The Official History

[Old Tom]

Hello,

I understand this 'magum opus' runs to many volumes and was published over a long time span. I expect I can obtain individual volumes on loan via my county library but have difficulty in selecting volumes appropriate to a given subject.

Is there a listing of the volumes with an indication of contents, either as part of the overall work or otherwise?

Old Tom

[Tony Lund]

Official History.

Post 4 on the above link will give you a rough idea of contents.

The only one the local library has not been able to get for me in book form was volume 3 of 1917. That one was available only on a reel of film, so I bought the book from Tom Morgan.

Tony.

[Rob Connolly]

Hello,

I understand this 'magum opus' runs to many volumes and was published over a long time span. I expect I can obtain individual volumes on loan via my county library but have difficulty in selecting volumes appropriate to a given subject.

Is there a listing of the volumes with an indication of contents, either as part of the overall work or otherwise?

Old Tom

Are you referring to the British Official History? The Canadian, Australian and NZ OH's are all available on-line.

I think an earlier thread on the Forum detailed all the volumes of the British OH, a search should reveal it. IIRC, Naval and Military Press have a listing of all the volumes, which they have reprinted, and the Imperial War Museum, again IIRC, has a listing of the volumes. Back in the early 90's Manchester Victorian University had a full set of the British OH, so you may be able to get them via an ILL (or possibly not!). Buying them is pricey - my indulgence in the first volume cost £42, but you can pick them up on e-bay or Abebooks for less, though the selection is entirely random.

[Old Tom]

Hello,

The speed of response is, as always, amazing. Many thanks! My apologies to our allies, I must be getting very insular these days.

Old Tom

[truthergw]

2 or 3 volumes per year. I think they are very good value. A first resort to turn to for information and a surprising amount from the German point of view.

[Chris Best]

. . . . . The Canadian, Australian and NZ OH's are all available on-line.

Pals

I can feel a revolution coming on. £3.50 to turn an MIC?!?! Digitization of war diaries, commendable and necessary as it is, will lead to us have to pay to read/copy them - for what? Presumably, once the task is completed, there will be consequent economies through downsizing the TNA payroll?

Why can't we follow the example of our Commonwealth brethren and have this stuff made available, on line, for free? And don't say it's a matter of scale - we're forever being reminded that we're the fourth largest economy in the world.

The internet has helped fan the huge growth of interest in genealogy. However, a few MICs turned in error might soon deter novice [re]searchers. Why not complement their interest with simple, free access to records and history? Such encouragement would, I'm sure, increase their sense of national pride.

Does this issue merit an ePetition?

Chris

[dpgdpg]

Does this issue merit an ePetition?

Now there's a good idea and even better then the one against the T.V licence!!!!!

[armourersergeant]

I have all the Western Front volumes up to 1918 vol II, plus the vol on Transportation. Courtesy of a few presents and supplies of my 'local personal' bookfinder. They are great for finding particular operations and 'what happened on such and such date?' scenarios. I have and probably will not read them from front to back in one go. They take pride of place on the shelf.

regards

Arm

[armourersergeant]

As an aside I believe that some official histories are still written to this day, in regard to more recent conflicts.

regards

Arm

[Chris_Baker]

They are indeed. Peter Caddick-Adams, who has written on the Great War, was IIRC official historian for the Gulf War.

Why can't we follow the example of our Commonwealth brethren and have this stuff made available, on line, for free?

A point I have made before, on several occasions.

[Tony Lund]

Volume 1 of 1914 is online at this link.

1914 Volume 1.

I think the website is French, but it is the only place that has any of our Official History volumes online that I know of.

Tony.

[Rob Connolly]

They are indeed. Peter Caddick-Adams, who has written on the Great War, was IIRC official historian for the Gulf War.

A point I have made before, on several occasions.

Which particular branch of the Civil Service or Government would one send such a request to?

[keithmroberts]

MOD?

[Old Tom]

Hello,

The rules for petitions may be found at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/steps. It might be worthwhile; however, what would we be asking for? there are very many possibilities. Medal cards are now part of a commercial family history organisation follwing arrangements by WFA who saved them. The availability of the Australian, Canadian official histories seem to be good start point.

