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.
Transportation on the Western Front 1914-18. OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.
A most important contribution to the history of the war on the Western Front, describing the vital part played by transportation – railways, roads, clocks and canals. It reveals some of the main transport questions that arose and the organisation that was set up to deal with them, an organisation that combined a number of services into one single one called Transportation, under a Director General the first and best known of whom was a civilian railway manager sent out to France and given the honorary rank of Major General, Sir Eric Geddes.