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The 192 large-scale maps in this CD-ROM represent a public collection, unique in the UK, of German trench and operations maps in the Public Record Office, London, which holds the largest and most important collection of First World War maps in the UK; they are nearly all contained in PRO Class WO 153.
These maps were captured by British and Allied forces in the First World War, and were subject to analysis and interpretation by Haig’s General Staff Intelligence Department at GHQ in France; some have attached the original British intelligence notes. They provide an excellent sample of the various types of trench and operations maps used by German forces on the Western Front from 1916 to 1918. German forces on the Eastern and other fronts used very similar maps, but these are not represented here. German trench maps are very rare in this country, and even in Germany are hard to find. The biggest collection in Germany is at the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchive at Freiburg, but there are also significant collections at the Hauptstaatsarchiv-Kriegsarchiv in Munich and the Militärgeschichtliche-Forschungsamt in Potsdam.

The maps give a vivid picture of the complexity of the German and Allied trench systems and defences, and of the nature of modern warfare in attack and defence – trench (positions) maps, artillery maps, enemy battery and targets maps, rear organisation maps (railways, roads, hospitals, communications) – representing the industrialisation of the war effort in a massive manifestation of staff work and organisation. At the very lowest and most detailed level of tactical organisation, they show machine gun, trench mortar and battery emplacements, defended localities and areas, barbed-wire, trenches and saps, mine craters, and all other details of forward organisation.