The Western Front Association: furthering interest in The Great War 1914-18

in partnership with

The Imperial War Museum

The Western Front Association, together with the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London, is involved in a joint project to produce a series of DVDs of trench maps and aerial photographs from the IWM archives. This project, called Mapping the Front, aims to create a set of themed DVDs of Great War maps and photographs covering significant and interesting aspects of The Great War. The quality of the maps will allow high resolution and colour depth images as good as the originals. The DVDs will be themed by area with maps of different scales detailing the changes to landscape over months and years.

Locations will include the Somme, Ypres, Arras, Lens & Loos, Gallipoli, etc. Other themes will also include Cemeteries on the Western Front, Haig's personal maps, cartography, transport, tanks, artillery, light railways and many others.

Each themed DVD will contain:

a) Maps.
b) Aerial photographs (where available).
c) A standard set of index maps.
d) Help on how to read the military maps of the period.
e) Other contemporary and modern documents of relevance or interest such as the ‘Report on Survey on the Western front, 1914-1918’. (1)

This Mapping project involves the scanning of the whole of the IWM's collection of Trench and Great War maps. To date 6,000 maps and 1000+ photographs have been scanned in high resolution. We hope to be able to publish the majority over the coming months.
The first 6 DVD's in the collections are:
Ypres - This double DVD set contains maps and photographs relating to Army map sheet area 28.
The Official History Maps - This single DVD contains the Official History Maps.
General Haig's Maps - This single DVD contains a quantity of Haig's Artillery Maps.
The Somme squares 57C & 57D – This double DVD set contains maps and photographs relating to the northern and middle parts of the battlefield.
The Somme squares 62C & 62D – This single DVD contains maps and photographs relating to the southern part of the battlefield.
Gallipoli – This single DVD contains 300+ maps of Gallipoli and the water colour “Sketches made at ANZAC” by Sapper H Moore-Jones NZ Engineers.

WFA MEMBERS £20.00 per title* + p&p. Non members £25.00 per title + p&p.
Postage: UK - £1.50 - Europe £2.00 - Rest of the World £2.50
* Same for 1 or 2 disc sets
Allow 28 days for delivery.

NB Please see the viewing instructions for details of how to view the maps, at the end of this article.

The discs are readable on almost all computers regardless of operating system, so Vista, Windows XP, Mac, eeepc, linux based machines etc. are fine. The reason is that no specific software is required, the discs contain images file and users are expected to have sufficient knowldege to open and view such files. For convenience, a copy of erviewer is on each disc, the latest version of this file viewer is also available free of charge from www.ermapper.com. Thet have kindly given us permission to include their software, but please take careful note of the viewing instructions.

Although original maps from the Great War have been available for viewing by the public at various locations, the number of high quality maps available for use at home has been very limited. The Mapping the Front project aims to greatly increase the number of maps and aerial photographs available.

In the past, the accent has been to concentrate on the regular 1/10,000 series of trench maps at the expense of other equally interesting maps, but in the words of Colonel E.M. Jack, a key figure in Great War cartography, "The 1/20,000 was the map commonly used by the Artillery, and as trenches could be shown on it in sufficient detail to be of use to the infantry it was the most useful scale of all, and the one that could least easily be dispensed with." * The series of DVDs will include 1/20,000 and 1/10,000 trench maps but will also present 1/5,000, 1/40,000, 1/80,000 and smaller scale maps where these show information not available on the standard trench maps.

In addition, we will present specialised maps such as those showing burials, colloquially known as the "body density" series, normal 1/40,000 maps showing temporary cemeteries and the areas from where the fallen were collected after the war.

Some DVDs will include hand annotated maps of all scales, artillery and machine gun barrage maps showing the planning for a creeping barrage, intelligence maps showing the enemy order of battle, relief maps and even hand drawn maps.

The trench maps were updated from aerial photographs and, where available, examples of these photographs will be presented alongside the relevant map.

Whether your interest in The Great War is family history or serious military research, the Mapping the Front project will provide an excellent and affordable archive from the collections of the Imperial War Museum.

Howard Anderson and Martin Hornby

(1) Report on Survey on the Western Front, 1914-1918, published 1920. This report is included on every DVD.

 

 

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The WFA in partnership with the Imperial War Museum is pleased to announce that from April 2008 parts of the I.W.M.’s map archive will be available to our members and the general public on DVD.

This Mapping project involves the scanning of the whole of the IWM’s collection of Trench and Great War maps. To date 6,000+ maps and 1000+ photographs have been scanned in high resolution. We hope to be able to publish the majority over the coming months.

The first 6 DVD’s in the collections are:

• Ypres - This double DVD set contains maps and photographs relating to Army map sheet area 28.
• The Official History Maps - This single DVD contains the Official History Maps.
• General Haig's Maps - This single DVD contains a quantity of Haig's Artillery Maps.
• The Somme squares 57C & 57D – This double DVD set contains maps and photographs relating to the northern and middle parts of the battlefield.
• The Somme squares 62C & 62D – This single DVD contains maps and photographs relating to the southern part of the battlefield.
• Gallipoli – This single DVD contains 300+ maps of Gallipoli and the water colour “Sketches made at ANZAC” by Sapper H Moore-Jones NZ Engineers.

WFA MEMBERS £20.00 per title + p&p.
Non members £25.00 per title + p&p.

Postage per DVD: UK - £1.50 - Europe £2.00 – Rest of the World £2.50

Allow 28 days for delivery.

We envisage that in total there will be 12 to 14 titles in the complete set. See overleaf for details of future titles.

You can make your purchase using a Credit Card (not AMEX) by telephoning the WFA Office.

Postal purchases can be made using a UK Cheque (Made out to THE WESTERN FRONT ASSOCIATION)

or using a credit card.

Write to:

Mapping the Front
The Western Front Association
PO Box 1918
Stockport
SK4 4WN

WFA Office Tel + 44 (0)161 443 1918

Membership Number……………………

Please use this form for ordering by POST

NUMBER OF TITLES REQUIRED

Title	Number
YPRES	..........
OFFICIAL HISTORY MAPS	..........
GENERAL HAIG'S MAPS	..........
THE SOMME 57C & 57D	..........
THE SOMME 62C & 62D	..........
GALLIPOLI	..........

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