First editions, first issues, marked "Confidential", and prepared for the "information and use of the British delegates to the Paris Peace Conference" at the end of WWI. In all, the Historical Section of the British Foreign Office, founded especially for the purpose in 1917, prepared more than one hundred and sixty handbooks as essential background to the discussions held at Versailles.

"In the spring of 1917, the Foreign Office, in connection with the preparation which they were making for the work of the Peace Conference, established a special section whose duty it should be to provide the British Delegates to the Peace Conference with information in the most convenient form – geographical, economic, historical, social, religious and political – respecting the different countries, districts, islands, &c., with which they might have to deal. In addition, volumes were prepared on certain general subjects, mostly of an historical nature, concerning which it appeared that a special study would be useful.

The historical information was compiled by trained writers on historical subjects, who (in most cases) gave their services without any remuneration. For the geographical sections valuable assistance was given by the Intelligence Division (Naval Staff) of the Admiralty; and for the economic sections, by the War Trade Intelligence Department, which had been established by the Foreign Office. Of the maps accompanying the series, some were prepared by the above-mentioned department of the Admiralty, but the bulk of them were the work of the Geographical Section of the General Staff (Military Intelligence Division) of the War Office" (Prothero, 'Editorial Note' to 1920 edition).

The two folding maps:

1. WAR OFFICE Persian Gulf and Adjacent Countries... June 1914,... Additions Feby. 1919. Dimensions: (sheet) 860 by 660mm (33.75 by 26 inches).

2. WAR OFFICE Sketch Map of the Persian Gulf & Arabia, 1914. Dimensions: (sheet) 575 by 750mm (22.75 by 29.5 inches).