Book recommendations - battle histories/operational narrative

[Hugo Rodrigues]

Hello everyone

First post. I signed up for this board years ago but forgot all of my account information, so if there are any rules against having more than one account please let me know. IIRC at the time I posted a request much like the one that follows.

------

I'm asking you for suggestions of books about specific World War One battles, particularly (but not limited to) the Western Front. I'm not interested in battlefield guides or compilations of eyewitness accounts; what I'm looking for are books with detailed operational narrative at the division/brigade/battalion level but still providing a thorough account of the battle in question, supported by good enough maps, and including orders of battle of the forces involved. I know that this is the sort of thing the Official Histories are for, but those are cumbersome and hard to get hold of and I'm looking for books I can easily order from online bookstores.

I can read English and French and also Spanish and Italian (the latter with some difficulty) due to language similarities. No German.

I'd also prefer books that include information about both sides and not just about the British or French forces for instance. I can give additional detail, like say the battles which I already own books about or not, if that helps in any way.

I thank you in advance.

Hugo Rodrigues

[SilverFox100]

Hi Hugo welcome to the forum. No doubt you will get lots of recommendations and it will depend on your interests of the battles on the Western Front. If you are looking for mainly factual, one book I bought earlier on was about the Somme. It's called The Somme The Day by Day account by Chris McCarthy. It gives literally what it says in the title, a day by day account of what divisions were fighting where on the Somme battlefield, not massive detail but sufficient, from the 1st July 1916 until 18th November, lots of maps, photos etc.

Jerry Murland's book 'Retreat and Rearguard 1914' tells the facts of the BEF's actions from the first action at Mons in August1914 until the Battle of the Marne, only a very few days but well detailed, telling what happened and through people who were there and worth the read. My particular interest is the Royal Field Artillery that my grandfather was in right from the beginning and there is a good short book that tells the story of the RFA at the Battle of Le Cateau, by Major A F Becke, 'The Royal Regiment of Artillery at Le Cateau, 26th August 1914., very detailed.

It really just depends on your interests, time available to read and pocket. Hope this helps just a little.

Regards. Mike

[keithmroberts]

The British official histories do contain detailed, if dry reports of almost all engagements and although originals are expensive most have been reprinted by the Naval and Military Press.

Keith

[Hugo Rodrigues]

To elaborate a bit further on what I'm looking for, I'm mostly interested in strategy at the operational level (I did postgrad studies in Strategy a few years ago, though my final dissertation was about the Roman Empire and not WW1), and to a lesser extent in the way tactics dictate operational decisions, and that's the reason why I'm looking for battle histories with the sort of materials that are useful for wargamers (maps, orders of battle).

Hi Hugo welcome to the forum. No doubt you will get lots of recommendations and it will depend on your interests of the battles on the Western Front. If you are looking for mainly factual, one book I bought earlier on was about the Somme. It's called The Somme The Day by Day account by Chris McCarthy. It gives literally what it says in the title, a day by day account of what divisions were fighting where on the Somme battlefield, not massive detail but sufficient, from the 1st July 1916 until 18th November, lots of maps, photos etc.
Jerry Murland's book 'Retreat and Rearguard 1914' tells the facts of the BEF's actions from the first action at Mons in August1914 until the Battle of the Marne, only a very few days but well detailed, telling what happened and through people who were there and worth the read. My particular interest is the Royal Field Artillery that my grandfather was in right from the beginning and there is a good short book that tells the story of the RFA at the Battle of Le Cateau, by Major A F Becke, 'The Royal Regiment of Artillery at Le Cateau, 26th August 1914., very detailed.
It really just depends on your interests, time available to read and pocket. Hope this helps just a little.
Regards. Mike

"The Somme - the day by day account" might be what in the lines of I'm looking for, yes. It's out of print, but it seems one can still get it used. For the actions covered in "Retreat and Rearguard 1914" on the other hand I've already read books with enough information for my purposes.

In my next post I'll try to give some pointers as to which battles I'm more interested in.

The British official histories do contain detailed, if dry reports of almost all engagements and although originals are expensive most have been reprinted by the Naval and Military Press.

Keith

There are 3 "Military Operations" volumes for 1917 and 5 for 1918 for the Western Front alone; I've checked the reprints you've mentioned and they're 35 GBP each (maybe less expensive at Amazon.co.uk). Convert that to €, add postage and packing and it's a very steep price to pay - and just to get the British perspective on operations. That's why I'm looking for alternatives.

Thank you both for your feedback.

[Hugo Rodrigues]

What follows is a list of the main Western Front battles of WW1. They're grouped in categories: those about which I already own books, even if only Osprey Campaign series booklets, and feel that I already have enough info, and those for which I'm actually looking for book suggestions, even if I've already read books on the topic that I ended up finding unsatisfactory.

