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Remembered Today:

Official Histories.


Tony Lund

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tom,i thought you sold quite a few of the reprints,bernard

Sorry, Bernard, I didn't see your post as I haven't been keeping up with this thread very well. We only keep the "Military Operations" volumes in but can always get the others.

Tom

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest NORTHERN BOY
Thank you for that, I am at this moment trying to sort out the Canadian Official History.

Official History of the Canadian Forces in the Great War, 1914-1919.  Volume 1.  From the outbreak of war to the formation of the Canadian Corps. August 1914-September 1915.  1938.

Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914 - 1919.  By Colonel G W L Nicholson.  Ottowa  1964.

Now I know why I can’t find volume 2, thanks,

Tony.

A couple of additions are:

History of the Canadian Forces / 1914 - 1918 / MEDICAL SERVICES / SIR ANDREW MACPHAIL / DND - Kings Printer, OTTAWA, 1925.

CANADIAN AIRMEN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR / THE Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force Volume 1. By S.F.Wise. Toronto, 1980.

ISBN O-8020-2379-7

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Many thanks for that, the more the merrier!

The History of the Ministry of Munitions as been mentioned on the forum recently, we have information that it is in 12 volumes but that is all. Does anyone have any further information, author, publisher, dates etc?

Tony.

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  • 2 months later...

Now that we have a link to a French site which gives us France and Belgium 1914 volume one, online, I have put it together with links to the Canadian and Australian Official Histories below.

Information on any Official Histories not listed here or extra information on those that are, is still needed and welcome. I shall tidy it all up at Christmas. Links are from Neil Burns and tomtuer. It is interesting to note that we need the French to give us online access to our own history.

Tony.

France and Belgium 1914 Official History

Canadian Official History

Australian Official History

The Canadian link seems to need a few seconds.

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Gentlemen and Ladies;

Allow me to step forward in my self-appointed role as "resident Hun". I just noticed this excellent thread; poking through it, many mysteries have been revealed. I have done a bit of work with odds and ends of the Allied OHs. I have a magnificent wife who has been a librarian at one of the major American university libraries for over 25 years. (She is an international book acquisition librarian, with wonderful book search tools denied to us ordinary mortals, and she reads 11 languages well, and dozens quite badly.) This library allows all and sundry to access their stacks (7 million books in the main library) and I have poked at the French and British OHs a bit, but never really made complete sense of them, partially as they are a bit jumbled in the stacks.

Would you guys (and gals) be interested in a run-down of the German OHs, at least on the national level? What they are, availability, my own irreverant comments on them? I do have most of them; again, those issued by the Reichsarchiv. Happily, the largest series is very common and astonishingly inexpensive, typically about 7 Euros a pop. (In the US there are two bookstores that keep them in stock and generously sell them {this is a 2001-2 price} at $60 a volume.)

Having said that, I know that at least one of you who have contributed to this thread probably know these volumes better than I do.

Bob Lembke

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I was not sure if the German Official Histories would be national or by individual kingdoms and principalities, or both. I have not mentioned German Official Histories because I do not speak German and would have a problem sorting out multiple posts into a list that makes sense.

I now know there are more than enough members of the forum with the language skills to check over final lists in any language. So compiling a accurate complete list is possible and something that is well worth doing.

The more Official Histories we can find the better. I think any information would be useful.

Tony.

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There is a variety of types of "official histories" on the German Armies of the Great War. (Each of the four German kingdoms had its own army, while the forces raised in lesser German states (e.g., principalities) were placed under the wing of the Prussians.)

UNIT HISTORIES: The largest set of "official histories" must be the unit histories, of which there must be thousands. I am not an expert on these. I have two e-friends whose private collections, I believe, each number at least 700. These, I believe, are comparable to the collection of the Bundeswehr Historical Section. I only have a few of these, and copies of a few more. Original copies generally cost in the area of $100 a copy, typically.

There are at least one and probably more series of these produced by a single publisher, at least one of whom produced a series of perhaps 160 or so, judging by the volume numbers assigned by the publisher. I assume that the members of the unit involved approached the publisher to produce their history, and they generally seem to be written by veterans of the unit. These histories were also produced before the war, so one could be rudely surprised by buying a history of a unit and finding that it was published in, say, 1911. Caviat Emptor. A dealer selling on the Internet might be rather subtle in pointing out this fact.