Old Tom

[Halder]

The Falklands one came out about two years ago, written by Sir Lawrence Freedman. As official histories go, it's fairly readable... and was very expensive until a paperback came out last year. There are a few semi-official monographs of Iraq 2003 but no official history as yet.

[MartH]

As I often comment, to get a complete list, you have to define what an Official History is, in fact there is even one volume which was printed that state's in it's Preference that it is not an Official History, where in fact the authors had full access to official papers as per OH's, and even submitted the work to CID committee like the other OH's, so in all but the preface it is.... I often refer to the body of official works, including the Naval Staff Histories. Which definitely should be made available.

The UK OH series some say started with the works on the Crimea War, others say Wellington's Dispatches where the start of UK OH writing. When OH writing was organised by the State, the early works where translations of the OH's Prussian High Command : The Campaign in Austria 1866.

As Chris state's OH's production has continued to the present day, if you look at English language ones, without US ones there are over 1,000 published over the last 160 years.

Andrew Green has written an excellent book on the UK GW OH's. One of the most important impacts of the plan to write a multi volume on the GW and often overlooked was that as early as 1915 the war diaries where being collected directly by the OH's staff and the units where chased by the OH staff. The after the GW these where sorted and catalogued by Edmonds, I doubt very much, that but for the work done by OH staff the War Diaries would be such a rich resource for research.

It would be great if the body of Official Work in English on he GW was put on-line, but I fear it is too much of a revenue source, just as Regimental History reprints are sources of revenue for Regimental museum's.

Regards

Mart

[Chris Best]

. . . . It would be great if the body of Official Work in English on he GW was put on-line, but I fear it is too much of a revenue source, just as Regimental History reprints are sources of revenue for Regimental museum's.

I appreciate what you are saying, Mart. Personally, a good extract of a book on the internet usually leads to my buying the hard copy (see Alan MacDonald's A Lack of Offensive Spirit?. I can never concentrate on screen text for long and will aleays prefer to have a proper book in my hands. I wonder whether there is any evidence that the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and South African military history book markets have been affected because their OHs are on line?

My principal grouse, though, is the apparent intent that digitization of WD and other documents will lead to 'pay to see' documents. I already spend a fair amount of money travelling down to Kew, accommodation and rationing etc for a week, plus purchases from the excellent TNA bookshop. The joy is handling original documents. And this has been made even better since we've been allowed to photograph documents. These documents are in the public domain. They have already been paid for (to quote General Sir Mike Jackson) by the nation's 'blood and treasure' and the descendants of those whose actions are recorded should be freely accessed and available.

I'm happy to pay for time and material consumed by TNA producing copies of documents. However, those that can be read via the internet should be free, particularly if (as I presume) completion of digitization will lead to significant manpower savings to deal with front end customers.

Chris

[Rob Connolly]

Dunno how effective it will be, but I've written to the Australian Defence Attache in London enquiring about some statistics and numbers in view of their OH being made available on-line, i.e. reasons for digitising, sales before and after, etc.

[Chris Best]

Dunno how effective it will be, . . . .

Nor do I, Rob but I'll be interested.

Chris

[Chris Martin]

I wonder whether there is any evidence that the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and South African military history book markets have been affected because their OHs are on line?

I don't know about the actual effect on the book market but most of my pals despise reading books on line and would also prefer to have the book in hand. I don't think Official Histories on line would much affect the market, as has been noted above, they are a hard go cover to cover and more apt to be used a referance books. Here in Newfoundland some primary source information has made it or is soon to be on-line but it seems to have made little difference to the local book market as since 2000 there has been a rash of letter collections and memoirs published related to the islander's war experience.

Chris

[MartinWills]

All I can say is that prices for the Aussie and NZ histories in printed form seem to continue to rise despire being available on line.

[jnorthall]

Could someone give me the URL for the New Zealand Official History? Can't seem to find it!

[Tony Lund]

Could someone give me the URL for the New Zealand Official History? Can't seem to find it!

New Zealand.

I don't know if this is all there is or not. If more is available I would be interested to know about it.

Tony.