Book Wreckommendations

[Guest]

What I particularly like about Occlesahw's book are the notes appended to the bibliography. Some random examples (Occleshaw's comments in italics):

 

Blake R (ed.) Private Papers of Douglas Haig 1914-1919, London 1952. (Can be misleading on account of the large mass of material omitted. Should have been at least twice as long and accompanied by a volume of appendices)

 

Boraston, J H Sir Douglas Haig's Despatches, London 1919 (crucial to understanding how the Field Marshall saw war developing)

 

Charteris, Brigadier General JA  At GHQ. London 1931. (Important, but there is an element of covering up with some distortion of facts, omissions and the insertion of opinions which were not held at the time: this combination has misled several biographers and historians. To be read very guardedly)

 

Charteris, Brigadier General J A  Field Marshall Haig, London 1929 (This book angered the Countess Haig. The above comments apply to this book too, with the added drawback that Charteris was out of his depth when dealing with Haig's early life).

 

Churchill, W L S The World Crisis (5 Volumes) London 1923-9 (Contentious. Extremely partisan but beautifully written. Inspired a memorable response from Nancy, Lady Astor: 'Winston has written a book about himself and called it 'The World Crisis')

 

Deacon, R A History of the British Secret Service, London 1969 (Advantageous in that it covers much ground in a single volume but relies too heavily  on undigested and often unreliable secondary sources).

 

Everitt, N British Secret Service During the Great War, London n.d. (Fiction - and poor fiction too).

 

Knightly, P The Second Oldest Profession: the spy as bureaucrat, patriot, fantasist and whore, London 1986 (Falls into the trap of relying almost exclusively on published memoirs and reflects the fact that most of those were written for the public consumption with the intention of misleading)

 

Liddell Hart, Sir Basil H History of the First World War, London 1973 (Eminently readable but much of the information and many of the conclusions have been rendered unsound by more recent research. To be treated with extreme caution).

 

Lloyd George, D War Memoirs (6 volumes) London 1933-35 (Some very good insights which do not alter the fact that there are so many half-truths, omissions, ouright lies and twisted facts that the title might be better expressed 'War Lies'. Some might say it is a typical politician's book.)

 

Nicolai, Colonel W (trans G Renwick) The German Secret Service, London 1924. (A totally misleading book according to which the Germans had no Secret Service worth mentioning and had to battle with the Allied services which were far better funded!. Purports to say more about the Allied Services than the German, but upon investigation too much of what Nicolai says has little or no foundation. Unreliable and clearly written to persuade the German people and government to devote more funds to their secret intelligence).

 

and best of all...

 

Occleshaw, M E. British Military Intelligence in the First World War, University of Keele PhD thesis 1984 (Badly in need of developing in light of further information)

 

 

Edited 2 September , 2016 by Guest

[SteveMarsdin]

Brilliant !

 

I've never seen that done before in a bibliography.

 

Steve