SIGNED BY WINSTON CHURCHILL AND WORLD WAR I MILITARY COMMANDERS HAIG, RAWLINSON, LUDENDORFF, FRENCH, WILSON, GOURAUD AND PLUMER: BRITISH BATTLES DURING 1918, BROADSIDE COLOR LITHOGRAPH MAP

(CHURCHILL, Winston, et al.). Color lithograph map signed: British Battles During 1918 (8th Aug. to 11th Nov., 1918). No place: Waterlow & Sons Ltd for War Office, 1918. Broadside (13-1/2 by 17-1/2 inches), color lithograph map, matted and framed; entire piece measures 25 by 21-1/2 inches.

Color lithograph map showing British and Allied advances in the final months of World War I, signed just after the war by Winston Churchill above the title and in the right margin by General Sir Hubert Gough, Field Marshal Haig, General Rawlinson, General Erich Ludendorff, Field Marshal French, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, General Henri Joseph Eugene Gouraud and General Plumer.

Churchill at this time was minister of munitions in Lloyd George's Government, concentrating on the production of thousands of tanks. The map illustrates the following period of the war when on "August 8 the British Fourth Army, commanded by General Rawlinson, launched a new offensive; British, Canadian and Australian troops all took part… By night fall on August 8 the tank attack had broken through the German front-line trenches; 400 German guns and nearly 22,000 soldiers were captured… By August 10 the British Army had made further advances, taking another 10,000 prisoners. 'The tide has turned,' Churchill wrote to Clementine that day… With each British advance Churchill went to the scene to see how his shells, mustard gas, and tanks had been used, or misused… On October 15, exhausted by the bloodletting, faced with widespread starvation as a result of the Allied sea blockade, and fearing a total collapse of the Balkan front, the Germans asked for an armistice… On November 7 a German delegation crossed into the French lines… On November 10 Lloyd George invited Churchill to a special Cabinet meeting to discuss the course of these negotiations… At 5 o'clock the next morning the Germans accepted the Allied terms" (Martin Gilbert, Churchill, 393-402). The other signers were all significant players in the events of the Great War: Gough was commander of the British Fifth Army from 1916 to 1918; Haig was the leader during the Battle of the Somme and the Third Battle of Ypres; Rawlinson was an important player in the battles of the Somme and of Amiens; Ludendorff was, as Quartermaster General, one of the chief architects of the German military effort; Sir John French served as commander-in-chief of both the British Expeditionary Force and the Home Forces; Wilson served in a variety of functions, becoming Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1918; Gouraud was leader of the French Fourth Army at the end of the war; Plumer was leader of the British Second Army for a number of years during the war, earning credit for the decisive British victory at the Battle of the Messines in 1917. Ownership signature on the verso of General Sir Walter N. Congreve V.C.

Fine condition.