In about 1980 a German woman wrote a book which is basically a listing of every "official history" that she could track down. I unfortunately do not have the title or author at hand; I did peek in abebooks.com at the time when I did and I think that copies of this book were going for about $80 several years ago.

SUB-NATIONAL "OFFICIAL HISTORIES": A variety of governmental entities below the level of the Empire produced a variety of histories. I know little about these. I think that Bavaria, for example, produced a series of histories. Individual cities produced a variety of histories, and in particular "rolls of honor" or death lists of citizens who served in the war.

HISTORIES PRODUCED BY THE REICHSARCHIV: The central Reichsarchiv produced two series of books covering the entire Empire. One was a set of about 14 large volumes entited Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918, a somewhat large-format series that tend to run to about 500 pages. They are in cronological order and generally each cover the entire war over a given period of time, although in one volume the time periods covered might differ somewhat to coheriently cover the important activities in each theater of operations. They tend to cost about $40-$60 a copy, and the later volumes tend to be scarcer. I have to do a bit more research to properly cover this set of histories, and will post that later.

The second series is entitled Schlachten des Weltkrieges, or "Battles of the World War", and generally each covers a given major battle or well-delineated campaign; in a few occasions several books cover a single major battle, like Verdun, which is presented in four volumes. Although I have about 55 of these (I am missing one volume, and obviously have some duplicates, due to buying them in bunches), I do not fully understand the series. There was two editions (Auflagen in German), although some are marked as to their edition, and many not. I have copies in about three or four cover styles. 1. Auflage generally comes in a light colored pressed paper cover, and the seemingly more common 2. Auflage comes in a green cover decorated on the front with "Reichsarchiv", a steel helmet and wreath, and the title of the volume all imbossed in gold. The spine is in a darker green with gold titling. I have a few copies with a marbled cover, I'm not sure which edition.

These books should have a set of loose maps in the back, and of course you should make an effort that a copy that you buy has the full set. I recently bought a set of about 30-40 of these from various volumes on the Internet, suggesting that a bunch of people were shafted. (I feel a bit guilty myself, but I am missing some myself.) These books are in a small format, and are typically about 160-225 pages, and besides loose maps sometimes contain loose tables of other information, such as very detailed orders of battle, sometimes for the enemy as well as the Germans.

These books are often sold for about 7 Euros each, and sometimes complete or partial sets or the Internet sale of individual volumes offer them for even less.

Below is a table that I keep to keep track of them, of my holdings. Unfortunately it is in German, but the following should help. Edition is Auflage, Band (Bd.) - pl. Baende (Bde.) is book or volume, Skizzen is sketch maps, Halbleinen is half-linen. Stalling was the publisher. They were produced in the inter-war period, at various times, mostly not long after the war. Each had one or a couple of individual authors, and they exhibit individual defects and virtues, some being more detail-packed, some more poetic.

Schlachten des Weltkrieges

Oldenburg/Berlin, Stalling,

1915-30. 2. Auflagen, 38 Baende.; Skizzen, Halbleinen

1. Bd. Douaumont

2. Bd. Karpathen-und Dnjester-Schlacht 1915

3. Bd. Antwerpen 1914

4. Bd. "Jildirim" Deutsche Streiter auf heiligem Boden

5. Bd. Herbstschlacht in Macedonien - Cernabogen 1916

6. Bd. Von Nancy bis zum Camp des Romains 1914

7a u. 7b Bde. Die Schlacht bei St. Quentin 1914

8. Bd. Die Eroberung von Nowo Georgiwst

9. Bd. Die Kämpfe um Baranowitschi

10. Bd. Ypern 1914

11. Bd. Weltkriegsende an der mazedonischen Front

12a u. 12b Bde. Der Durchbruch am Isonzo

13., 14. u. 15. Bd. Die Tragödie von Verdun 1916

16. Bd. Der Kampf um die Dardanellen 1915

17. Bd. Loretto

18. Bd. Argonnen

19. Bd. Tannenberg

20 u. 21 Bde. Somme-Nord

22., 23., 24. u. 25. Bde. Das Marnedrama 1914

26. Bd. Die Schlacht von Paris

27. Bd. Flandern 1917

28. u. 29. Bde. Osterschlacht bei Arras 1917

30. Bd. Gorlice

31. Bd. Die Tankschlacht bei Cambrai

32. Bd. Deutsche Siege 1918

33. Bd. Wachsende Schwierigkeiten 1918

34. Bd. Der letzte deutsche Angriff, Reims 1918

35. Bd. Schicksalswende

36. Bd. Die Katastrophe des 8. August 1918.

Bücher: 38 Baende. im 2. Auflage.

