wonderful salute to Franco-American amity at Verdun and Meuse-Argonne
Reviewed October 17, 2018
My father and I had a truly wonderful day (over 12 hours!) with Cécil exploring the intricacies of the Meuse-Argonne offensive and Verdun and its salients, gaining both a fuller grasp of the myriad campaigns fought here and an over-arching understanding of their import in the context of the Great War.
Cécil demonstrated superb command of the names and narratives for these theatres of war without resorting to drab fact recycling. He also crafted the tour exactly to my needs, as I wanted to focus specifically on the French experience here and why these battlefields so poetically (and tragically) captured their struggle. Cécil also interwove American elements for myself and my father (a US veteran) as we explored the American Cemetary and US Army participation in the Meuse-Argonne in 9/'18. He also paced the trip well with respect to not rushing us through the individual sights (like some tours), but also in how he planned the tour. The quiet trench maze of Vauquois and its horrifying mine blasts was a great way to ease us into the conflict rather than begin in Verdun proper and the grand monuments/cemetaries. The latter can be appreciated only with the context of the former.
By the end of the tour Cécil felt like more of a friend than a guide and we all lifted a glass of Burgundy (poured into our used water bottles) to the continued, and hopefully revived, concorde and amity between his great country and ours.....just as doughboys and poilu had done by 11/'18.
Altogether I highly recommend Cécil Graf the guide and the man.