Official History of The Great War: Military Operations France & Belgium 1918: Volume 1

New Edition with all Maps Reproduced in Full Colour. The Official History of the Great War was the grandest official history ever produced in Britain. 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 ether floundered, or were produced with the maps in monochrome. At last the acclaimed work of the official cartographers who had ninety thousand maps at their command can be examined as they intended in full colour. This is part of a multi-volume work. 1918 is covered by five volumes plus one volume of appendices This volume gives an account of the great German Offensive, which began on 21st March, with its preliminaries from both sides' point of view, and covers events up to and including 26th March. That was the date of the Doullens Conference when General Foch, Chief of Staff of the French Army was given the task of co-ordinating Allied operations on the Western Front. The first few chapters review the preliminaries including the failure of the Government to be prepared for Russia's withdrawal from the war, despite warnings; Allied plans for 1918; the situation in Italy following the Italian defeat at Caporetto; the creation of the Versailles Supreme War Council, and, most important, the reduction of the infantry in the division from twelve to nine battalions, the lack of reinforcements combined with the removal of Sir William Robertson as CIGS. German plans are discussed and then follows the account of the fighting which takes up ten of the eleven remaining chapters. The final chapter deals with the Doullens Conference.