first Abridged and Revised edition of The World Crisis was published and inscribed by Churchill in March 1931, during the final months of Keyes’s final appointment in the Royal Navy (commander-in-chief, Portsmouth, November 1929-June 1931). Whether or not this presentation copy was intended as a retirement gift, it would have been apropos. Churchill would gift Keyes more words before the decade was out, writing the foreword to Keyes’s memoirs, Adventures Ashore & Afloat (Harrap, 1939) As it turned out, Churchill and Keyes had much more history yet to share.
A Second World War for Keyes and Churchill
Keyes was a Conservative member of parliament from February 1934 until raised to the peerage in 1943. On 7 May 1940, during the House of Commons debate that forced Neville Chamberlain from office and saw him replaced as wartime prime minister by Winston Churchill, Keyes delivered “a scathing attack on the Chamberlain government” while wearing “the full uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet, with six rows of medals.” The House listened “in breathless silence” and, when Keyes sat down, responded with “thunderous applause.” Keyes would serve early during Churchill’s wartime premiership, first and briefly as liaison to beleaguered Belgium, thereafter as director of combined operations. The spirit of their friendship and collaboration may best be summed up by comments Keyes shared with a friend in a 29 July 1940 letter: “He [Winston] said to me apropos of his getting me a job, ‘You have a great many detractors.’ I said, ‘So had you, but you are now there in spite of it.’” Eventually, friction with the chiefs of staff caused Keyes's replacement in September 1941. That same year Keyes lost his son, killed during a British Commando raid in North Africa two hundred miles behind German lines. Keyes’s final act of service to Britain and to Churchill’s wartime Government came just after he was created a baron, in a goodwill mission to the United States, Australia, and New Zealand (1944-45).
The edition
A quarter of a century before the Second World War endowed him with lasting fame, Winston Churchill played a uniquely critical, controversial, and varied role in the “War to end all wars”. Then, being Churchill, he wrote about it. Churchill's history - which he titled The World Crisis - was originally published in six volumes between 1923 and 1931. Publication of the sixth and volume was swiftly followed by this first “Abridged & Revised Edition” the same year. This important edition covering the war years 1911-1918 is not just an abridgement; it incorporates revisions by Churchill with new material, including a whole new chapter on the Battle of the Marne, as well as a new introduction.
References: Cohen A69.6.a; ODNB; Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Vols. III-VII; Nicholson, Diaries and Letters 1939-1945. Item #008733
Price: $15,000.00