Papers of Eustace Wareing

The papers focus on the period 1941-1944 when Wareing was special correspondent for French affairs. They largely comprise typescript reports and statements written by Wareing, at least some of which were communicated to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph . They include accounts of interviews and conversations and records of information obtained from a variety of sources. A number of the documents are marked as "confidential" or "top secret". The papers focus particularly on the power struggles in the Free French movement and offer a valuable insight into the conflicts between the important figures of de Gaulle, Muselier, Giraud and Darlon and also into the tensions between de Gaulle and the British and American officials and governments.

The documents reveal some intelligence information about military operations, and also provide some information about resistance operations and about the political and civil situation in occupied France. Records and notes of other interviews which Wareing conducted include notes of a lunch time conversation at the Connaught Hotel in London attended by de Gaulle whom he describes as "very affable and at moments almost witty for the professor of a single track mind"; a summary of a private talk with Sir Samuel Hoare at the Foreign Office, in September 1942 about the Franco regime in Spain; and, the latest document in the collection, dated October 1944, a report of a conversation with King Peter of Yugoslavia "who proved to be by no means the lightweight I had been led to expect."

Eustace Bernard Foley Wareing, 1890-1958; writer and civil servant. Wareing was a student at University of Birmingham where he was awarded a B.Comm. in 1911. After graduation, he studied and lectured at Munich University between 1912 and 1914, during which time he also acted as correspondent of The Times  . He served in France in the First World War in the Royal Garrison Artillery and the Intelligence, and at the end of hostilities joined the staff of the Inter-allied Rhineland High Commission, becoming Secretary General in 1928. In 1929 he was appointed as a foreign correspondent of the Daily Telegraph , first in Rome, then in Berlin from 1933-1938, when he transferred to Paris. During the Second World War, Wareing was the newspaper's special correspondent for French Affairs and diplomatic correspondent, 1940-1943, and special correspondent in Algiers in 1943. In 1944 he covered General de Gaulle's visits to Washington and Ottawa. He returned to Paris after the liberation of the city and continued as the Telegraph's correspondent until 1948, when he joined the Control Commission in Germany as a temporary civil servant until his retirement in 1953.

Reference: Phil Bassett The University of Birmingham Research Libraries Bulletin ( Number 6 Autumn 1998 ).

Open. Access to all registered researchers.

This collection was deposited in 1997 by the Wareing family.

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Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the University Archivist, Special Collections. Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. Special Collections will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

Further deposits are not expected.

University of Birmingham Information Services, Special Collections Department also holds the archives of the University of Birmingham and archives of other former staff, officials and students.