We have taken the opportunity with our 2021 editions of the OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR – FRANCE AND BELGIUM series to redesign the covers and print on 140g silk paper. This official history was the grandest ever produced in Britain, and its purpose was to provide “within reasonable compass an authoritative account, suitable for general readers and for students at military schools”. Due to the number of full-colour maps bound in each volume, previous attempts to reprint this valuable reference either floundered, or were produced with the maps in monochrome. At last, the acclaimed work of the official cartographers who had 90,000 maps at their command can be examined as they intended – in full colour.
France and Belgium 1917. Vol I. Appendices. OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.
Volume I of 1917 covers the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line and the Battles of Arras, and this volume of appendices contains a selection of relevant material such as operational orders and plans, correspondence, conference records and resolutions, texts of agreements, etc which would otherwise `clutter’ up the main volume. There is a wealth of information here which is extremely revealing as to the amount of detail involved in staff work from army down to brigade level.