The Official History of WW1 series

[Dani Alfonsea]

Hello,

I has been recently recommended these books because of an inquiry I made here. I have found these books available from several sources. It being official history, I imagine these will be hard to read but very detailed accounts of the military operations. Is that so? What I would like to hear is some insights on them, about their readability, reliability, whatever you may happen to mention.

Thanks,

Daniel

[Chris_Baker]

Daniel, you are right in believing that the OH series will be detailed accounts of military ops. They are. But they are remarkably easy to read, I find - very well structured and written. Not exactly "can't put down" or bedtime reading, but very good. The styles and amount of detail vary by volume, depending on the author.

Reliability is a different matter. On the whole, the facts are accurate and cross-check with detailed contemporary operational accounts. You would expect that as the official historians relied hugely on paper. The interpretation and spin is sometimes interesting. James Edomnds makes no secret of who he admires and dislikes, that is for sure.

I recently wrote an essay comparing the British and Australian OH's - I'll see if I can convert it to a web page. It got me good marks in a course I am doing, so it should be alright!

[PhilB]

Daniel, much as it grieves me to disagree with the owner, if you`re fairly new to WW1, I think you`ll find the OH far too detailed. You won`t want to know which battalions were in each action. I use them only as reference material, personally. Phil B

[Tony Lund]

Volume 1 of Military Operations France & Belgium 1914 is actually online, courtesy of the French. Obviously they are not all the same, but it will give you an idea of style.

Tony.

1914 Vol 1

Official History List

[paul guthrie]

I too do not consider these light reading, fun reading, and have used this only for research.

[Ste]

All of the above comments are perfectly valid. However, which one you agree with most will depend to some extent upon how far into the journey of exploration you are. I would have been rather overawed had I picked up Military Operations when I first started reaging about the Great War. On the other hand, I now use them regularly, own several volumes and find them pretty easy to use.

Cheers,

Ste

[Greg]

About as comprehensive as it gets although it can be very frustrating if you wish to follow up on supporting units like artillery or engineers. Coverage of these units is patchy. Wish the original intention to issue a popular set and a set for military academies had been followed. Would have purchased a set of the latter for sure! There are a number of books and articles on the writing of the OH which examine the bias of the authors. Still a remarkable achievement in my view!

Greg

[Andrew Hesketh]

Factually they are very good of course, but as Chris has mentioned there is an underlying issue of 'who to blame' and this greatly colours some of the interpretations. I have found reading about how the OH's were written far more entertaining than the OH's themselves.

[MartinWills]

It is all too easy to underestimate the value of the Official Histories as a source. I find I tend to dip into mine as a reference, but it is by no means difficult to sit down and read chunks, sections or an entire volume, especially once you begin to understand the entire phase and can place the operations discussed into context. I do know one soul who took both British Gallipoli volumes away as holiday reading and completed about 1 1/2 volumes during a week.

The Aussie volumes are a litle more approachable, but also repay reading at length by providing a structured analysis and description. They are also notable for their use of small "thumbnail" localised sketch maps to illustrate the text.

The NZ volumes are different in style and in many ways a "better read" and "more accessible". The Gallipoli volume has an absolutely invaluable map of the Anzac sector.

All are an extremely valuable resource which should not be ignored and which increasingly accessible with the advent of recent reprints. Needless to say any historian or researcher needs to take a pragmatic approach to their absolute veracity, but that said they are better than many other volumes than most of us might name.

[Tony Lund]

We might as well have the links to the Canadian and Australian Official Histories while we are about it. The Canadian one needs a minute or so to appear.

Tony.

Canadian OH

Australian OH

[gnr.ktrha]

Tony,

Thanks for the links, I've not as yet had a chance to read these volumes.

Regards,

Stewart

[MartinWills]

I guess we should add the one (of four) NZ volumes available on line.

The New Zealanders At Gallipoli - Maj. Fred Waite

[Tony Lund]

I think that needs to be added to the Official History thread.

