SPEARS, E. L. (1886-1974). Prelude to Victory, London, 1940, 8vo, plates and maps, original buckram. FIRST EDITION, second impression. ANNOTATED AND HIGHLIGHTED IN PENCIL BY ANTHONY EDEN THROUGHOUT.

SPEARS, Edward Louis, 1st Baronet (1886-1974).  Prelude to Victory ... With an Introduction by The Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill. London: Jonathan Cape, January 1940. Large 8vo (222 x 146mm). Half title, half tone portrait frontispiece of the author, 30 half tone plates, 5 folding maps, other maps in the text. Original mauve buckram, spine lettered in gilt, uncut (spine a little faded, light stain to upper cover and spine, some very light scratching to lower cover, without a dust-jacket). FIRST EDITION, second impression, of this account of the last two years of the First World War. ANNOTATED AND HIGHLIGHTED IN PENCIL BY ANTHONY EDEN THROUGHOUT, often in scathing terms of the British wartime leadership in general and of General Hubert Gough in particular. For example, on p.40 (commenting on the printed passage 'Another point in General Nivelle's favour was that Mr Lloyd George liked the shape of his head. He was a great believer in his own powers as a phrenologist'), Eden writes: "He liked Nivelle's but not Neville's 'pin-head'"; on p.73 (commenting on the printed passage 'The personnel of the G.Q.C. changed more often than ours, for their large body of staff officers enabled them to enforce a rule that brooked no exception, whereby each staff officer before being promoted to a higher grade must serve six months with the fighting troops'): "A very good rule. We should have had it"; on p.604 (commenting on the passage 'General Gough ... allowed himself to stake far too heavily upon what the tanks might accomplish'): "Gough was always doing this. His men had to pay"; on p.605: "Haig was always backing Gough - that was why 1917 was such a mess ..."; on p.610 (commenting on the passage 'The 4th Division lost over 3000 officers and men'): "Yet Gough was not sacked!"; and on the same page: "It was not the fault of the tanks but of Cavalry Generals, who, like Spears, had never spent 24 hours in a trench." Woods A Bibliography of the Works of Winston Churchill B33.