Thinking of Touring Europe this Year? Join Either our Reconstruction / Occupation Tour or the Battle of the Bulge Tour

  Space is still available for the two tours that historians Randy Gaulke and Markus Klauer are offering:  In mid-September there is the 1918-19 Reconstruction / Occupation of Germany Tour and in early October there is the Ardennes 75th Anniversary Battle of the Bulge Tour.   The Reconstruction / Occupation tour is designed to focus less on the fighting in the Meuse-Argonne and St. Mihiel regions and more on the post-war reconstruction.  It will also focus on the American Third Army’s occupation of Germany; which Continue reading →

News & Events: Ardennes 1944–Battle of the Bulge 75th Anniversary Small-Group Tour Update

  After a recent recon by tour guide Markus Klauer, Randy and Markus have selected L’Hostellerie du Château de Rendeux in Rendeux, Belgium as the tour’s home base.  Built in the 17th century, this château has experienced the eras of Louis XIV and Napoleon and it has survived both world wars.  Your tour guides believe it will offer clients a tranquil location to relax and unwind after a busy day of touring.  The Château is situated in a beautiful park setting just off the Rue Continue reading →

Hitler’s Final Gamble in the Ardennes: A Focus on Battle of the Bulge Tour Guides, Markus Klauer and Randy Gaulke

    To Americans, Markus Klauer and Randy Gaulke are quite well know for their WW1 battlefield tour expertise; but can they transition this to a WW2 battlefield tour, such as the 75th Anniversary Battle of the Bulge Tour they are offering in October?  Yes!   Markus Klauer is much better known to Europeans than to Americans.  He has been studying military history and leading battlefield tours for over three decades.  Regarding WW2 specifically, he has been studying and leading tours of the battles from Continue reading →

News & Events–Over There: Space Still Available on 1918-19 Meuse-Argonne Reconstruction / Occupation of Germany Tour

Spaces are still available for the 1918-19 Reconstruction / Occupation of Germany Tour that Markus Klauer and Randy Gaulke are offering in late September, 2019.   We have mentioned before that the Moselle River Valley is one of the most beautiful areas of Germany, in our opinion.  Webmaster Randy Gaulke’s family vacationed there in 2016 and he has taken several clients to the region in 2017-18.  This post shows a few photos from the Facebook Page of Weinhaus Fries, one of the hotels that the Continue reading →

News & Events–Over There: Update on 1918-19 Meuse-Argonne Reconstruction / Occupation of Germany Tour

  Here is an update on the 1918-19 Meuse-Argonne Reconstruction / Occupation of Germany tour that Markus Klauer and I are jointly offering in September, 2019. Markus has returned from his recon trip, and we have selected the hotels in Germany.  You can see links to their websites in the attached flyer. I would like to emphasize that Markus and I try to offer somewhat unique, research-focused tours.  Those of you who participated in our Small-Group tour in Sept. 2018 enjoyed the afternoon hikes to Continue reading →

People of the Meuse-Argonne: Lee S. Anthony, Ph.D.

Even today French locals, other Europeans and Americans find themselves drawn to the Meuse-Argonne region of France.  Once drawn there, many return time and again; often working on a multi-year research or preservation projects.  In this irregular series, the Webmaster hopes to introduce readers to some of these individuals and their labors of love.   Through these interviews the Webmaster has met many wonderful and unique personalities.  He was thoroughly impressed by the 86-year-young Lee S. Anthony; who was touring the Meuse-Argonne independently late September Continue reading →

Books and Movies: A Journey to the Western Front: 100 Years after the Cataclysm, by Doug Gangler

  In less than two hundred pages, author Doug Gangler takes readers on a tour along the 700 kilometer (420 mile) long Western Front of World War 1; covering important and moving sites from WW1.  The book is organized into ten geographic chapters; starting with Brussels and ending with Mulhouse (aka the Vosges.)  He includes Paris, too.  Each region is given plus or minus twenty pages.  In the reviewer’s opinion, the book’s greatest strength is the author’s ability to condense four years of conflict in Continue reading →

We Forget Today: Update–Argonne Farm, Bridgewater, NJ is for Sale. Own a First Division House–Sort of!

We forget today just what an impact World War One had on the lives of its participants and their families.  On 22 November 2014 the Webmaster talked about Argonne Farm in Bridgewater, NJ.  To view that full article, please click on this link:  https://meuse-argonne.com/?p=567. To paraphrase the story, the farm was purchased by Samuel Wishnowitz, a Polish-born immigrant who had fought in the 1st Division during WW1 and who never rose above the rank of private.  He and his father bought the property some time Continue reading →

New Product Introduction: U.S. Army Tracings of German Situation Maps–German 5th Army and Army Detachment C

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the Army War College had representatives at the German Reichsarchiv in Potsdam who were making exact copies of Imperial German military documents so they could be studied and analyzed by the U.S. military.  One subset of documents is the tracings of daily situation maps (singular, Lagenkarte) created by the individual German Armies.  These situation maps are an important resource for examining the German side of the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives.     Created at the individual Army-level, the original Continue reading →

Then and (Not Quite) Now: German Ammunition Dumps at Brandeville and Lissey

The series of excellent Signal Corps photos shown below caught the Webmaster’s attention while living in France last November.  He spent a good bit of time one day trying to line up then and now photos by the hills around Brandeville, because all but the last photo shown are captioned as Brandeville.  He finally admitted defeat when he could not get any good “now” matches.  Coming back to those photos in January 1919, he wonders if most of them were mis-captioned.  The clue comes from Continue reading →