Thanks,

Tony.

[Take on me]

Surely a complete set of the Officail Histories would be incredibly expensive!

Jon

[Tony Lund]

I reckon over £400 just for France and Belgium; there are two volumes each for 1914 - 1915 - 1916, three for 1917 and five for 1918.

That makes fourteen volumes of modern reprints just for the Western Front at around £30 a book.

The originals had map volumes as well, the library sent me one by mistake a while ago. It was a box that looked like a book with a load of neatly folded maps inside. I believe these days these maps are all on a couple of CD’s from Naval & Military Press. The books can be ordered through the inter-library loan service, but I have noticed some confusion amongst librarians, some of them cannot understand how there can be five different volumes of Military Operations France and Belgium that are all labelled volume one, and 1917 volume 3 was sent to Huddersfield on microfilm. So I bought that one from Tom Morgan, a bit cheaper than the price above.

There is a link to a thread given in Post Four above that was originally started to try to clear up some of this confusion and find out just how many of these volumes there are. We finished up with dozens of British volumes and dozens more from other countries. And still there are some missing.

Tony.

[Crunchy]

I recently wrote an essay comparing the British and Australian OH's - I'll see if I can convert it to a web page. It got me good marks in a course I am doing, so it should be alright!

Chris,

I would like to read your essay and assessment. As an Australian I find Bean's work very tedious and difficult to follow. It is remarkable for the detail he goes into in order to include individual's actions and as such could almost be considered "a primary source." Perhaps on eye on sales to participants.

In terms of getting an overview of the operations conducted it is impossible to do so without a great deal of work and cross checking. In researching a paper on the reasons for the failure of the 1st Australian Division to reach its objectives at the landing at ANZAC I found him to be inconsistent, his account did not always accord with the primary source interview sheets from participants and his explanation of the failure less than convincing. One of the participants I interviewed in 1978 (Lt Loutit of the 10th Battalion) disagreed with Bean's version of events in which Loutit was the principal player. ( My article was published in Journal of the Australian War Memorial No 22 April 1993 pp 25 -34. The table at the back is inaccurate - the AWM put it in from Bean's OH without refrring it to me).

He is extremely proud of our Diggers and I feel he is writing to justify the loss of 60,000 dead from a young nation and at least in Vol 1 he is too close to the principal commanders. His lack of training as an historian is very evident.

On the other hand the British OH on Gallipoli was an easy read and, I felt, balanced in its approach. Gave a much better overview of what occurred, officially that is. There was a controversy over the first draft of the British Official History concerning stragglers to the beach at ANZAC on the 25th April. Bean lobbied Edmonds to revise this aspect of the British OH. He was reluctant to have any criticism on the Australians whom he eulogised.

Nonetheless I have all 12 Volumes of the Australian OH 1914-18 and value them as a source of initial information on particular events.

Regards

Chris

[MartinWills]

I have to say that some time ago when I first tried to read Bean on Gallipoli (volumes 1 & 2) I struggles a bit and did not fond it easy to assimilate. More recently I tried again and found that it was rather easier to read and follow, indeed I acquired a cheap paperback copy and took to reading it on train journeys and reversed my original opinion that it had been hard to read. I do think that this is in part because I understood more fully than before the tale that Bean was elaborating.Bean does provide a lot of detail and goes to great lengths to name people and provide brief biographical details. His papers relating to the OH are extremely extensive and reflect that as well as working from his own diaries he used much material gained in correspondence with veterans. The result of this is, surely, that he would have had to interpret the material and assess it's accuracy - a dilemma we all face when dealing with both original and secondary sources. Against thsi background we also need to remember that Bean was a newspaper man who became a historian and not a trained historian. He spins a great tale and one which is far more accurate that many newspapermen would have put together.

