GUEST - 11 Dec 15 - 11:08 AM

"What is your AUTHORITY Keith for accepting some historians as valid and dismissing other historians as invalid."

AUTHORITY or CRITERIA GHOST?

1954 - 1958 - Material released under the 50 year rule
1984 - 1989 - Material released under the 70 year rule
2014 - 2018 - Material released under the 100 year rule

Material translated and released from foreign sources - for stuff from the German side that didn't happen until 1972, from the Russians it didn't happen until the 1990s. Only in the last two/three years have we found out exactly how British soldiers on the first day of the battle of the Somme suddenly found themselves with German troops at their backs occupying ground that they thought they had just taken.

So anyone writing about the First World War before 1969 only had a partial view of it - and that includes the writings of David Lloyd George. The subject matter is vast so for information reading something by someone who has specialised in the period gives you far more than say someone who wants to make a quick few quid and who just makes up shit in order to provoke controversy as a publicity stunt (Talking about Alan Clark and his book "The Donkeys" here)