Hotel Cecil and the Hotel Savoy with Cleopatra's Needle and the embankment along the Thames River, London, England, ca. 1901

Hotel Cecil and the Hotel Savoy with Cleopatra's Needle and the embankment along the Thames River, London, England. American Stereoscopic Company, circa 1901. The Savoy is where Albert Ballin negotiated the Atlantic Conference of 1908, and stayed there on many visits. Winston Churchill also used it frequently for meetings. It is quite possible that this is where Ballin and Churchill dined on the eve of the outbreak of World War I in 1914.