James Edward Edmonds - Later Career

Later Career

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." Andrew Green in 'Writing the Great War: Sir James Edmonds and the Official Histories 1915–1948' (2003) considered the volumes of the Official History for Gallipoli, the Somme, 3rd Ypres and the German March offensive of 1918 and concluded that Edmonds had been far more objective than others had given him credit for. "By almost every standard by which the Official Military Histories of the Great War might be judged, one must conclude that the works were of substantial historical, military and literary value.... Even those who have accused Edmonds of bias have had to acknowledge that his assessments and conclusions are correct."

In 1939 Edmonds became secretary of the Cabinet Office Historical Section following the resignation of Colonel E. Y. Daniel. Then on 15 November 1939 the section moved to Lytham St Annes, Lancashire where it stayed until April 1942 when it moved to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.