I will do a bit more work on my listing of the Weltkrieg 1914-1918 series, and post it in a day or two.

Bob Lembke

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Two quick points.

The volume numbers I gave in the table are those of the 2nd edition (2. Aufgabe), which seem to be more common; the numeration of the 1st edition is different in about 15-20% of the volumes. I believe all the titles are the same.

I notice that the titles are in the German original. If there is interest, I will translate these, although most should be understandable. (Come on, guys, English is a Germanic language.)

Bob Lembke

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Thank you for that. I think I have the basic idea. Two main series of National Official Histories produced by the Reichsarchiv: Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918, and, Schlachten des Weltkrieges.

Some of the titles are obvious, like: Die Katastrophe des 8. August 1918. Some are not so easy.

Thanks again,

Tony.

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  • 1 month later...

I wonder if any of the many new members have any additions to the list of Official Histories that is to be found in this post?

Tony.

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Tony;

I did translate about half of the German titles into English, and then had a "senior moment" and my attention buzzed off in another direction. I will try to finish that soon and post it.

In regard to an earlier comment about the Fraktur printing style; I taught myself to read German about four years ago, and as I often read German in Fraktur 3-4 hours a day, it is sort of easier or more familiar than the German in modern type that I occasionally read.

If you think that the Fraktur is a problem, try the old Suetterlin und Kurrent (not current!) handwriting systems. I think about 3% of Germans can read them now. I did some translating in this script from the Czech and the Slovene for a leading German dealer. I had not known that Slavic languages used the same handwriting systems; possibly it was only in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These were WW I military postcards.

The apex of trouble is old hand-written Turkish, say 1914-1918, and it is almost impossible to find someone who can translate this, even for a Turk spending months in Istambul looking for a translator. Besides an almost impossibly difficult basic language (like ten times as complicated as German) it was written in the Arabic script, which is much more complicated than its 55 letters would suggest, and an educated person would stuff into his Turkish writing as much Arabic and Persian prose and poetry as possible, to display his erudition. Ouch!

Last September I found myself having dinner in Dubrovnik with a German couple, both professors, and the male, a "brain scientist", literally, said that learning a new language is about the best way possible to keep your brain from turning into rubble as you age. My wife, who reads 11 languages well, and dozens more very badly, has taken up Arabic, after briefly looking at Turkish and quickly retreating. And she is English and Irish, with her English family traced back to 1540. So all there rumors about a defective gene can't be all true. Sir Richard Burton (19th Century variety, not the boozy Welshman) supposedly spoke 67 better or worser, with absolutely flawless, undetectable by Arabs Arabic. So there is hope, guys.

Bob Lembke

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In regard to an earlier comment about the Fraktur printing style; I taught myself to read German about four years ago, and as I often read German in Fraktur 3-4 hours a day, it is sort of easier or more familiar than the German in modern type that I occasionally read.

If you lack Bob's experience but have the money, I would recommend AABBYY's Fraktur optical character recognition software. I downloaded a trial version but alas it has now expired. Considering the nature of the print it does a pretty good job. It makes translation a lot quicker as you can then feed the text through an automatic translator such as Alta Vista's Babel Fish, which produces something reasonably comprehendible. It is currently on special offer, about £200 to translate 2,500 pages.

Fraktur reader

Regards

Simon

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Here is my list I use to keep track of the Schlachten des Weltkrieges series, which is a series of 38 smallish volumes covering most of the major battles of WW I, produced by the Reichsarkiv. They are very common and typically cost about 7 Euros. The numeration of the table is that of the seemingly more common 2nd edition, which generally comes in green covers with gold titling and decoration. The numeration of about ten volumes differs between the two editions.

Schlachten des Weltkrieges.

Oldenburg/Berlin, Stalling,

1915-30. 2. Aufl. 38 Bde. Skizzen, Halbleinen

Auflage 1. Auflage 2.

