eTheses University of Birmingham

[Skipman]

Am sure many of you are familiar with this site, not all available to lesser mortals, but some are

eTheses Repository University of Birmingham

How was Richard Haldane able to reform the British Army? An historical assessment using a contemporary change management model

There are probably more. If you find, feel free to post

Mike

[Guest]

British 21st Infantry Division on the Western Front 1914 - 1918: A Case Study in Tactical Evolution

Mike

[Staffsyeoman]

Not so sure about 'lesser mortals' (he says, as a PhD student himself) but most submitted PhDs are also available through the British Library as free downloads on the eTHos system. Not 100% certain, but worth a go.

http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do

[Guest]

Thanks Staffsyeoman. Worth having a rake Click

Cheers Mike

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[Gibbo]

Availability of theses from the link posted by Staffsyeoman depends on the age and university. Some older ones have not been digitised, and the cut-off point will vary between universities. Some authors refuse to make their theses public because they fear that this will harm their chances of publishing a book based on their research. I was told at a university seminar on copyright that this is not the case because of the level of alteration that has to be made to a thesis to make it publishable as a book, but some of the other participants were clearly not convinced by this.

Published military historians whose theses I have found to be available for download (not all on WWI) include Gary Sheffield, Gerard Oram, Ross Anderson, Matthew Hughes, Annika Mombauer, Nicholas Lloyd, David Kenyon, Bryn Hammond, John Buckley, Gerard de Groot, Saul David, Charles Esdaile and David Zabecki. When searching for a particular author note that sometimes the first name(s) are given in full, but sometimes only initials are stated, especially for older theses or Oxbridge ones. Also, authors may use a diminutive of their first name on the cover of their books, but theses normally quote their full name.

In theory you can request digitisation of a thesis that is not currently available, and have it within 30 days. However, when I asked for Edward Erickson's thesis, I was told after 30 days that it was unavailable. No reason was given, so I do not know if it was because of the author, the university, a lack of resources to carry out the digitisation or some technical problem.

A year ago, searches on various key word produced the following number of hits (the first number is the total number of theses and the second those available for immediate download:

War 2337/1068

Army 330/173

Navy 108/54

Naval 129/80

Air Force 108/64

Note that some are cultural history or engineering theses.