WWW 1 war diaries

[Barbara B]

I expect people already know this but 1st World War diaries are now available to be viewed on line at the National Archives. The extracts shown on TV were fascinating.
Barbara

[daggers]

Caution is needed: some media have reported this as though individual, personal diaries are to be published. Not so. First of all they were illegal, though many were written and some have been edited and published over the years.

What is meant is the War Diaries of British Army units which were written up by an officer and were the official record of that unit's actions, day by day, after arriving in a war zone such as France, Egypt etc. Some are handwritten, often in pencil, and some typewritten, which are easier to read. Many diaries have been digitised and can be downloaded from the National Archives for a fee (£3.50?). Many more have yet to be published.

The contents deal with the unit's movements from place to place and cover such things as weather conditions, reports from sub-units, enemy bombardments, and usually include summaries of casualties and arrival of reinforcements. Officers are often named and some diaries list officers on the strength at given dates. Other ranks get few mentions on the whole, some are named when wounded or killed, or praised for particular actions, but this is rare.

I understand that the Imperial War Museum is seeking to involve the general public in this exercise, by asking for input on diaries of interest to them, for family or other historic reasons, so that more access may eventually be available via some search system.

If anyone else has read this up in the press they may explain it better - it is late!
Daggers

ADDED 15 Jan 2014

I now understand that this project relates to the war diaries of units which belonged to the Divisions of the original 1914 British Expeditionary Force, and so will be quite limited in its application. I suspect there will be no Territorial units, nor New Army (Service) Battalions of the infantry, involved, but their diaries may well be available for downloading if they have been digitised and made available.
As usual, little has been said about the large numbers of non-infantry - Gunners, Sappers, Service, Ordnance, Medical Corps, etc.
D

[Bertieone]

A very adequate explanation, Daggers.

to add,
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/reco ... es-ww1.htm

[MaryA]

Thank you for the background Daggers, very informative, and for the link Bert.

If anybody has any success in discovering information about their ancestor, I'm sure we would love to hear the results.

[Fledge]

Media coverage of this was very misleading. I lost count of the number of times people argued yesterday that soldiers' diaries were now online. "No, no... they said on Breakfast News that..."

I was hoping to find info relating to the death of a grand uncle just days before the end of the War, but his battalion in the Border Reg isn't available for download.

This morning I noticed that the New York Times announced the release of the War Diaries, and I quote, "The British obsession with the centennial of World War I, the war that did not end all wars, heightened on Tuesday as the National Archives announced that it was putting diaries from British soldiers in the conflict online." We're obsessed, apparently.

[MaryA]

I would prefer to think of it as commemorating our heroes.

[Fledge]

Quite, Mary.