1. Bd. Douaumont

Volume 1 - Fort Douaumont, Verdun

2. Bd. Karpathen-und Dnjester-Schlacht 1915

Volume 2 - Carpathian and

3. Bd. Antwerpen 1914

Volume 3 - Antwerp 1914

4. Bd. "Jildirim" Deutsche Streiter auf heiligem Boden

Volume 4 - “Jildirim” German Combats on Holy Ground

5. Bd. Herbstschlacht in Macedonien - Cernabogen 1916

Volume 5 - Autumn Battle in Macedonia -

6. Bd. Von Nancy bis zum Camp des Romains 1914

Volume 6 - From Nancy up to Camp des Romains 1914

Bd. 7a u. 7b Die Schlacht bei St. Quentin 1914

Volumes 7a and 7b - Battle by St. Quentin 1914

8. Bd. Die Eroberung von Nowo Georgiwst

Volume 8 - The Capture of Novo G

Bd. 9 Die Kämpfe um Baranowitschi

Volume 9 - The Battles near Baran

10. Bd. Ypern 1914

Volume 10 - Ypers 1914

11. Bd. Weltkriegsende an der mazedonischen Front

Volume 11 - The End of the World War on the Macedonian Front

Bd. 12a u. 12b Der Durchbruch am Isonzo

Volumes 12a and 12b - The breakthrough on the Isonzo

13., 14. u. 15. Bde. Die Tragödie von Verdun 1916

Volumes 13, 14, and 15 - The Tragedy of Verdun 1916

16. Bd. Der Kampf um die Dardanellen 1915

Volume 16 - Fighting about the Dardanelles 1915

17. Bd. Loretto

Volume 17 - Loretto

18. Bd. Argonnen

Volume 18 - The Argonne

19. Bd. Tannenberg

Volume 19 - Tannenberg

Bd. 20 u. 21 Somme-Nord

Volumes 20 and 21 - The North Somme

22., 23., 24. u. 25. Bd. Das Marnedrama 1914

Volumes 22, 23, 24, and 25 - The Drama of the Marne 1914

26. Bd. Die Schlacht von Paris

Volume 26 - The Battle before Paris

27. Bd. Flandern 1917

Volume 27 - Flanders 1917

28. u. 29. Bd. Osterschlacht bei Arras 1917

Volumes 28 and 29 - The Easter Battle before Arras 1917

30. Bd. Gorlice

Volume 30 - Gorlice

31. Bd. Die Tankschlacht bei Cambrai

Volume 31 - The Tank Battle before Cambrai

32. Bd. Deutsche Siege 1918

Volume 32 - German Victories 1918

33. Bd. Wachsende Schwierigkeiten 1918

Volume 33 - Growing Difficulties 1918

34. Bd. Der letzte deutsche Angriff, Reims 1918

Volume 34 - The Last German Attack, Reims 1918

35. Bd. Schicksalswende

Volume 35 - The Turn of Fate

36. Bd. Die Katastrophe des 8. August 1918.

Volume 36 - The Catastrophe of August 8, 1918

Bücher 38 Bde. 2. Aufl.

38 Books of the 2nd Edition.

This is the numeration of the Second Edition;

the First Edition, which seems scarcer, has

some volumes numbered differently.

As I only have (and even seen) a minority of the other major national official history series, Der Weltkrieg 1914 - 1918, large books, a set of about 14 volumes, it would not be easy for me to develop a similar table for that series. These are more scarce, especially the higher-numbered volumes, and typically might cost about 60 Euros a volume.

Bob Lembke

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If you lack Bob's experience but have the money, I would recommend AABBYY's Fraktur optical character recognition software. I downloaded a trial version but alas it has now expired. Considering the nature of the print it does a pretty good job. It makes translation a lot quicker as you can then feed the text through an automatic translator such as Alta Vista's Babel Fish, which produces something reasonably comprehendible. It is currently on special offer, about £200 to translate 2,500 pages.

Fraktur reader

Regards

Simon

The pro version (not the most expensive) of ABBYY finereader in "learn mode" does a pretty good job on Fraktur, as well. It takes awhile to get it tuned up, but once you do it makes perhaps 10-15 errors per page. Unless you are doing industrial strength scanning it works for normal users.

I tried the trial, and liked it so much I bought the company, well, er perhaps just the program. :D

For German stuff there is an excellent site, the owner of which provides many books, including regimental histories, and the like on CD. His website is here:

German 1. WW books on CD

Some very interesting stuff there, and at 5 euros a CD, a bargain.

I just lost out on a complete set of the Austrian Official history for 550 euros this weekend. I search for it a few times a month. I saw a set listed at ZVAB, sent in the order right there and then and got an e-mail back from the bookseller saying someone had purchased them just a few hours earlier! :angry:

Paul

P.S. Just while I'm thinking about it...on the subject of foreign OH's. For those who live in the area, Duxford has the German and Austrian Official histories on-hand.

