+ 44 (0)1438 989129
+ 44 (0)1438 989129
+ 44 (0)1438 989129
Tour Dates:  17-22 September 2022

Price Per Person: £1255:00 ($1650:00) 
Single Supplement: £175:00 ($250:00)  

Hotel Accommodation: (B&B Basis, 2 group evening meals included)

3 Nights in a Verdun Hotel
2 Nights in St Mihiel Hotel   

The tour is inclusive of:
Pick-up and drop-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle
Executive coach, driver and 2 guides (Clive Harris & Mike Sheil) throughout.
5 nights Accommodation
All Museum entry fees  
2 Group Evening Meals 

The tour is not inclusive of:
Flights to and from Paris
Lunches

National WWI Museum and Memorial Tour - Verdun & the St Mihiel Salient 

 
This tour is open to the General Public, it is run in association with the National WWI Museum and Memorial and bookings should be made bia their website.
 
Nourishing the lush vineyards of northeastern France is a soil storied and shattered by two of the 20th century’s most significant battles. Join the National WWI Museum and Memorial in treading through the hallowed forests and hollowed grounds of Verdun and St. Mihiel Salient, their ruins relics of the endurance of Franco-American fraternité. The 2022 Battlefield Tour will be led by Clive Harris and Mike St Maur Sheil.
 
Costs include:
- Pick up and drop off in Paris (Charles DeGaulle Airport), coach, driver, 
- Exclusive Museum and Memorial archival insights and 2 guides throughout tour
- All entry fees to museums
- 5 nights half board accommodation
- 2 evening meals
- Group size limited to 25 participants 
 
It does not include:
- Flights to and from Paris
- Lunches and dinners unless included on the itinerary
- Incidentals
 
Questions? Email travel@theworldwar.org or call 816-888-8113
 
As we explore century-old battlefields, there is walking over some undulating crowds – rewarded by breath-taking views. If you’ve questions on mobility and accessibility, please contact travel@theworldwar.org.

The tour is limited to a maximum of 25 passengers and will focus on Verdun & the St Mihiel Salient, initially based in the nearby Hotel Tulipier, after a visit to the French National World War Museum at Meaux, the opening phase of of this tour will feature a detailed study across the shattered landscape of Verdun enabling us to reach areas that are not accessible to traditional coach parties, among the sites visited we will see the Voie Sacre, Verdun centre, Col Driants Command Post, the destroyed village of Beaumont and Fluery alongside the fotresses at Froideterre, Fort Vaux, Fort Douaumont and Fort Souville. 

We then move to the St Mihiel Salient area to the south to study the American battlefields of 1918 which are all too rarely visited. Here, the well preserved nature of the bunkers and extensive trench systems enable an appreciation and understanding of trench warfare not generally possible on other sectors of the Western Front where such relics have been erased. They are hugely significant as they show how the determination of the AEF to win at all costs drove its steep and costly learning curve to encouraged extraordinary actions and individual acts of remarkable courage and battle-craft.

 
Day 1: Charles de Gaulle – Meaux 
The tour will start at 1100 at the Citizen M Hotel Charles De Gaulle Airport. Our first stop is the  Museum of the Great War in Meaux, the largest museum in Europe to World War I, for an exclusive exploration of their gallery collections to provide interpretive context for the tour. We then continue onto our hotel.

 Overnight Vienne Le Chateau Evening Meal and Museum Entry included   
 
Day 2: Verdun Town Center and Voie Sacrée
Verdun—one of history’s most demanding battles, it is essential to understanding the history of World War I and French identity. We begin the morning exploring the beautiful Northeastern French city and its memorials, museums and scars of battle in the Town Centre to grasp a better idea of the French military system and homefront mindset during this time. After a local lunch, we follow the historic Voie Sacrée or “Sacred Way,” the communications and logistics road to the frontline. By December 1916, it had been traveled by over 3 million men, including young American volunteers. We hear their stories, along with that of Colonel Driant—a key figure during the opening phase of the battle—before ending deep in the forest of Verdun at the ruins of the village of Beaumont.

