FISHER, John Arbuthnot.

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Autograph letter signed from Lord Fisher to Winston Churchill, on military strategy in the First World War. A lengthy unpublished letter during the early months of the war, a characteristically high-strung cocktail of strategic anxiety and naval aggression, ranging from demands for brutal retaliation against Zeppelin raids to complaints about Britain's "inadequate" mine supply and a fateful hope that the new year finally "gives us Turkey" at Gallipoli.As First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill was the civilian head of the Royal Navy. Fisher had served as First Sea Lord - the Navy's highest-ranking officer - from 1904 to 1910, and Churchill restored him to the post in November 1914 after the outbreak of war. Reflecting later, Churchill wrote: "My bringing Fisher back to the Admiralty in 1914 was one of the most hazardous steps I have ever had to take in my official duty. Certainly, so far as I was personally concerned, it was the most disastrous" (Great Contemporaries, 1939, p. 338). He described him as "Harsh, capricious, vindictive, gnawed by hatreds arising often from spite" (p. 337).This forcefulness is evident in the letter's bluster and energy, with its frequent underlinings and exclamation marks. Fisher opens in panic at the prospect of London being bombed. "I hope you will not delay publicity as to what 20 tons of high explosive dropped over London means and that for every one injured thereby a German prisoner will be shot. There should not be a day's delay in this anno

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