The battles I'm more interested in are those of 1916-1918 that I list below, but I'm open to suggestions regarding earlier engagements.

1914

Mons, Le Cateau, First Marne and First Ypres - already covered;

Alsace (Mulhouse), Lorraine (Morhange/Sarrebourg/etc.), Ardennes, Charleroi, First Aisne - nothing, but not a priority;

1915

Neuve Chapelle - already covered;

First Champagne, Second Ypres, Second Artois (Aubers Ridge and Festubert), Second Champagne and Third Artois (Loos) - interested, but not a priority;

1916

Verdun - read "The Price of Glory" like everyone else plus some other stuff, but open to additional suggestions as what I have doesn't cover the operational side of the battle as thoroughly as I'd like;

Somme - have good enough info on the first day but not on the remainder of the battle, looking for suggestions;

Fromelles - have nothing.

1917

Messines, Third Ypres/Passchendaele, Cambrai - already covered;

Arras - have good enough info on the capture of Vimy Ridge, but not on the battle as a whole or about actions in the Bullecourt sector, looking for suggestions;

Second Aisne/Nivelle Offensive, Second Verdun (August), La Malmaison (October) - have nothing, looking for suggestions.

1918

Op. Michael/Kaiserschlacht, Amiens, St. Mihiel - already covered;

Lys, Third Aisne, Noyon/Montdidier/Matz, Second Marne, Soissons/Ourcq, breaking the Hindenburg Line (Sept. Oct. - Canal du Nord, St. Quentin Canal), Meuse/Argonne - have nothing, looking for suggestions.

Next I'll post some of the titles I've found in previous searches, and ask those of you who have read them to confirm my impressions if those books are close to what I'm looking for or not and if I should actually get them.

[keithmroberts]

Cost can obviously get silly, but the other thing that you need will be decent maps. The WFA ones on disk by area might be your best bet, and if you focus initially on a single area you might find them and the relevant books more affordable.

You might also like to look at one of the volumes produced by Peter Barton and Jeremy Banning. Again, they are not cheap, but they are well prepared and also have pretty good maps within the volumes.

Keith

[SilverFox100]

Hi Hugo

If you are interested in more detailed information on the Battle of the Somme for example, then two books I have, which I would not class as 'reading' books, but books giving information, although well written and compiled and readable, are both by Gerald Gliddon, both of which are still obtainable. The first is, 'Somme 1916, A Battlefield Companion'. The second 'The Battle of the Somme, A Topographical History'.

The first lists every place, town or village that saw fighting or anything to do with the battle, with a description of where it is, who fought or was billeted there etc. Very detailed and a book I have to dip into. The second is even more detailed regarding the places and the battles that took place during this time with quite a few maps which help. Again one which I dip into whilst reading other books. But I can guarantee, if you want detail and information it's here.

Hope this helps

Mike

[David Filsell]

I think a number of the battles in which you are interested have been the subject of one or more bibliographical postings already. Check the search feature and go through the books thread.

[Hugo Rodrigues]

I think a number of the battles in which you are interested have been the subject of one or more bibliographical postings already. Check the search feature and go through the books thread.

Yes, I've been doing just that and found many threads with interesting suggestions; there's a recent one about Loos 1915, another one about the 1915 battles in general, another about Verdun, and I was just searching threads asking for suggestions w/r/t the 1914 Battle of the Frontiers.

[Hugo Rodrigues]

So, based on what I found on those threads and some browsing of my own in online bookstores etc., here are some of the books I found that I suspect may be in the lines of what I'm looking for. I thank you in advance for any comments on whether any of these books, or others you might know of, meet my requirements (so to speak).

The Battle of the Frontiers 1914

The Battle of the Frontiers - Ardennes 1914 by Terence Zuber - was on my "to buy" list, but went out of print before I got to it and seems now impossible to obtain.

La Bataille des Frontières - Joffre Attaque au Centre 22-26 août 1914 by Jean-Claude Delhez - an abridgment of his previous massive 2 vol. book on the same subject. I know the publisher (Economica) well, have read other books and articles published by them, but not from this particular collection. User reviews complain about the maps.

From what I've read here and elsewhere, it seems both "The Marne 1918" by Holger H. Herwig and "The Campaign of the Marne" by Sewell Tyng also cover the fighing in late August.

Charleroi; 21-23 août 1914 by Damien Baldin and Emmanuel Saint-Fuscien - user reviews hint that this may be more of a study of C3i issues at the higher command level than an operational/tactical account, which come to think of it might be more interesting to me than a mere narrative. But I'd like to know if anyone has read this.

