"Archival material in need of translation? " Topic

Does anyone know of any archival material relevant to our period that is in need of translation?

I am pretty comfortable reading French and German, having an A-grade A-Level in both, and having used both languages every day for work over a subsequent ten-year period. I was looking at the Napoleon Series website recently and I note they used to run awards that included "Best Publication and/or Translation into English of New Archival Material or Books Long Out of Print".

I'm not hankering after any such award but I find this stuff interesting, and I'd enjoy the mental exercise involved in translating stuff – but where is it to be found? Or is that the real challenge here?

You can try von der Marwitz' report on the October 1806 campaign, 38 pages long, but it is a very good read and I believe it has not yet been translated into English:

link

From Europe, you will need a proxy server to access the full text. Currently I use:

homeproxy.com

(but anyone based out of Europe will do)

I have found around 1700 Napoleonic era books (google books – archive.org) in French and German.
You will need to use a proxy to get at a lot of them.

Paul
emperorslibrary.com

Thanks. Is there any reliable way of establishing if any of these has been translated into English before?

You could always google the authors

Jany and Hopfner's several studies of the Prussian army have not been translated.

The Höpfner one looks interesting – an account of the campaign written when many actors were still alive – but I cannot tell, from looking at it on Amazon.de, whether the reprints are typeset in a modern typeface or in Fraktur, which frankly gives me a headache. Anyone know?

I have a copy of Hopfner from Amazon and it is in Fraktur. Gives me a headache too. The only other option is to call it up on google and have it converted to plain-text. That's what I do.

Jany is the more prolific historian. He has several works.

Bill

Another is General H. Camon. He is the foundation for such studies as Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon and his works have never been translated other than 45 pages by Nafgizer:

Génie et métier chez Napoléon [Paris 1909]
La guerre Napoléonienne—les systèms d'operations [Paris 1907]
La guerre Napoléonienne—Précis de campagnes [2 vol. Paris 1925]
Quand et comment Napoléon a conçu son systems de manœuvre [Paris 1931]
Quand et comment Napoléon a conçu son systems de bataille [Paris 1935]

The last two are the most influential and interesting because they are an analysis of Napoleon's 'system' gleaned from all the other studies Camon did.

The Höpfner reprints are just photocopies bound as a book, as far as I know, so in Fraktur typesets. Jany's works as well.

Höpfner is based on the diaries and reports of the units sent in to the ministry of war. Most of these original documents were destroyed by an Allied bombing raid on Potsdam at the end of the Second World War.

Fraktur actually gets easier and easier to read within a short time, it is not too different form Latin typesets. Or you chose some French works to translate.

Thanks all. The Fraktur stuff may have to wait. The Camon material looks interesting although costly to obtain (£75 on abebooks for Quand et comment Napoléon a conçu son systeme de manœuvre, for example.

I had a look on JStor – which I have access to for free – and frustratingly all it has of Camon are reviews of his books, including what looks like an interesting one on Wagram.

4th

Some of Camon's volumes are available for free on Gallica:

link

4th

I think these books would be valuable to have available in English. I have used several search options but they so far only come up in the original language.

Inédits Napoléoniens, Arthur Chuquet, 2 Volumes 1913-1919
Volume 1 : link
Volume 2: link

Napoleons untergang 1815, Oscar von Lettow-Vorbeck, 1906. link

Porte-feuille de Buonaparte: pris à Charleroi le 18 juin 1815, The Hague, 1815. link

Some excellent suggestions there, thanks all.