Die Katastrophe des 8. August 1918

[charlesmessenger]

Does anyone possess or knows of an English translation of the above? It was Volume 36 of the Reichsarchiv series of monographs written under the overall title of Schlachten des Weltkrieges and was published in 1930.

Charles M

[bob lembke]

Does anyone possess or knows of an English translation of the above? It was Volume 36 of the Reichsarchiv series of monographs written under the overall title of Schlachten des Weltkrieges and was published in 1930.

Charles M

Charles;

I have the full set, and have had them and been interested in them for some years. I have never heard of any of them being translated. They generally are excellent; the authors were generally General Staff officers who were "retired" and parked at the Reichsarchiv as sort of a "general staff in waiting" in case of future need when the Allies banned the formal General Staff. The authors sometimes were important commanders in the battles that they described. The level of detail often goes down to the individual tossed grenade or captured MG, and the names of privates and NCOs. They generally are very, very cheap. I bought most of mine at a typical price of 7 DM (1.50 pounds?) , and less when I bought a lot of say 10 or so.

I taught myself to read German when I was about 61, when I found my father's and grand-father's letters from the front, and also the Suetterlin and Kurrent hand-writing systems. English is in the Germanic family of languages, admittedly the one the furthest from German. I now sometimes read it for hours a day, and my wife, all-wise in languages, tells me that my sentence structure and grammar is steadily moving from English to the Latin grammar that German enjoys.

These volumes can sometimes be valuable even if you cannot read a word of German; and any one who can read English can read some German. They often have excellent maps and sketch maps, and often large tables of the order of battle that might, for example, for artillery, indicate every battery, the caliber and number of guns in many batteries, whether any are, for example, captured Russian guns, and sometimes the name of the battery commander. One gave, for example, for heavy artillery at a siege, the number of shells fired each day, the target, the range to 100 meters, the precise gun, and the name of the battery commander. As I have letters written by my grand-father from these firing positions on these days, this is invaluable to me. The author of that volume, (Antwerpen), happened to be the guy my grand-father reported to!

[SiegeGunner]

Charles,

How long is the section you want translated?

Mick

[Halder]

Does anyone possess or knows of an English translation of the above? It was Volume 36 of the Reichsarchiv series of monographs written under the overall title of Schlachten des Weltkrieges and was published in 1930.

Charles M

AFAIK the only one of the monographs translated into English (certainly in a published form) is the Ypres 1914 one. I have a handful of the originals and they are a bit patchy to say the least.

There's also Ernst Kabisch's Die Schwarze Tag on the August 8 battle which is written in a very similar vein to the monographs and is available cheaply on the web. From memory he was a retired Generalleutnant or Oberst who wrote a stream of books in the inter-war period.

A couple of books which touch on August 8 and are strongly recommended are Der Feldherr Ludendorff im Unglück by Wolfgang Foerster and Generalstabsdienst an der Front und in der OHL by Albrecht von Thaer which give a very good insight into Ludendorff's fragile mental state.

As for Bose's book, there's a copy on abebooks for £3.50 plus P&P

[charlesmessenger]

Gentlemen

Very many thanks for your most helpful replies.

Bob - I do have a smattering of German. I'm fascinated by the fact that your grandfather's superior officer was the author of the Antwerp volume.

Halder - I don't know why I had not thought of Abebooks before, especially since I use them often. My mind has obviously become too channelled! Anyway I have now ordered both the Bose and Kabisch books.

Mick - Perhaps I could get back to you once I have received the Bose book?

Charles M

[Halder]

Gentlemen

Very many thanks for your most helpful replies.

Bob - I do have a smattering of German. I'm fascinated by the fact that your grandfather's superior officer was the author of the Antwerp volume.

Halder - I don't know why I had not thought of Abebooks before, especially since I use them often. My mind has obviously become too channelled! Anyway I have now ordered both the Bose and Kabisch books.

Mick - Perhaps I could get back to you once I have received the Bose book?

Charles M

Happy to help. I forgot to mention that I have Crown Prince Rupprecht's diaries if you need any relevant bits translated; the same goes for the Foerster book.

[SiegeGunner]

Mick - Perhaps I could get back to you once I have received the Bose book?

Send me a PM when you're ready, Charles - I may be able to help.

Mick

[charlesmessenger]

Halder and Mick

Many thanks again. I'll PM you both in due course.

Charles M

[bob lembke]

Bob - I do have a smattering of German. I'm fascinated by the fact that your grandfather's superior officer was the author of the Antwerp volume.

Charles M

Yes, my point is that, aside from being a choice General Staff officer, and therefore probably a top-rate military intellectual, as the chief of staff in the operations section of the Generalkommando of the army corps besieging Antwerp, arguably he was the most qualified person on earth to write the history from the German side, as he largely ran the battle.