First Aisne 1914

Aisne 1914 - The Dawn of Trench Warfare by Paul Kendall

The BEF Campaign on the Aisne 1914 by Jerry Murland

Kendall's book has a much larger number of pages, and the index leads me to believe it presents a very detailed narrative. The discussion of Murland's book in this forum comes to the conclusion that it's an excellent book, but somewhat hampered by lack of maps (though it was made clear that it wasn't the author's fault).

Second Ypres 1915

Second Ypres 1915 - The Gas Attack by John Lee [Pen & Sword Campaign Chronicles] - of this series I've only read the Passchendaele book, which is more or less what I'm looking for in terms of chronological narrative focused on military operations (despite the total absence of custom-made maps; from what I've read here Pen & Sword authors have to provide maps for their books themselves), but I haven't seen any in-depth review/preview of this particular book anywhere.

Magnificent but not War - The Second Battle of Ypres 1915 by John Dixon - user reviews seem to imply that it's a very detailed narrative of the battle, but 100% anglocentric.

Loos 1915

Loos 1915 by Nick Lloyd - seems that this is a good operational study, and given its number of pages should provide enough detail on the fighting itself. Or not?

Most Unfavourable Ground - The Battle of Loos 1915 by Niall Cherry - also mentioned here, but seems it may not be as close to what I'm looking for as Nick Lloyd's book.

Verdun 1916

I already read Horne and an Osprey Campaign series booklet (middling for the standards of that collection), but I'd like to have additional detail on the military operations.

The recent "Verdun - The Longest Battle of the Great War" by Paul Jankowski seems to have a much wider scope than mere military operations and to devote even less pages to those than Horne's book. Then there's "Les 300 Jours de Verdun" by Jean-Pierre Turbergue, which seems to be a heavily illustrated day by day account of the battle - but also quite expensive. There are extensive previews of Alain Denizot's "Verdun 1914-1918" available online and it seems to be exactly what I'm looking for, with good level of detail and thorough coverage of all the fighting at Verdun, including the August 1917 offensive. Is my impression correct?

Somme 1916

Besides "The Somme - The Day by Day Account" by Chris McCarthy that was already recommended upthread, it seems that William Philpott's "Bloody Victory - The Sacrifice on the Somme" provides a good, thorough account of the battle, including detail on the French operations. But is it in the lines of an operational narrative, with dates, place names, identification of military units and so on? There's also a book on the Somme by Alain Denizot ("La Bataille de la Somme - juillet-decembre 1916"); there are previews of this, but not as extensive as for Denizot's book on Verdun. But I assume it's the book to get if I want details on French military operations on the Somme? A poster on this forum describes it as lacking in context and riddled with factual errors and typos though. And there's "Attack on the Somme - Haig's Offensive 1916" by Martin Pegler, also from Pen & Sword's Campaign Chronicles series. Anyone read this?

Second Aisne/Nivelle Offensive/Chemin des Dames 1917

Found a recommendation for Pierre Miquel's "Le Chemin des Dames" in this forum - is it an operational narrative, or a popular history?

Battle of the Lys/Op. Georgette 1918

The Battle for Flanders - German Defeat on the Lys 1918 by Chris Baker seems to be the book to get w/r/t this battle.

Pen & Sword's Campaign Chronicles have a general title on the 1918 German offensives (Ian Passingham's "The German Offensives of 1918 - The Last Desperate Gamble"), but I've read people on this forum rating it as disappointing and Anglocentric.

Second Battle of the Marne 1918

The Second Battle of the Marne by Michael S. Neiberg - judging by its length and by its index (which mentions very few military formations/units), I doubt I'd find this book in any way satisfactory, despite this being one of the battles I'm most interested in.

The Second Battle of the Marne 1918 by Paul Greenwood - have found next to no info on this; out of print but still obtainable. Anyone knows what sort of book it is?

Argonne 1918

To Conquer Hell - The Meuse-Argonne 1918 by Edward G. Lengel - seems lengthty and detailed, but there are complaints about the maps.

America's Deadliest Battle - Meuse-Argonne 1918 by Robert H. Ferrell - shorter than the previous book, but judging by the few reviews I could find it seems to have enough detail and decente maps.

Does any of these two books have any info on the role French forces played in this operation though?

And then there is the recent "Battle Story" series, with books on "Ypres 1914-1915", "Loos 1915", "Verdun 1916", "Cambrai 1917" and another book titled "Somme 1916" to be released. What are these books like?

[Hugo Rodrigues]

So I downloaded all of the narrative volumes of the French official histories; the narrative volume about the May-August 1916 operations isn't available for download yet, which means that the coverage of the battles of Verdun and the Somme is severely truncated, and none of the map volumes has been uploaded (must be insanely heavy files), but this should help me out w/r/t French operations in 1915, 1917 and 1918.

