A Sailor's Odyssey records Cunningham's formal negotiation with the French commander at Alexandria after the French armistice. The alternatives were to join the British struggle, render the ships incapable of going to sea with skeleton crews, or sail out and scuttle them. The second option was attractive because it preserved the ships for France while denying them to the enemy. The French commander ultimately accepted that arrangement, even though news of Mers-el-Kébir made the settlement more difficult. Alexandria offers a contrasting outcome in which negotiation and local command judgement avoided destroying an allied squadron.
Chapter · 3:23:14-3:28:24
Cunningham's negotiation with the French squadron
Cunningham's memoir shows the difficult effort to prevent French ships at Alexandria from becoming Axis assets without immediately destroying them.