If you're interested in having a look, you can make an appointment to view them. They are open Monday to Friday, 0900-1700.

Edited by Paul Hederer
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Guys;

Sorry; just noticed that I left out part of the titles of a few of the first Schlachten des Weltkrieges volumes. That is what comes from doing the job in two time periods. The problem is not the German, but not having my finger on good English spellings of Polish and Russian place-names as translated into German. They should be obvious; I will complete my draft.

Bob Lembke

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Here is my emerging outline of the other national German official history series, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918. I have never even seen most of these, but I have begun buying or bidding on some of them, at least. (I only have two at present, and my wife's library has the first five, which cover 1914, which means that I can have them on my shelf if I wish.) It may seem dopey to present this fragment, but it will give you an idea what the series is like. It tried to cover everything in detail, but at a high-level detail; the 38 Schlachten volumes do not cover all actions, etc., but when they do cover an engagement, there is a lot more close-up detail, even a named NCO rushing a pill-box and tossing in a grenade at a critical moment, and so forth. A volume might have a table giving every heavy-caliber shell fired on each day by each siege-battery, or exactly how many cannon every battery had at an action. Weltkrieg might not go below the movement of a regiment, in contrast.

Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918

Volume 5. The Fall Campaign 1914

Operations - France & Belgium; mid-September to

the beginning of November

Operations - In the East till the end of October 1914

xiv, 643 pages, 18 maps, 14 sketch-maps, 1929

Volume 7. The Operations of the Year 1915 - The Events of the Winter and Spring The Campaigns in the West till mid-April 1915

The Campaigns in the East till Spring 1915 The Change of General Falkenhayn

The Campaign in Galicia till mid-May 1915

xiii, 493 pages, 14 maps and sketch-maps, 1931

8. The Operations of the Year 1915 The Operations in the West - Spring and Summer

The Operations in the East - Spring to Years’ End

xiv, 555 pages, 7 maps, 32 sketch-maps, 1932

10. Covers 1st half of 1916 - Verdun

12. The Conduct of the War in Spring 1917 The Highest Command before the spring fighting

The attack plan of the Entente till mid-March The Withdrawal to the Siegfried Position

New Situation for the Strength of the West

The Battle by Arras

The Double-battle on the Aisne and in the Champagne

The End of the French Attack Plan

The Loss of the Wytschaete Salient

The War in the East

The Events on the Italian Front, in the Balkans, in Turkey,

in the Air and on the Sea

The Highest Army Command during the Spring Fighting

xiv, 606 pages, 26 maps and sketch-maps, 1939

13. From 12.: Events from July 1917 till the Spring 1918 - The 1918 offensive and its preparation shall be left for Volume 14.

The simple text editor in the Forum really mangled the formatting that I put into the table with "pasting" from my word processor. I hope you get the idea.

Bob Lembke

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have seen mention of a British official history "The Remount Service" by Birkbeck(who I think was Director of the Remount Service),published by HMSO 1918,but never seen it.Can anyone confirm this ?

Brian.

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I have just bought five more volumes of the Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918 from a couple of German dealers, so I will be able to upgrade my directory to that series when I get them, probably in January.

Bob Lembke

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  • 2 months later...

We do not seem to have a link to the government bookshop selling the United States Official History CD at $30-80cents, so here it is.

United States.

Links to on-line Canadian and Australian Official Histories and the first volume of British Official History are already in this thread, plus some useful links to book sellers, including German histories.

Any more additions are welcome.

Tony.

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Amazingly, as I am a full-blown book nut (just bought 30 in 10 days), I only noticed the book sub-forum on GWF a few weeks ago. I started a thread there on a third series of official German histories from the national level that span the war (not a regimental history). The series and my thread is entitled "Der Grosse Krieg 1914 - 1918". I saw a lot of 13 (supposedly out of a full series of 39) for sale for a pittance and snapped it up; it now seems that only about 15 were ever published (in 1818 and 1919), the rest being another victim of Allied impositions based on the Treaty of Versailles. (It it imperative that the victor write the history, I guess.)

Here below is the index that I wave worked up for this series.