Just noticed that there's an English translation of the Austrian official history available, including HR scans of all the maps. Already got the text, maps are legion and will take a while...

As for the list I posted above, I did a very OCD online search for additional books on those and other battles and will eventually make some decisions w/r/t purchases - which will only be a few, as the "to read" pile in every department, not just military history in general or First World War, has officially reached unmanageable proportions.

But still I'd like to ask for further comments on these, if anyone as read them, as they both concern the exact same battle and are even of roughly similar length:

The Second Battle of the Marne 1918 - Paul Greenwood

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OfAnudgbL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

About this, found a short comment on this forum, and a mostly positive reader review that complains about the book having c. 50 pp. of "units moving from one place to another" - which is precisely what I'm looking for.

The Second Battle of the Marne - Michael S. Neiberg

http://thumbs3.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mKY4z9z_TKVKlO2ctoaIOlQ.jpg

Most of the endnotes and index of this book can be previewed online, and I noticed that, while the author complains of the Anglocentrism of many WW1 accounts, and the book's back cover features a blurb praising it for its coverage of the French side of this battle, the final index gives the impression that the author mentions the American and British divisions that took part in the battle much more often than the French divisions, which after all still made up for the majority of the counterattacking force.

So does anyone know which of these books features better maps, more detail on military operations and a more balanced account in terms of giving coverage to the actions of American, British, French and German forces?

I thank you in advance.

[Guest]

Hello

I am rather late to this thread but here goes (from a British perspective);

Despite your comments on the Official Histories, given the sheer scale of these battles I would echo Keith's comments. I would start with them. Many have been reprinted and are available through Amazon (via GWF website) and have been reprinted by the Battery Press/IWM as well as N&MP as mentioned by Keith. There is a healthy second-hand market via Amazon/ABEBooks or dealers such as TurnerDonovan. There are a number of reasons why the OH's have to be essential reading; The historians had access to all the original material and more importantly either served in the campaigns or had the opportunity to speak and correspond with key participants - including the opposition. The British OHs despite some of their shortcomings are pretty comprehensive and probably provide the right sort of balance between depth and breadth, drilling down to single battalion actions where necessary but very anchored at formation levels significantly higher up. They often include key Operational Orders too. One small caveat: some of the earlier OH's such as 1915 Vol I covering Neuve Chapelle and Ypres (pub 1927) were written before many Regimental, Brigade or Divisional histories, so the authors did not always have the benefit of some of the better researched unit histories written in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

It is worth remembering that the raw material in terms of diaries were not in the public domain until 1967, so anything written before this date (generally speaking) did not have access to most of the key material unless it was an OH or (to a much lesser extent) a unit history with access to its own diary. After 1967 access required physically going to the (then) Public Records Office (now The National Archives) and therefore was not as easy as it is today with digitisation and the internet. There was quite a bit of poor British military history on the Great War written between 1918 and 1967. Thankfully with the opening of the Archives and the advances in accessibility via the internet things have changed.

One might argue that any publication has an agenda, so the narrative will always have a bias. That said I find the (British) Divisional, Brigade and Regimental/Battalion histories are not particularly well balanced and have slight tendency to subordinate the 'truth' (whatever that is) to the preservations and enshrinement of reputations. For examples of this I would highlight the 10th Irish Div and 53rd Welsh Div histories. One might might argue the same for the OHs. I am making very broad observations of course, and there are many fine exceptions to this.

I suspect that you will find a solution in a barbell approach - at one end the magisterial OHs and at the other end some very well researched modern publications. The latter have the benefit of being written by professional scholars with access to archives and technology that enables them to manage the vast amount of available data. To write a thorough history of the Battles of the Somme would require years of research; something that arguable only a professional academic has the time and resources to do.

Modern authors are of course often hamstrung by their publishers who limit the number of pages and words. It would be difficult to imagine a publisher commissioning a 1,000 page double volume on any campaign or series of battles in today's market. This is one reason why I think the OHs will always be an essential tool for researchers. The British OH volumes and appendices covering the Battles of the Somme approach 800 pages. Most modern publications seem to be limited to 200-250 pages which by definition limits what an author can cover. The British OH on 1914 up to and including the Aisne is covered in 500 odd pages. Jerry Murland's excellent publication is limited to just over 200. Gallipoli (not on your list I know) has 2,000 pages of OH dedicated to it (British, and ANZAC) only partially rivalled in recent years with 500 page modern publications that attempt to cover similar ground.

Just waving the flag for the Official Histories. MG

[Hugo Rodrigues]

Thank you for your elaborate, thoughtful and knowledgeable post, Martin G.

