James Edward Edmonds
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Brigadier General James Edward Edmonds CB, CMG (1861–1956) was a British First World War officer of the Royal Engineers who in the role of British official historian was responsible for the post-war compilation of the 28-volume History of the Great War. Edmonds himself wrote nearly half the volumes, including eleven of the 14 volumes dealing with the Western Front (Military Operations, France and Belgium). His task was not completed until the final volume was published in 1949.
Edmonds was educated at King's College School, London and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1881. Edmonds possessed a considerable intellect and was fluent in many European and Asian languages. In 1896 he entered the Staff College at Camberley, achieving the highest score of his class on the entrance exam, double that of classmate Douglas Haig who would later become commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) during the First World War. Also in the 1896 class was Edmund Allenby, who would lead British forces in Palestine during 1917–18, and William Robertson who became Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1916. Edmonds passed the two-year staff course at the top of his class. He was understandably marked for work in military intelligence and in 1904 was involved in the establishment of MI5, the British Secret Service.
At the outbreak of the war, Edmonds was chief-of-staff of the British 4th Division but the strain of the retreat following the Battle of Mons led to his replacement in September 1914, within a month of the opening of hostilies. He spent the remainder of the war as a staff officer at GHQ of the BEF during which time he gathered documents to be used in the Official History. Edmonds needed to demonstrate great diplomacy to obtain his information. He told his Australian counterpart, C.E.W. Bean:
- I was on terms of friendship with all the British generals from Haig downwards. I never belonged to any party and since I was not competing for promotion, I enjoyed confidences I otherwise might not have had.
The Official History produced by Edmonds has been subsequently criticised as propaganda for being too lenient on the British generalship. It has been suggested that Edmonds' favourable portrayal of Haig was a counterpoint to the scathing criticism delivered by former British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George in his memoirs. In 1991, British historian Denis Winter, a staunch critic of Haig, acknowledged Edmonds' comprehensive understanding of British operations during the war but said "Only a profoundly knowledgeable man could have produced an Official History so misleading and yet with that ring of plausibility which has led to a general acceptance for so long."
