page_title: History of the Great War
section_title: Persia, 1914–1919
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Great War / Publishing / Persia, 1914–1919
context_page_description: The History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence is a series of 109 volumes, concerning the war effort of the British state during the First World War. It was produced by the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence from 1915 to 1949; after 1919 Brigadier-General Sir James Edmonds was Director. Edmonds wrote many of the army volumes and influenced the choice of historians for the navy, air force, medical and veterinary volumes. Work had begun on the series in 1915 and in 1920, the first volumes of Naval Operations and Seaborne Trade, were published. The first "army" publication, Military Operations: France and Belgium 1914 Part I and a separate map case were published in 1922 and the final volume, The Occupation of Constantinople was published in 2010.
  The History of the Great War Military Operations volumes were originally intended as a technical history for military staff.
context_section_description: In October 1920, the Government of India provided money for a record of the Indian contribution to the world war and chose Brigadier-General F. J. Moberly (15 September 1867 – 6 April 1952) to write the official account of the Mesopotamian Campaign (6 November 1914 – 14 November 1918). Moberly published it in four volumes from 1923–1927 and in 1926 the Government of India requested an additional volume on the Persian Campaign (December 1914 – 30 October 1918). The work was nearly finished by September 1927, when the Government of India had doubts about publication on political grounds, because it would be dangerous to disclose intrigues with Iranian governments and individuals. The most helpful Iranian factions would come badly out of a volume that denigrated their assistance and "...the less we bring Afghanistan into the narrative the better for us". Sir Denys Bray of the Foreign and Political Department (Army Headquarters, India) supported the "excellent written" history but wanted it lodged in the Confidential records. Stephen Gaslee of the Foreign Office wrote to Daniel in October 1927, about his concern that the government of the Soviet Union (USSR) might publish information from the Russian Empire on Iran.
  Gaslee felt that Soviet disclosures might put the British government at a disadvantage, if a censored version of British involvement in Iran had already been published; instead he preferred a comprehensive history kept Confidential. General G. M. Kirkpatrick (Chief of the General Staff [India] from 1916 to 1920), took the view that discussion of the Seistan Strategy might upset Iranian sensibilities. Sir Percy Cox (20 November 1864 – 20 February 1937) who had been Chief Political Officer of Indian Expeditionary Force D, told Moberly that it was a fine piece of work, free from bias. Moberly wrote to Cox that avoiding controversy would render the volume valueless, making it impossible to justify British involvement in Iran to the public. Moberly referred to sensitivity over the "corrupt and self-interested attitude" of most Iranian politicians during the war and British fears of unrest in Afghanistan. Cox agreed that a bowdlerised account would be worthless and that Moberly should write without fear or favour, if necessary securing a commercial publisher. At a meeting of the Committee on Official Histories on 9 March 1928, the volume was limited For Official Use Only and since this would increase the cost of the volume, His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) agreed to pay for it.
  Moberly finished the work in May 1928, then in September, after the Foreign Office and the Government of India had approved the text, Lord Peel, Secretary of State for India, insisted that the politics of the military operations be removed and the last three chapters re-written, because even in a volume restricted For Official Use Only, the disclosure of secrets was most objectionable. Moberly wrote that if officers were to benefit from the experience of wartime events in Iran, the exceptional nature of political factors there and in neighbouring countries could not be ignored. Moberly wrote that he understood the need for care in writing the history and that the chapters had been vetted informally by the Foreign Office and approved by Cox, who as an expert in the field, was well qualified to balance secrecy with the needs of army students. At a meeting of the Committee on Official Histories on 26 March 1929, it was ruled that the volume would be marked Confidential in Britain and Secret in India. Edmonds had objected to the Confidential label, since it would be withheld from young officers but was over-ruled. A limited edition of 500 unexpurgated copies was printed by HMSO in late 1929, with 150 being marked Secret and sent to the Government of India. In March 1930, copies of the Confidential volume were supplied to the Imperial War Museum (IWM) library among others and in February 1933, HMSO destroyed the last 300 unbound copies; in 1987 the IWM published a facsimile copy of the volume at £24 net.
caption: Map of Iran (Persia)
exif: {}