One might argue that any publication has an agenda, so the narrative will always have a bias. That said I find the (British) Divisional, Brigade and Regimental/Battalion histories are not particularly well balanced and have slight tendency to subordinate the 'truth' (whatever that is) to the preservations and enshrinement of reputations. For examples of this I would highlight the 10th Irish Div and 53rd Welsh Div histories. One might might argue the same for the OHs. I am making very broad observations of course, and there are many fine exceptions to this.

I didn't want to go into the issue of the reliability of the British official histories as it seems that remains a secondary theatre (so to speak) of the ongoing war between the so-called "butchers and bunglers" school and the so-called "revisionists".

You make a strong case for the British official histories, but I still have my reservations. My reluctance to buy the British official histories, like I said, comes from the steep cost, and the fact that official histories rarely have much info about the opposing side (that's not their purpose anyway) - the French WW1 OH, which I'm browsing through right now, certainly has very little on German plans, formation/unit IDs, etc. Too much to pay to get such one-sided info IMO.

When I was browsing online bookstores and the latest catalogues of a few specialised publishers looking for recent, easily obtainable WW1 battle histories with a focus on military operations, I wasn't expecting to find that many titles, and indeed I didn't. I just don't think there's a demand for this sort of book about WW1 battles. For WW2 you can easily get detailed, well researched and readable accounts of most of the more relevant battles/campaigns (even for the Eastern Front - operational studies about it are booming right now). I suppose some of this is down to WW2 attracting more hobbyists (wargamers, modellers and hardware enthusiasts) than WW1, which from what I gather tends to remain the province of amateur genealogists and battlefield tourists. Readers of books about WW1 and WW2 are simply looking for different things.

This lack of demand/recent studies with a purely military focus is also IMO the reason why, when I ask for this sort of reading recommendation for WW1 (something that, like I said, I've done before), people keep sending me to the official histories. I doubt WW2 enthusiasts would do the same. Some of this is due, granted, to the unavailability of OHs - as is the case for the Eastern Front (there are 3 different sets of Soviet/Russian OHs, but they don't seem to have ever been translated and are known to have been influenced by political considerations; the publication of the closest thing to a German OH, which is not a pure military history and probably doesn't have enough military detail for the needs of most hobbyists, was only completed in 2008, and the English translation of that series is both still incomplete and already unaffordable). But there are full sets of WW2 OHs for the Western Allies, and, from the admittedly little I read/know of them (mostly American, some British, the New Zealand vol. about Op. Crusader), they seem to be less cumbersome and dry than their WW1 equivalents, more readable, with occasional attempts to cover the experiences of the common soldier, and (and least the American OHs) not so blatant in their tendency to hide command failures/errors on their own side since the OHs are also meant to be learning tools for future officers, who must trained to avoid the errors of the past (+ the US Army OHs are available as free downloads). Yet there are plenty of alternatives to (most of) them.

Apologies for the rambling.

[Canadian J]

I really enjoyed "Vimy" by Pierre Burton, and also "Victory at Vimy" by Ted Barris, both an excellent account of the battle of Vimy Ridge from a mostly Canadian perspective. I'd say Victory at Vimy might be more of what you are looking for.

[Guest]

I think it will be challenging for all the reasons you point out.

In terms of cost, the average cost of a single modern reprint of a Regimental history from one of Britain's largest military specialist publishers is £32.34 (based on 50 histories). The OH France and Flanders 1914 Vol II is £27.94 bought about 1 minute ago.

I tend to think in terms of value rather than cost. When buying a book, I always go to the bibliography and end-notes first to try and gauge how well researched it is. When I think of the best researched modern tomes on the Great War they tend to have thematics that are not necessarily anchored on Battles or Campaigns. I am thinking of examples such as Simkin's utterly brilliant "Kitchener's Army", Badsey's "Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry" Kenyon's "Horsemen in No Man's Land" - all beautifully written and researched in forensic detail yet none are battle-centric. That might be because the OH's were battle-centric and modern authors are filling 'thematic' gaps rather than attempt revisionist tomes already covered in detail by the OHs. Looking at my bookshelves the older books are OHs and unit histories and the modern books are either single battalion histories (lots of war raised units) or books on thematics that are not battle-centric. There are relatively few battle-centric volumes such as Murland's book on the Aisne. I wonder if publishers have effectively discouraged modern authors from covering the same crowded ground as the OHs.

Your comments on the differences between publications on the Great War and WWII are very interesting. I have an interest in War Diaries and the (British) unit war diaries from the Great War are significantly more detailed than those of WWII. The sheer volume of material is staggering and anyone thoroughly researching say the Advance to the Aisne, would have to read many millions of words just to cover the basic raw material. The (British Expeditionary Force) unit diaries for 1914 are 2 million words alone. When comparing the diaries to the published unit histories there are some wide differences between the raw material in the diaries and the sanitised published histories. Any historian attempting to write more about the British Army in 1914 than the OH would need to read both the diaries and the published histories of every unit at the very least -which in itself is about 4 million words. To then compress this into a single volume of 250 pages is a very complex challenge. I take my hat off to Murland.

