History of the Great War

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The History of the Great War is a series of 28 volumes covering the military operations of the British Army during the First World War. The full title is the History of the Great War Based on Official Documents but the series is usually referred to as the British Official History. It was produced by the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence under the control of official historian Brigadier-General Sir James Edmonds. The first volume was published in 1923 and the final volume was published in 1949. There was no particular order to the publication sequence, for instance the first volume of Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914 appeared eight years after the second volume was published.

The History of the Great War was written as a technical history for military staff, rather than as a popular history for consumption by the general public. British historian John Keegan, critical of the dry, featureless prose, said "the compilers... have achieved the remarkable feat of writing an exhaustive account of one of the world's greatest tragedies without the display of any emotion at all."

[edit] Volumes

• Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914
  • Volume I: Mons, the Retreat to the Seine, the Marne and the Aisne, August - October 1914, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1933
  • Volume II: Antwerp, La Bassé, Armentières, Messines and Ypres, October - November 1914, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1925
• Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1915
  • Volume I: Winter 1914-15: Battle of Neuve Chapelle: Battles of Ypres, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds and Captain G.C. Wynne, 1927
  • Volume II: Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1928
• Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1916
  • Volume I: Sir Douglas Haig's Command to the 1st July: Battle of the Somme, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1932
  • Volume II: 2nd July 1916 to the end of the Battles of the Somme, Captain Wilfrid Miles, 1938
• Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1917
  • Volume I: The German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line and the Battles of Arras, Captain Cyril Falls, 1940
  • Volume II: Messines and third Ypres (Passchendaele), Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1948
  • Volume III: The Battle of Cambrai, Captain Wilfrid Miles, 1948
• Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1918
  • Volume I: The German March Offensive and its Preliminaries, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1935
  • Volume II: March-April: Continuation of the German Offensives, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1937
  • Volume III: May-July: The German Diversion Offensives and the First Allied Counter-Offensive, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1939
  • Volume IV: 8th August-26th September: The Franco-British Offensive, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, 1947
  • Volume V: 26th September-11th November: The Advance to Victory,Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds and Lieutenant-Colonel R. Maxwell-Hyslop, 1947
• Military Operations: Gallipoli
  • Volume I, Brigadier-General C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, 1929
  • Volume II, Brigadier-General C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, 1932
• Military Operations: Italy, 1915-1919, Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds and H.R. Davies, 1949
• Military Operations: East Africa, 1914-1916
  • Volume I, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Nordern, 1941
  • Volume II, unpublished
• Military Operations: Togoland and the Cameroons, 1914-1916, Brigadier-General F.J. Moberly, 1931
• Military Operations: Macedonia
  • Volume I: From the Outbreak of War to the Spring of 1917, Captain Cyril Falls, 1933
  • Volume II: From the Spring of 1917 to the End of the War, Captain Cyril Falls, 1935
• Military Operations: Egypt and Palestine
  • Volume I, Captain Cyril Falls, 1928
  • Volume II, Captain Cyril Falls
• Military Operations: Mesopotamia
  • Volume I: Outbreak of Hostilities, Campaign in Lower Mesopotamia, Brigadier-General F.J. Moberly, 1923
  • Volume II: April 1916: The Attempt on Baghdad, the Battle of Ctesiphon, the Siege and the Fall of Kut-al-Amara, Brigadier-General F.J. Moberly,1924
  • Volume III: April 1917: The Capture and Consolidation of Baghdad, Brigadier-General F.J. Moberly, 1926
  • Volume IV: The Campaign in Upper Mesopotamia to the Armistice, Brigadier-General F.J. Moberly, 1927

[edit] See also

• British Official History of Naval Operations in the Great War, 5 volumes by Sir Julian S. Corbett and Henry Newbolt
• War in the Air, 6 volumes plus appendices by Walter Raleigh and H.A. Jones
• Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, 12 volume Australian official history edited by C.E.W. Bean.