Verdun (Battlefield Map)

For many years the Holts have provided tourers to the battlefields with excellent mapping for the Ypres Salient and the Somme. This map of the Verdun/Meuse area fills one of the many gaps in the coverage of the Western Front.

This map of the Verdun battlefield is in the same style, using a colour coded system to distinguish the different types of features. It includes some 300 locations of memorials, cemeteries, significant remnants of the battle terrain, remaining fortifications, trenches, the destroyed villages and other vestiges of the war. On the reverse there is a cut out and enlarged section of the Verdun battlefield in particular - the most visited part of the area, which provides greater detail.

This section includes the Ossuary at Douamont, Forts Douamont, Vaux and Souville and many more features. The front line at key stages of the battle in 1916 is clearly indicated GPS references are given for the more signifiant sites. Roads and major tracks are shown, with restrictions in access as known at the date of publication. The map extends from the eastern fringes of the Argonne Forest to the west and encompasses the whole of the 1916 Verdun battlefield to the east. This means that several places of interest to the student of the American army's offensive in late 1918 are shown. The map is tri-lingual - in English, French and German - so far as is practicable given the constraints of space. The map is of a manageable size, both in a vehicle and when being used outside.

About the Author

Bart Metselaar has been visiting the battlefields of the Western Front for over twenty years, from his late teens. He has spent much time walking the battlefields of the Western Front and has acquired an encyclopaedic knowledge of the ground and the surviving remnants of the war. An amateur cartographer, he has produced the mapping for a number of Pen and Sword Battleground Europe books. He has been working on this Verdun map for some years, painstakingly searching out memorials that have been all but forgotten. He is now turning his attention to the Arras battlefield.

1 colour map