MILITARY OPERATIONS FRANCE AND BELGIUM 1918
THE GERMAN MARCH OFFENSIVE
AND ITS PRELIMINARIES.

&
MAP VOLUME

Compiled by
BRIGADIER-GENERAL SIR JAMES E. EDMONDS

MACMILLAN & CO
1935.

First edition.
The early events of the War were narrated in more detail than those which followed, because the British Army was at that time a small one and because these operations represent the work of the "Old Army "—and to a great extent, so far as the Western Front was concerned, its end. On General Edmonds has fallen a burden heavier than that his colleagues who have to deal with the secondary campaigns. He has to treat of political affairs at much greater length than they. As historian of the main theatre of war he has to assume the task of recording the composition and progress of the Army, the supply of munitions, the initiation of other campaigns. Only those who have had some experience of it can realise the vastness of the mass of material from which his narrative has to be sifted. Before a historian confronting such a problem there are two methods: he can sketch or he can compress. The former is the more attractive and popular method and has great successes to its credit in the historical literature of the past. But it has not the value for the student, especially the professional military student, of the second. General Edmonds has chosen this second method and has had in consequence to weigh every word, often to make a sentence do the work of a paragraph, generally to keep clear of episodic bypaths which would have given greater effect to his work. The result is certainly no reading for the idle-minded or the hasty, but it is a monument to skill, patience, and military knowledge. The reader can always feel secure that he will find no essential neglected. The maps and sketches prepared by Major Becke are probably superior to anything of their kind in previous military (Falls, War Books)

22 x 14 cm. xxx + 509 pp + 20 sketch maps + 13 sheet maps in separate case.

Good condition. Ex-library with the usual stamps but otherwise clean and tidy. Cloth faded on the spines.