Overnight Vienne Le Chateau Breakfast included


Day 3: Froideterre - Fluery - Douaumont 
Beginning at Froideterre Ouverage, we delve into the scored topography and stories of the 1916 frontline. Tracing the footsteps of the heroic American Ambulance Field Service staff, we will explore the remains of a deep hospital shelter and visit the newly renovated Fleury Museum. After lunch in a café built immediately after WWI to feed battlefield pilgrims, we will spend the afternoon commemorating in the stilling shadow of the Douaumont Ossuary before heading to the Tranche Londres Line, where, with the legendary Fort Douaumont, the landscape bears witness to the ferocity of the ten-month battle in 1916 which was a ‘war within a war.’ 
Overnight Vienne Le Chateau Breakfast included

Day 4: Fort Tavannes to Fort Souville Line
Starting with Fort Vaux, we trek to Fort Tavannes through the Batterie de l’Hopital, ending at the impressive Fort Souville complex with its Pamard casemates. In the afternoon, we transfer to the St Mihiel Salient, first visiting the burial site of acclaimed French writer Alain Fournier and his companions. Guided by the words of Ernst Jünger’s Storm of Steel, we will then tread through the forest to a hidden German war-time cemetery before proceeding to the lunar landscape of Les Éparges—perhaps the most intensively mined sector of the Western Front. We conclude the day at Hattonchâtel, attacked by the US 102nd Infantry Regiment.

Overnight St Mihiel Breakfast included

Day 5: St Mihiel – Montsec
Our day begins at the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) Memorial atop Montsec, which affords a stunning view over the battlefield. Traversing down to the atmospheric trenches of Bois le Prétre and some of the most well-preserved German trenches on the Western Front in Fliery, we head to lunch at Pont à Mousson where the American Ambulance Field Service is honored by a striking memorial in the town square. Continuing onward to examine the notorious April 1918 German trench raid with the 26th ‘Yankee’ Division at Seicheprey, we pause at the beautiful cemetery at Thiaucourt before ending the day canopied under the woods of Aprémont, where we follow the story of a French commander and his unit’s famous last stand.

Overnight St Mihiel Breakfast included


Day 6: Paris (10/2/20)
Leaving our hotel, we head for Paris where guests can return on morning flight to the U.S. or begin their own explorations of the City of Lights.




ADDITIONAL DETAILS TO NOTE
Travel Insurance
Traveler is responsible for securing own travel insurance.

Flight
We strongly encourage scheduling arrival the day before the tour leaves to avoid any risk of a delayed flight. 
OUR GUIDES

Clive Harris
Raised in Hertfordshire, Clive developed a lifelong fascination with history. He spent seven years with the Royal Corps of Signals, serving operationally overseas with the 1st Armoured Division in BAOR — an Infantry attachment with the Royal Green Jackets, in Cyprus, Germany and France — and finally taking an instructor’s post in the Signals Wing of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. On leaving the army he joined his local Constabulary, serving 11 years in their Force Operations Room as a specialist communications officer and control room manager. In 1998, he began working as a speaker, writer, researcher and battlefield guide and since then has guided groups to the Somme, Ypres, Arras, Mons, Cambrai, The Hindenburg Line, Verdun, and Gallipoli for the Great War, as well as Normandy, Arnhem, The Italian Campaign, and of course the London Blitz for the Second World War. Clive is a Badged Member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides (No33),and a member of the British Commission for Military History.

Michael St Maur Sheil
Is the award-winning curator of the Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace 1914-1918. After studying Geography at Oxford, in the early 1970s Mike began his career as a photojournalist covering “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Here he became associated with the New York picture agency, Black Star, and over thirty years later he is still in the fortunate position of being paid to do what he loves doing — taking photographs. Mike has visited over 60 countries around the world, working for a wide range of clients such as ABC-TV, BBC, Anti-Slavery International, British Red Cross, European Commission, National Geographic, New York Times, Shell, Time and Time Life.