Rosslyn Wemyss' life and career was both fascinating and brilliant - a
most distinguished admiral who is very little known. As the Allied Naval
Representative at the Armistice negotiations on 11th November, 1918, he
left an indelible mark on the life of the UK when he was responsible,
with Marshal Foch, for the creation of Armistice Day. The negotiations
took place in a railway carriage at Compiègne in France when the
decision was made at 5.30 am to cease hostilities on land, in the air
and sea at 11am on that day. One of the most illustrious of Scottish
admirals, he was a member of the Clan Wemyss, whose ancestral seat is
Wemyss Castle in Fife, overlooking the Firth of Forth. Rosslyn joined
the Navy at the age of 13 in 1877, at the same time as Prince George,
the younger son of the Prince of Wales, they became lifelong friends.
After they left Dartmouth they joined their first ship together and
sailed around the world for the next two years. In his early career,
this friendship found him posted to serve on two ships for Royal Tours
abroad and on two of the Royal Yachts. In 1915, by then a Rear Admiral,
he was sent to create a naval base at Mudros, to serve the Gallipoli
campaign and was in command of the landings and then the evacuation of
all the troops. The evacuation was so successful that only one man was
lost from the approximately 140,000 who were taken off the beaches. From
there, he was sent to Port Said to command the East Indies and Red Sea
Station. For the next 18 months, the main thrust of his command was
supporting the Arab Revolt and helping T.E. Lawrence and the Arabs,
under Emir Feisal, to oust the Turks from all the ports on the eastern
shore of the Red Sea. Without his support, the Arab Revolt would have
collapsed and the legend of Lawrence of Arabia would not have been
created. In 1917 he returned to the United Kingdom to become Deputy
First Sea Lord, stepping up to the post of First Sea Lord at the end of
the year. As First Sea Lord, he represented British naval interests at
the Versailles Peace Conference. Through Rosslyn's rich archive of
letters and reports and his own words, this book gives a wonderful
insight into the life of a man who became one of the most popular and
senior officers in the Royal Navy at the time, and who was known
throughout the Navy as 'Rosy'.
