Ruffin Meuse-Argonne Offensive

Text Box: INTRODUCTION
The goal of this semester’s work was to lay the groundwork needed to examine, using Geographical Information Systems, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive that brought to a close the Great War of 1914-1918. This major offensive combined ground and air forces of the United States Army, French Army, and the British Royal Army as they pushed the German Army northeast across the Meuse River towards Luxembourg. The Armistice was signed at 1100, Nov 11, 1918.

NOTE 1: When uploading the layers into Google Earth, they automatically assume their full opacity, which is unintentional. The idea is to reduce individual images’ opacities in order to overlay them on top of each other to compare time histories and location changes. You may have to tweak individual images’ opacities in order to obtain a better understanding of what I was trying to show.

NOTE 2: All maps shown were taken from the USAIWWI CD, but they are replicated in the AABIE book (see references). Therefore, the location in the book is annotated in the sources column.

Text Box: American Armies and Battlefields in Europe. Prepared by the American Battle Monuments Commission, Center of Military History, United States Army: Washington, D.C., 1995.

Text Box: Personal correspondence with Col. Steven A. Ruffin, USAF (Ret.). Managing Editor, “Over the Front” WWI aviation journal.

Text Box: United States Military Academy Website. http://www.dean.usma.edu/departments/history/web03/atlases/WorldWarOne/WWOneJPG/WWOne22.jpg. Accessed 07 DEC 2009.

Text Box: A GIS ANALYSIS OF THE MEUSE-ARGONNE OFFENSIVE, SEP-NOV 1918
MIDN 1/C DANIEL I. RUFFIN

IMAGE OR LAYER	GOOGLE EARTH KML	COMMENTS	SOURCE(S)
Overall Situation Maps	Offensive Situation Map SEP-NOV 1918 1st Army Ground Covered SEP-NOV	Small-scale maps showing broad views of Meuse-Argonne Offensive from beginning to end	United States Military Academy History Department; AABIE (175, 182, 191)
Overall German Defensive Posture, Western Front, SEP 1918	German Lines throughout entire Western Front	Small-scale map showing German Western Front defensive posture at beginning of offensive	AABIE (169)
German Defensive Posture in Meuse-Argonne Region, SEP 1918	German Lines in Meuse-Argonne Region	Large-scale map showing in more detail locations and identities of German units participating in offensive	AABIE(170, 176)
Detailed Maps of movement of individual American Divisions in the offensive	Detailed Maps of American Divisions participating in the offensive	Large-scale map showing advance of individual U. S. Army divisions during the offensive. Noteworthy is that this map shows when and where divisions were relieved by fresh units.	AABIE[327 (foldout)]
1st Army in SEP/early OCT	1st Army 26 SEP-3 OCT	Shows specific activity of U. S. 1st Army during opening stages of campaign, 26 SEP-3 OCT, 1918	AABIE(172, 175)
1st Army in OCT	1st Army 4-31 OCT	Shows activity of U. S. 1st Army during most of OCT, 1918.	AABIE(182, 177)
1st Army in OCT (Detail)	1st Army 4-31 OCT in Detail	Large-scale maps show skirmishes of U. S. 1st Army, OCT, 1918.	AABIE(182, 226, 234, 237, 242, 249, 254, 264, )

1st Army in NOV	1st Army 1-11 NOV	Shows activity of U. S. 1st Army during conclusion of campaign, 1-11 NOV, 1918.	AABIE(191)
1st Army in NOV (Detail)	1st Army 1-11 NOV in Detail	Large-scale maps show skirmishes of U. S. 1st Army during end of offensive, 1-11 NOV, 1918.	AABIE(269, 270, 276, 296, 310)
Lost Battalion Maps	Detailed Situation and Topographic Map of the “Lost Battalion” “Lost Battalion” movement and relief maps	Focus on “Lost Battalion” and shows exact position, surrounding topography, and how the surrounded units were relieved.	ABMC Collection and personal correspondence with Col. Steven A. Ruffin, USAF (Ret.) AABIE(178)
Vauquois Trenches	Trenches outside of Vauquois	Shows location of trenches dug around Vauquois. Possible archeological sites for future field work here.	AABIE(220)
Grandpre Aerial Photo	WWI Aerial Photo of Grandpre	Aerial photo taken of Grandpre during war; an example of the intelligence that reconnaissance aircraft gathered during the war.	Personal correspondence with Col. Steven A. Ruffin, USAF (Ret.)