Project Status Update 6

This week I wrote up a little introduction to my project and the methods I used, for the class website. I am still writing the history section about Verdun for the website and will have it finished by the end of the week. I finished my Forts.csv and I am hoping to have the last two finished by next week. Here is my intro/methods for the website...

Introduction:

Of all the World War I memorials and sites we visited in France, nothing grasped my interest and spurred my imagination more than walking through Forts Douaumont and Vaux. Half way through our trip we left the Somme Battlefield region and headed towards Verdun. Immediately upon arrival, we set off to meet with Christina Holstein, a Verdun historian, local battlefield guide, and author of the Books Walking Verdun, Fort Douaumont, and Fort Vaux.  Trudging through the mud and rain, we followed Christina through the forest eventually arriving at the ditch surrounding Fort Douaumont. After Pausing momentarily for some quick history from Christina, we made our way inside the Fort. The cool damp air combined with dim lighting and numerous stalagmites, stalactites, barred off passageways, and crumbling stone and concrete gave the fort a rather solemn and almost creepy atmosphere. We had such a remarkable opportunity to walk these forts with Christina Holstein and my memories of strolling down the dark damp corridors hearing stories of the struggles the men occupying these forts had during WWI will never be forgotten. As such, my final project for this class is entirely concerned with the double ring of fortifications surrounding Verdun.

               

History:

Coming soon…

Methods:

I have made an ESRI Story Map that will have selectable tabs to display information about forty-four different forts and fieldworks, specific information about fortifications that experienced action in WWI, and a final section to display pictures and give a little background on the time we spent as a class in the Verdun area. Using all three of Christina Holstein’s Books, John Mosier’s The Myth of the Great War and Verdun: The Lost History of the Most Important Battle in WWI, and Allistar Horne’s The Price of Glory, I summarized the events of the Battle of Verdun and organized them into my WWI tab in my Story Map. Using Clayton Donnell’s Fortifications of Verdun, websites such as The Great War Fortifications in France... and Le site web de la fortification Sere de Rivieres, and along with Google Earth, I pinpointed the location, as well as provided a picture and basic information, of each fort and fieldwork in my Forts tab. Finally, to give a personal account of the fortifications of Verdun, I used pictures that one of my classmates or I took while in France and added some background information which could include what we are looking at, why it’s important, and my own thoughts on the matter in my Trip Tab.

Being able to upload pictures and install a Story Map Template onto our own private webserver, I was able to create different CSV files in Microsoft Excel that correspond with each separate Tab mentioned earlier. These three CSV files have all my textual information and reference the location of the pictures associated with each fort, fieldwork, or photograph. Once the pictures were uploaded to the correct location and my CSV files were created, I made a web map on ArcGIS online with each CSV loaded into it, referenced the web map in the Index file located in the Story Map Templates folder on our webserver, typed in the full web address of my Story Map, unchecked some browser security settings, and the finished product appeared. Although the trip overseas was the best part of the class, researching and working on this project was almost just as fun.

 Here is a screenshot of my finished Forts.csv