I can't comment on the other countries' OHs but the British OHs were written over 23 years by six different authors so there are a wide range of approaches. The OH I am most familiar with is Gallipoli where the author (Aspinall-Oglander) certainly did use material from the opposing forces and indeed had long correspondence with key participants from the German and Turkish forces. Despite this it is still written from a British perspective and parts were heavily revised to appease the Australians. Edmonds (Author of most of the British OHs: 14 of the 33 volumes)) had a very different approach to Aspinall-Oglander and indeed they disagreed on many aspects of the Gallipoli volumes. It is arguably the most honest and critical British OH. I am becoming more familiar with Edmonds' volumes on the Western Front, particularly those of 1914 and 1915 and they seem slightly less detailed than the Gallipoli volumes and dare I say less balanced. There is a very good analysis of the history of the British OHs written by Andrew Green: "Writing the Great War". which I believe was his PhD thesis.

A long winded way of saying the OHs were built on extremely strong foundations and I think are still fantastic value even if the cost is higher than a modern publication.

I suspect that the value one can extract from these volumes is partly a function of how well-read one is on these subjects. It sounds as if you have a very comprehensive understanding of these battles already

Good luck with your search. It would be very interesting to see your final list.

MG

[Latze]

Hugo,

concerning the British OH: I think they are much more useful for your wargaming purpose than the French one. I downloaded the French OH from Gallica and although my French is rather sketchy it is clear that they are written from a very high level and organizational perspective. The British OH is much more concerned with narration and operational matters. O bought mine as a DVD which was not expensive at all considering the amount of 'book' I got. The German OH is good, too. I have it in the original but a partial English translation is available from a Canadian publisher I think. The German OH has some very good detailed maps for some actions.

I would recommend two other books:

1) Hooton "War over the Trenches" if you want to include air power side of things. It starts in 1916 but is choke full of OB information (and not only the fighter stuff)

2) Wynne "If Germany attacks" contains 12 short but detailed analysis of key actions from the German perspective written by a British officer (I think his "Landrecries to Cambrai" is also available). If you are interested I can give you a list of actions covered.

As you cannot read German it might be useful to complement all the English books by the works of Jack Sheldon. These are not the operational histories you seek but contain extremely useful information regarding German units involved. Highly recommended.

regards

Matt

[MartH]

A few thoughts on Official Histories of the Great War and their relationship to other series.

You have to think why where they written and then how.

The model for OH's comes from the Prussian High Command, who wanted the lessons in the "Science of War" written up for serving officers. The first British OH's where translations of the German ones.

When the GW started the UK had in production the OH of the Russo Japanese war, one of the volumes was published after the GW, Wavell and Swinton where 2 of the authors.

The UK War Diaries where kept for the production of an OH in the lessons learnt style. Due to political pressures they had to also be a popular narrative too. There where several series of UK ones:

Military Operations on Land

Naval, Seabourne and Blockade

Air warfare

Medical and Veterinary

Principal Events

For all the Military Operations there was a process, after Edmonds had drafted out Principal Events and sorted and indexed the War Diaries. It had 4 "levels" 1) There was the writing of the narrative of what happened where and when, then 2) with the operational decision making process, then with 3) the High Command implications, and finally 4) the home/political considerations. After that the drafts where circulated to many of the participants, who wrote volumes of comments all of which where considered. The writing of the narratives used crossed referenced War Diaries, personal dairies, correspondence and papers from participants, published works in all languages and correspondence with the other countries writing Official Histories, Edmonds' was the informal central contact point for all OH history writing and exchange, and supporting for the Commonwealth ones. The French did not even bother with the Reicharchiv till 1937. Look at the bibliographies in all his works, they show many foreign language books, and read the acknowledgements in the German ones to him, as evidence. In addition Edmonds and his team supported other writers of regimental and battalion histories, they even had office space for visiting authors.

The French only did the narrative type, plus maps and appendices.

The Germans did 3 series, Der Weltkreig concentrating on the 2nd and 3rd levels. Much of the team was employed for the writing of papers to assist the new German army, the other 2 series were the narrative type, the Germans wanted to understand the 2nd and 3rd level. The last volume was not published in 1944 contrary to all bibliographical references, all 1956 editions are printed as it should have been in 1944, with the dates etc, hence the errors, even in the translations!

Ok, briefly the WWII ones, the UK became the academic approach, (many academics had been jealous of lucrative restricted access to the War Diaries etc) , and concentrated on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th levels, the NZ's did write some operational narratives. The German Archives went to the US who produced many "lesson learnt from the Germans versus the Russians" because they had no operational experience of fighting the Russians, so important to them during the cold war, and when the records where returned, the Germans started on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th level OH's.