Der Grosse Krieg 1914 - 1918

Hefte:

01 Luettich=Namur (Bought 2/23/06)

02 np

03 Die Schlacht bei Longwy (Bought 2/23/06)

04 np

05 Die Schlacht bei Mons (Bought 2/23/06)

06 np

07 np

08 np

09 np

10 Die Schlacht am der Yser und bei Ypern (Bought 2/23/06)

11 Kaempfe in der Champagne 1914/1915 (Bought 2/23/06)

12 Kampfe im Artois und in Flanders (Mai 1915 - Herbst 1918) (Title from GWF pal.) (Do not have 2/06, nor does Leipzig) Not clear if it was published.

13 np

14 np

15 np

16 np

17 np

18 np

19 Die Schlacht bei Lodz (Bought 2/23/06)

20 Die Winterschlacht in Masuren (did not have 2/23/06; Leipzig does)

Hefte

21 Gorlice-Tarnow Bought 2/23/06

22 np

23 np

24 Die Schlacht bei Grodek=Lemberg (Bought 2/23/06)

25 np

26 Die Kaempfe der Bugarmee (Bought 2/23/06)

27 / 28 Der Durchbruch am Narew (Bought 2/23/06)

29 np

30 np

31 Die russische Fruehjahrsoffensive 1916 (Bought 2/23/06)

32 np

33 Siebenbuergen - Targu Jiu - Argesch (Bought 2/23/06)

34 np

35 np

36a, 36b, 36c (one volume) np

37 np

38 np

39 Die Befreiung von Livland und Estland (Bought 2/23/06)

Np = “planned, not published”

These are paper-bound, about 70 - 100 pages each, I think, and one of our wiser heads who have actually used them likes them quite a lot. Sorry about the German, most of the titles are not much more than place-names, and hopefully are understandable. As my German gets better I translate less and less, and even have begun to take some of my notes in German. My wife, an incredible linguist, says that my grammar in English, word order, etc. is shifting from English to the very different Latin-based German grammar. Great!

Bob Lembke

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  • 2 weeks later...

Official Histories - Italy 1915-1918 and a request for help

I have recently come across this interesting thread on Great War Official Histories and note that Italy's Official History - 'L' Esercito Italiano Nella Grande Guerra 1915-1918' is not covered.

The details of the 7 volume series, as gleaned from my research into the Italian Army, are listed below. Interestingly, the first volume was published in 1927 and the last (Part 2 of Volume 5) in 1988!

Publisher - Corpo di stato maggiore.

Ufficio storico ("Official History")

Title: L'Esercito italiano nella grande guerra,

1915-1918.

Published : Roma, Provveditorato generale dello Stato,

Libreria, 1927-1988

Vol 1. Le forze belligeranti: Narrazione. 1927.

tomo 1-bis. Allegati. 1927.

Vol 2. Le operazioni del 1915:

Tomo 1. Narrazione 1929

t. 1 bis. Documenti

t. 1 ter. Carte e schizzi

Vol 3. Le operazioni del 1916:

Tomo 1. Gli avvenimenti invernali: Narrazione. 1931.

t. 1 bis. Documenti. 1931.

Tomo 2. Offensiva austriaca e controffensiva italiano nel Trentino.

Contemporanee operanzi sul resto del fronte (maggio - luglio

1916): Narrazione

t. 2 bis. Documenti.

t. 2 ter. Carte, panorami, tavole e schizzi

Tomo 3. La battaglia di Gorizia: l'offensiva autunnale ; contemporanee

azioni sul resto della fronte, agosto-dicembre 1916: Narrazione.

1937.

t. 3-bis. Documenti 1937.

t. 3-ter. Tavole, carte, panorami e schizzi. 1937.

Vol 4. Le operazioni del 1917:

Tomo 1 L'ampliamento dell'Esercito nell'anno 1917; gli avvenimenti

dal gennaio al maggio: Narrazione. 1940.

t. 1-bis. Documenti. 1939.

t. 1-ter. Carte, panorami, tavole e schizzi. 1939.

Tomo 2. Gli avvenimenti dal giugno al settembre. Narrazione. 1954

t. 2.-bis. Documenti.

t. 2-ter. Carte e panorami. 1954.

Tomo 3. Gli avvenimenti dall'ottobre al dicembre: Narrazione. 1967.

t. 3 bis,ter (documenti e carte)

Vol. 5. Le operazioni del 1918. 1980:

Tomo 1. Gli avvenimenti dal gennaio al giugno: Narrazione.

t. 1-bis. Documenti.

t. 1-ter. Carte e schizzi.

