Louis Spears

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Major General Sir Edward Louis Spears, 1st Baronet, KBE, CB, MC (7 August 1886 – 27 January 1974) was a British army officer and Member of Parliament noted for his role as a liaison between British and French forces in two world wars.

Spears was four times wounded during World War I in 1914-15 and received the Military Cross. From 1915 to 1916 he was liaison officer with the French 10th army and from 1917 to 1920 he was head of the British Military Mission to Paris, becoming a Brigadier-General in 1918.

Spears was a Conservative Member of Parliament for Loughborough from 1922 to 1924 and Carlisle from 1931 to 1945. During the late 1930's he supported Winston Churchill's call for rearmament in the face of Nazi threats.

During the critical months of May and June, 1940, Spears was Winston Churchill's personal representative to the French prime minister. He headed the British Mission to Charles de Gaulle later in 1940 and personally rescued De Gaulle from France just before the German conquest, literally pulling the Frenchman into his plane as it was taking off for Britain^[1]. He later served as British resident and subsequently as First Minister in Syria and Lebanon from 1941 to 1944.

Spears was knighted in 1942 and created a baronet in 1953.

[edit] References

1. ^ Winston S. Churchill (1949). Their Finest Hour. Houghton Mifflin. 

This page incorporates information from Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Oscar Guest	Member of Parliament for Loughborough 1922–1924	Succeeded by Frank Rye
Preceded by George Middleton	Member of Parliament for Carlisle 1931–1945	Succeeded by Edgar Grierson