Halder feels that these books are "patchy". They are uneven, as they were written by individuals, not by committee as in the Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918 series, but I generally like them. The first ones I read, the four on the Battle of Verdun, disappointed me, as some of them were a bit atmospheric ("Biff, Bamm! Oh, the horror!") rather than an outpouring of detail. I should read those again and see what my opinion would be today. But many of them are very good, IMHO.

Bob Lembke

[MartH]

Hi Charles

I do believe that the "Die Katastrophe des "8 August 1918" was translated during the preparations of Military Operations France and Belgium 1918 Volume IV.

Edmond's mentions it on page vi of the preface as a major source calling it the "Official Monograph", and the normal process was that these were translated by Edmond's team, the question is whether there is an extant copy surviving.

Some of Edmond's paper's are in Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College, London, also the Guy Dawny Papers at the Imperial War Museum, and of course the Cabinet Papers at Kew, probably Cab 103/53, but please check because Vol IV had a long gestation period, best of luck hunting! Email me if you need anymore help.

Some of the volumes of Der Weltkrieg where translated into Spanish, but I'm unaware of any of the Episodes of the Western War being translated into Spanish.

I have to disagree with Bob and the quality of authors, I think the last people to write the 'lessons learnt' piece where the men in command, sure a straight narrative, but there is too much temptation post engagement personal justification, nor will they examine the issues objectively.

Edmonds had many disagreements with the commanders in the field over the draft chapters, one even remarked he didn't even recognise the battle, but then Edmonds had succesfully challenged the war diaries due to his obsessive cross referencing .

Regards

Mart

[MartH]

Charles

You might wish to check the B.O.A. (Bavarian Official Account) Bayern im Grossen Krieg 1914-1918, Munich Verlag des Bayerischen Kriegsarchivs. 1923.

Regards

Mart

[Paul Hederer]

AFAIK the only one of the monographs translated into English (certainly in a published form) is the Ypres 1914 one. I have a handful of the originals and they are a bit patchy to say the least.

There's also Ernst Kabisch's Die Schwarze Tag on the August 8 battle which is written in a very similar vein to the monographs and is available cheaply on the web. From memory he was a retired Generalleutnant or Oberst who wrote a stream of books in the inter-war period.

A couple of books which touch on August 8 and are strongly recommended are Der Feldherr Ludendorff im Unglück by Wolfgang Foerster and Generalstabsdienst an der Front und in der OHL by Albrecht von Thaer which give a very good insight into Ludendorff's fragile mental state.

As for Bose's book, there's a copy on abebooks for £3.50 plus P&P

If Kabisch's book on Verdun is any indication I can recommend him strongly--a very good work.

Paul

[charlesmessenger]

Mart

Many thanks for your additional leads. I have carried out one search at Kew for translated German material relevant to Amiens. The best I could do was CAB 45/172, which gives German answers to questions posed by the Australian official historian. I will, however, look at CAB 103 and see if there is anything there.

Charles M

[MartH]

Charles

I've done some more looking and feel I might have to go to Kew too, - now!

Check the Catalogue, the trouble is there are so many returns on a search using Official History/Histories!

For example:

Committee of Imperial Defence, Historical Branch and Cabinet Office, Historical Section: Official War Histories Correspondence and Papers CAB 45/87

Turkish official histories: translations of Turkish accounts of the Mesopotamia campaign, and general correspondence about Turkish war histories . Turkish official histories: translations of Turkish accounts of the Mesopotamia campaign, and generalDate range: 1923 - 1932.

Cabinet Office and predecessors: Registered Files (1916 to 1965) CAB 21/690

The Problem of Labour Supply during the Great War (Summarised from the History of the Ministry of Munitions) . The Problem of Labour Supply during the Great War (Summarised from the History of the Ministry of Munitions) Cabinet Office and predecessors:Date: 1937.

War Memoirs of David Lloyd George LG/G/231 - 252

Conduct of the War Copies of various documents, including Cabinet papers File of extracts from official War History Translations of extracts from books, and documents in French and German A.J.Sylvester's notes of interviews with persons concerned in direction Date range: 1908 - 1960.

Regards

Mart

[MartH]

AFAIK the only one of the monographs translated into English (certainly in a published form) is the Ypres 1914 one. I have a handful of the originals and they are a bit patchy to say the least.

The Ypres , 1914, An Official Account Published by Order of the German General Staff, 1919, is NOT one of the 36 volumes of the Schlachten des Weltkrieges 1914-1918 (the green ones) , that one: Ypern 1914 was published in 1926.

It is actually a translation from one of the series Der Grosse Krieg in Einzeldarstellugen, Die Schlacht an der Yser und bei Ypern im Herbst 1914 (Schwink). Oldenburg, 1918.

Der Grosse Krieg series stopped with the end of the German High Command, the ones in draft but not published formed the start of the Schlachten des Weltkrieges 1914-1918, but are an entirely different series. They are paper backs, in red and black title lettering, with the loverly Gothic script Paul Guthrie loves so much.

Sorry to be pedantic, but I would hate to see someone trying to match the maps between the translation/green one and getting frustrated.

Regards

Mart