ALS, one page, 6.5 x 8, embossed stationery with Alamein adding “The War Offices,” July 28, 1948. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff writes, in full: “You may like to see the attached paper. We have a front in Europe stretching from the Baltic to Trieste, and we must be careful to treat this as one great problem. My conclusions about Trieste are in the Memorandum.” Scattered light creasing, a few trivial spots of toning, staple marks to the top edge, a trivial spot of rubbing below the signature, and mounting remnants along the left edge on the reverse, otherwise fine condition.
In September 1948 parties of the Brussels Treaty formed a military agency, the Western Union Defense Organization "to cooperate with the United Nations Security Council to maintain international peace and security." The Field Marshal was appointed permanent Chairman of the Land, Naval and Air Commanders-in-Committee, until it was replaced by NATO in 1951, and tapped Montgomery as its Deputy Supreme Commander Europe. An East-West war threatened postwar Trieste; it was widely assumed that a Yugoslav attack was likely and that the port could not be held, so the British, assisted by Americans, stationed troops as an emergency peacekeeping group.
Trieste, an important seaport on the Adriatic had surrendered to New Zealand troops in 1945, but Yugoslavia claimed the port. To reduce tensions between Italy and Yugoslavia, The Free Territory of Trieste was established as part of the peace treaty. When Alamein visited Trieste in 1948 to view the troops stationed there, the fear of an "Iron Curtain" developed from the Baltic to the Adriatic, making the territory the eastern edge of the division of Europe and signaling the beginning of the Cold War. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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