Tomo 2. La conclusione del conflitto: Narrazione 1988:

t. 2 bis. Documenti

t. 3 ter. Carte

Vol.6 Le istruzioni tattiche del capo di Stato

maggiore dell'Esercito degli anni-

Tomo 1 1914-1915-1916. 1932.

Tomo 2 1917-1918. 1980. t.

Vol.7 Le operazioni fuori del territorio nazionale:

Tomo 1. Il Corpo di spedizione italiano in Estremo Oriente. 1934.

Tomo 2. Soldati d'Italia in terra di Francia. Narrazione. 1951.

t. 2-bis Documenti. 1951.

t. 2-ter. Tabelle, carte topografiche e schizzi. 1951.

Tomo 3. Le operazioni fuori del territorio nazionale:

Albania, Macedonia, Medio Oriente. Narrazione. 1983

t. 3-bis. Documenti. 1981.

t. 3-ter. Carte. 1981.

My request for help relates to -

Vol. 5. Le operazioni del 1918. 1980:

t. 1. Gli avvenimenti dal gennaio al giugno: Narrazione.

t. 1-bis. Documenti.

This is the only volume I have been unable to track down - does anyone know where I can see or get hold of a copy? I have tried the Italian Ministero della Difesa website but they only advertise an incomplete set marked as 'rarities'. No UK library seems to hold a copy of it either.

Thanks,

Martin James

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  • 5 months later...

Thanks to Martin Wills we have a link to an online version of the first volume of the new Zealand O.H.

The Official history of New Zealand's effort in the Great War. Volume 1. The New Zealanders at Gallipoli by Fred Waite. Auckland N. Z. Whitcombe and Tombs, 1919.

The New Zealanders at Gallipoli.

Tony.

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Hi, Guys;

A thread on unit histories has developed in an odd corner of this forum, so I am just dropping a mention of it, as, due to something I did, it got started in a place that almost no one looking for info on "official histories" would look in.

I am trying to build a complete set of the 17 book (I think!) official history series Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, and in the process I have acquired 30 copies of 15 of the 17 volumes in the series. For example, recently I was able to buy a set of 13 volumes at a very attractive total price, creating more duplicates on my shelves. Being a full-blown book nut, this was fun, but it is getting a bit out of hand. I have never sold a book in my life, I can only buy them, but I thought that I might sell off spare copies, or even a rapidly developing second (mostly) complete set, as I now have two or three copies of most of the volumes in the set. This might be especially useful for WW I nuts over here in the US, where these books are largely unobtainable locally, not found in many libraries, and where the rapidly rising postal charges for books (a great crime!) makes it more difficult to get books from Europe to over here.

So I put in a mention of my willingness to sell some volumes of this series in the sub-fora "Sales, Wants, and Swaps" found down in the lower regions of this Forum. However, the notice attracted some very knowledgable Pals and the thread developed into an informative discussion of this valuable series of histories. So I wanted to notify the people who were unterested in official histories and who had participated in the discussion at this location, the logical location for this discussion, that there was a useful discussion in an obscure corner of the Forum.

Bob Lembke

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  • 2 months later...

Hello

I find this thread interesting, having researched the writing of official histories all over the world.

Before I add to the lists on this site, specifically the UK section which is missing several volumes. Has anyone a definition of what any official history is ? Therefore I can post against an agreed consensus of what an Official History is, I have a view but I'm not too sure people would agree.

Regards

Mart

PS Whats the best WWI Official Written? Single and multi volume set?

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  • 1 year later...

If by "best" you mean readable, then Bean's Australian OHs take some beating. What's missing from far too many histories is the human aspect of the war, but Bean - perhaps it's because he's a journalist - includes those first-hand accounts as well as the higher strategy and conduct. From memory, the Canadian OH was also rather good.

OHs are by their nature more for historians than readers. I don't think Britain has ever produced a readable official history (the WW2 ones are a slog too, especially the Mediterranean volumes). The American WW2 histories are generally excellent. Breakout and Pursuit is a model of how to write official history.

Back to WW1, the Austrian history is surprisingly good and incredibly detailed. And it's not written in Fraktur!

Vols 1-6 of the Reichsarchiv Weltkrieg are pretty easy to pick up individually, but I've never seen any of the 1917-18 volumes for sale (I think the 1918 volume was produced in WW2 so the print run was very small). I needed to consult the 1918 volume at the IWM yesterday, but it wasn't there (every other one was). Murphy's law...

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