So where does this leave us when evaluating the GW OH's particularly the British, the narrative is rarely found to have errors, level 4 was missed out, most of the criticism are at the 2nd and 3rd levels. The publication of each volume triggered many new works on the subject, in fact often nothing came out of significance until their publication e.g Third Ypres before 1948.

They should have been the first word on the subject not last, to be built upon, which is still being done to various degrees of success. In hindsight the UK should have produced 2 sorts, 1) Popular narratives for the public and 2) Restricted lessons learnt for the military. In fact after WWII they sort of did that with the Air Historical Branch publications, the Naval Staff publication and the "The Army at War" Series. Alas they are a bit of both and hence do neither properly.

When you read the Edmonds memoirs now published, I get a feeling that if head been given a little more support he could have produced something really special, he had the capacity, but was not given the support, resources and direction from his masters. What a missed opportunity.

Hope this helps, Mart

[MartH]

I should have added I have over 1,000 OH's in English and other languages, it's not a complete set but pretty good, on par with most national libraries, plus most of the works covering the writing of them.

[David Ridgus]

Hugo

One battle you mentioned you did not have anything on was Arras.

The two books I think fit your bill are 'Cheerful Sacrifice' by Jonathan Nicholls and 'Arras' by Peter Barton and Jeremy Banning

David

[Hugo Rodrigues]

I think it will be challenging for all the reasons you point out.

In terms of cost, the average cost of a single modern reprint of a Regimental history from one of Britain's largest military specialist publishers is £32.34 (based on 50 histories). The OH France and Flanders 1914 Vol II is £27.94 bought about 1 minute ago.

I tend to think in terms of value rather than cost. When buying a book, I always go to the bibliography and end-notes first to try and gauge how well researched it is. When I think of the best researched modern tomes on the Great War they tend to have thematics that are not necessarily anchored on Battles or Campaigns. I am thinking of examples such as Simkin's utterly brilliant "Kitchener's Army", Badsey's "Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry" Kenyon's "Horsemen in No Man's Land" - all beautifully written and researched in forensic detail yet none are battle-centric. That might be because the OH's were battle-centric and modern authors are filling 'thematic' gaps rather than attempt revisionist tomes already covered in detail by the OHs. Looking at my bookshelves the older books are OHs and unit histories and the modern books are either single battalion histories (lots of war raised units) or books on thematics that are not battle-centric. There are relatively few battle-centric volumes such as Murland's book on the Aisne. I wonder if publishers have effectively discouraged modern authors from covering the same crowded ground as the OHs.

Your comments on the differences between publications on the Great War and WWII are very interesting. I have an interest in War Diaries and the (British) unit war diaries from the Great War are significantly more detailed than those of WWII. The sheer volume of material is staggering and anyone thoroughly researching say the Advance to the Aisne, would have to read many millions of words just to cover the basic raw material. The (British Expeditionary Force) unit diaries for 1914 are 2 million words alone. When comparing the diaries to the published unit histories there are some wide differences between the raw material in the diaries and the sanitised published histories. Any historian attempting to write more about the British Army in 1914 than the OH would need to read both the diaries and the published histories of every unit at the very least -which in itself is about 4 million words. To then compress this into a single volume of 250 pages is a very complex challenge. I take my hat off to Murland.

I can't comment on the other countries' OHs but the British OHs were written over 23 years by six different authors so there are a wide range of approaches. The OH I am most familiar with is Gallipoli where the author (Aspinall-Oglander) certainly did use material from the opposing forces and indeed had long correspondence with key participants from the German and Turkish forces. Despite this it is still written from a British perspective and parts were heavily revised to appease the Australians. Edmonds (Author of most of the British OHs: 14 of the 33 volumes)) had a very different approach to Aspinall-Oglander and indeed they disagreed on many aspects of the Gallipoli volumes. It is arguably the most honest and critical British OH. I am becoming more familiar with Edmonds' volumes on the Western Front, particularly those of 1914 and 1915 and they seem slightly less detailed than the Gallipoli volumes and dare I say less balanced. There is a very good analysis of the history of the British OHs written by Andrew Green: "Writing the Great War". which I believe was his PhD thesis.

A long winded way of saying the OHs were built on extremely strong foundations and I think are still fantastic value even if the cost is higher than a modern publication.

I suspect that the value one can extract from these volumes is partly a function of how well-read one is on these subjects. It sounds as if you have a very comprehensive understanding of these battles already

Good luck with your search. It would be very interesting to see your final list.

