Walking Verdun: A Guide to the Battlefield

Christina Holstein

Jul. 2009 · Casemate Publishers

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A WWI historian and Verdun battleground guide shares her knowledge and expertise in this series ten of walking tours.

On February 21st, 1916, the German Fifth Army launched a devastating offensive against French forces at Verdun and set in motion one of the most harrowing and prolonged battles of the Great War. By the time the struggle finished ten months later, over 650,000 men were left killed, wounded, or were missing. The terrible memory of the battle had been etched into the histories of France and Germany, as well as the ground on which it happened.

This epic trial of military and national strength cannot be properly understood without visiting, and walking, the battlefield, and this is the purpose of Christina Holstein's invaluable guide. In a series of walks she takes the reader to all the key points on the battlefield, many of which have attained almost legendary status—from the spot where Colonel Driant was killed to the forts of Douaumont, Vaux and Souville, the Mort Homme ridge, and Verdun itself.

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Christina Holstein is a leading authority on the Battle of Verdun. For many years she lived close to the battlefield and has explored it in great detail. She regularly conducts tours of the battlefield for individuals or groups and, with her specialized knowledge of the terrain, has acted as consultant to a number of other historians, TV producers and TV and radio journalists. Over the years she has written four books in the Battleground Europe series on the Battle of Verdun 1916. She was the founding chairman of the Luxembourg branch of the Western Front Association.