If one doubts the wealth of information that Bean gathered and was not able to use one should take a look at Peter Stanley's book "Quinn's Post" in which he refers to much of the material that Bean gathered and still lies relatively untapped

As for accuracy I think Bean has the broad thrust right but there are inconsistencies. I have looked in detail at key aspects of several points relating to people, actions and places in a number of areas of particular personal interest. I have looked at a number of sources such as turkish and allied maps; red cross missing enquiries and records; photographs held by the AWM from a number of sources which include those taken by Bean and provide with captions by Bean; personal papers from various sources; published volumes and memoirs and the official histories (British, Australian; New Zealand); unit histories; Bean's own "Gallipoli Mission" etc etc. Quite simply there is a multitude of inconsistency, principally in minor detail and more where personal recollection and memory is concerned. At one point I read four different "Red Cross Missing" reports relating to one man. It seemed not only did he die in four different places and in four different ways but did so on four significantly different days (up to a couple of months apart). One of Beans photo captions proided a fifth place ( but the correct date) and the man's service record suggested a sixth location. Bean must have tried to work through ths sort of dilemma many times each week and I have to admire him for what he did sort out.

If one doubts that Bean did want to establish an accurate record, one has only to look at his arguments with the photographer Frank Hurley and his condemnation of the composite photographs that Hurley published and exhibited. Bean above all wanted to record the truth not the visions that Hurley was creating.

I have come to hold him in growing regard, but we need to remember that he was an able journalist and writer and perhaps lacked the trained analytical mind of a modern historian.

As regards a set of the (British) Official History in addition to the 13 standard Western Front text volumes there are 4 (as I recall), probably wrongly, volumes of Appendices and "Transportation on the Western Front". The appendices may not all still be available as reprints but we are looking at 18 volumes at around £30 each excluding maps rather than 14. They are still a worthwhile investment as the cornerstone of a library but only for someone who has already made a start elsewhere. At least one member of the forum has embarked on that odyssey this very week (no, not me) and I know at least one bookseller offers to deliver one volume a month (or so) such that a collection can be built over time. They too can be contradictory! I have,in general, found the Gallipoli Volumes fairly good and quite readable but they have also been guilty of not answering my questions at times as well as being at variance with official papers held at the National Archives and elsewhere.

[PhilB]

I recently wrote an essay comparing the British and Australian OH's - I'll see if I can convert it to a web page. It got me good marks in a course I am doing, so it should be alright!

Can you point us towards this, Chris?

[David Filsell]

If you get serious about WW1 they are simply a must on the shelves. They can be costly but if you are patient and are after content rather than condition you can find 1914,15, and 16 fairly easily. Turner Donavan had a page and half long section in itys latest catalogugue last week cpoies ranged in price in price from £20 - 275. Map sets are both costlier and harder to find again particularly for the later years of the war. The detail is often quite amazing and Edmond team did a very impressive job overall and with a few noted blindspots with authority and overall honesty. Go for it.

Regards

david

[edwin astill]

Although some have been critical of the OH, it is interesting to note that no serious book on WW1 omits to make use of them! I find that if you are following a battle it helps to have a background knowledge of it first, and it is essential to have a map to hand (not necessarily those provided by the OH) so that you can follow the narrative closely.

Edwin

[southerncross116]

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere yet- but it appears that the web masters in Canada are redesigning their web pages- and the link to where the Canadian OH had been is no longer valid (at this point there is a message on their site stating that they will be making all their OH's available when they are finished).

[Crunchy]

I recently wrote an essay comparing the British and Australian OH's - I'll see if I can convert it to a web page. It got me good marks in a course I am doing, so it should be alright!

Chris,

Any progress on this?

Regards

Chris

[Peter Beckett]

Chris (Crunchy),

CB has this article on the Long Long Trail thats worth reading, also with respect to Matt's thread about Fromelles

Peter

http://www.1914-1918.net/aus_OH.html

[Crunchy]

Thank you Peter. Much appreciated.

I shall have to look at the Mother site more often.

Regards

Chris