MG

Difficulties: another issue is that I have to rely almost exclusively on online bookstores. There isn't a place where I can leaf through the books to check if they have enough maps, raw data etc. and if they cover the events I'm interested in with the required level of thoroughness/detail. I have to rely on what I find online - previews, tables of contents, lists of maps, customer reviews etc. - which give me a very incomplete picture of the actual contents of the books. Often I find myself ordering books off the web without a clear idea of what I'll be getting (exception: Osprey books, for all their flaws such as appalling "page for €" ratio, follow a ridigly standardised format so you have a good idea of what to expect from them). I learned this the hard way from an early purchase, John R. Schindler's "Isonzo". I was really looking forward to this book as I (naïvely) imagined that, being a fairly lengthy book, it would provide me with decent operational-level narratives for all the battles of the Isonzo. Yet when I got the book, I found out that it had no OOBs, 1 (one) map, that the text wasn't neatly organised with one separate chapter for each specific Isonzo battle, and that the author's MO for coverage of the Isonzo battles themselves was to focus on the experience of a selected group of units from the Austro-Hungarian side instead of giving a thorough narrative of the battle.

Lack of battle-centric studies: I don't think there's much demand for that sort of battle-centric study (to borrow your term), and for what little demand there is people use the OHs as you and others have suggested.

Differences between publications about both World Wars: at another level, that of availability of operational-level battle studies or lack thereof, the differences between the published output about WW1 and WW2 are significant, but probably easy to understand. WW2 you have meeting engagements, flairsome manoeuvring, sexy hardware and flamboyant commanders with colourful personalities. WW1 you have set-piece battles, static attrition, unglamourous artillery playing the lead role and commanders with really big 'taches. Oversimplifying and there are exceptions to this but you get the picture. The allure of WW2 rubs off even in some of the dreariest attritional battles of the period such as Monte Casssino or the siege of Leningrad.

"I suspect that the value one can extract from these volumes [the OHs] is partly a function of how well-read one is on these subjects. It sounds as if you have a very comprehensive understanding of these battles already"

No, far from it. But still I wouldn't be satisfied by books consisting mostly of generic padding you could find at Wikipedia.

Final list: my list is just an expansion of what I already posted above, and almost all of the books listed are recent and can be easily found at the big online bookstores. Plus of course the list doesn't include the (few) books that I already own, so it wouldn't be of much use to anyone.

Hugo,

concerning the British OH: I think they are much more useful for your wargaming purpose than the French one. I downloaded the French OH from Gallica and although my French is rather sketchy it is clear that they are written from a very high level and organizational perspective. The British OH is much more concerned with narration and operational matters. [...]

Matt

Not a wargamer, though I'd have no problem admitting it if I was. ;-)

My impression of the French OHs so far (having browsed through chunks of the vols. covering 1917 and 1918) is much the same as yours. The narrative is almost all division-level, and constantly interrupted with details about the orders given and the situation reports etc. sent. Huge chapters on the high command's plans, including those that came to nothing due to being overtaken by events. It's all very GQG.

[Hugo Rodrigues]

Ok, briefly the WWII ones, the UK became the academic approach, (many academics had been jealous of lucrative restricted access to the War Diaries etc) , and concentrated on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th levels, the NZ's did write some operational narratives. The German Archives went to the US who produced many "lesson learnt from the Germans versus the Russians" because they had no operational experience of fighting the Russians, so important to them during the cold war, and when the records where returned, the Germans started on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th level OH's.

Mart

The narrative of military operations in British WW2 OHs seems to be brief (e.g. c. 50 pp. for El Alamein), and the vols. themselves seem less cumbersome and more wide-ranging in their coverage than their WW1 equivalents, which I suppose goes a way towards explaining their greater availability and smaller price.

I read some of the NZ vol. on the 1941 Op. Crusader campaign and it's the best operational narrative I've yet seen about that battle.

Those American studies you mention, including many written by German officers in the years after the war, are still being used by WW2 historians. The mining of the surviving German records on the other hand, particularly for the Eastern Front fighting, is now going on at full throttle, and the result are often the sort of operational-level battle studies that I was complaining we get so few of regarding WW1.

[Hugo Rodrigues]

Hugo

One battle you mentioned you did not have anything on was Arras.

The two books I think fit your bill are 'Cheerful Sacrifice' by Jonathan Nicholls and 'Arras' by Peter Barton and Jeremy Banning

David

About Arras I only have an Osprey Campaign Series booklet; it's one of the good ones, by Alexander Turner, but it only covers the capture of Vimy Ridge. Since I'm still looking for a more comprehensive overview of the battle, "Cheerful Sacrifice" is on my shortlist, all the more so as it's available as an affordable paperback. But a certain big online bookstore has very recently rescinded free shipping to Portugal, so chances are I'll have to cut back on my list.