The Official History

[squirrel]

General Sir Anthony Farrar Hockley's comment about Senior Officers being in the front line.........

In the front line you can control about 10 men - further back you can control thousands........

Well, it was something like that.

In the fighting areas there was no sense of the overall plan nor in most ionstances what was going on 50yards away so what meaningful information to write an Official History of the War, as opposed to local actions, could have benn obtained?

[PhilB]

Roxy, of course the PBI have little or nothing to contribute to the strategy and descriptions of large scale events.(See post #23) However, the most sophisticated plan ended up eventually in nomansland with a man and a bayonet. And from time to time that becomes a significant aspect of the battle description. Can 3rd Ypres be properly described without knowing what conditions were like for infantrymen attempting to cross the valley of the Steenbeek? And that`s the kind of place where I thought a worm`s eye view might be indicated. 1/7/16 was a catastrophe for some 20,000 men yet the views and experience of all ORs don`t get a mention. And remember, the OH was for the general reader as well as the military.

[truthergw]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Apr 25 2008, 07:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Reasonable comments, gents, but it did purport to be a "readable account for the public". Since most of the public only had a connection to the dirty end of the business, a few words from the worm`s eye view might not have come amiss. And "future military officers and strategists" might benefit from knowing how plans hatched back at the chateau panned out in nomansland?

Phil, you and I both have experience of just how little an OR knows of what is going on, where he is, why he's there and so on. It's hard to see what he could add. There is another aspect, an official historian is looking for input which can be corroborated and authenticated. Soldiers' stories are almost all anecdotal and each one will have a different memory of what happened. Very interesting and well worth recording but not the stuff of official history.

[PhilB]

You`ve got a point there, Tom. I would add though that distortion of the facts (intentional or otherwise) is not restricted to ORs! I`ve not read a lot of Bean`s histories but I believe he managed it. Maybe he went up front enough to know an anecdote when he heard one!

[Roxy]

Phil,

You do, of course, have a point. A history of is incomplete without the 'blood and guts'; however, I would suggest that the OR's information would be similar regardless of which particular battle was being discussed. Personally, I would rather leave that to their personal memoirs.

Roxy

[PhilB]

Thanks for your input, gents. The consensus seems to be - No! Personally, I do feel a worm`s eye input would be apt when the actuality differed markedly from the planned events - an "on the spot" explanation of why things went wrong. I take the point about anecdotal accounts but one has to bear in mind that officers` accounts (and prominent politicians`) can be equally self serving or imaginative and should be subject to the same verification.