>> I'm Indy Neidell … >> And I'm Flo …
>> Indy: … and we are drinking coffee right now
on a … fine morning in France, and it's Friday,
February 3rd, and we've been here since Sunday, have we not?
>> Flo: Yeah, we have. >> Indy: It's been 'The Great War' on the road.
We've been in and around the Verdun, and Romagne, and Meuse-Argonne area
shooting all kinds of special episodes for you guys at home.
And boy, didn't we have fun?
>> Flo: We sure did. >> Indy: Actually we're still having fun,
and we thought we'd just go over roughly a little recap of what we did.
Now, you … I started Sunday morning in Stockholm and flew down to Frankfurt, so you can talk about you guys leaving.
>> Flo: We started on Sunday in Berlin.
We were already pretty excited, because thanks to some more … [extra] income and everything,
we actually invested a bit in to upgrade our equipment,
so … camera pans and everything are going to look *smooth*, because we actually invested in a gimbal, …
>> Indy: Look it up. >> Flo: … which I hope you will appreciate. We also got some drone shots. Oooh!
>> Indy: Drone shots—that was fun. >> Flo: Yeah, that does look really cool.
We pick Indy up at the airport, and when we came here, it was–
the weather was already a good indicator of what the week was going to be. It was foggy.
We could see like 30 meters. We almost hit a deer. >> Indy: Yeah, we almost died right when we got here.
>> Flo: Yeah, good start.
Then we arrived at the museum the guys– >> Indy: This is our base, where we are right now,
and the guy behind me, Jean-Paul, is the guy that runs this museum. You'll see him in episodes that we shot. He's cool.
>> Flo: We met the guys from 'Verdun' the game. >> Indy: The game 'Verdun'. They were really cool too.
Actually, everybody that we worked with this week was very cool. There wasn't one jerk, which is surprising.
Usually there will be one guy that you're like, "Okay, I don't really get along with that guy."
But they were all actually really cool, the 'Verdun' guys. If you haven't played 'Verdun', you should definitely go play 'Verdun.
>> Flo: Yeah, and where did we go on Monday?
>> Indy: Okay, we got on Monday and we came here, and we had breakfast—which we're going to have in a few minutes—and that's when we went out with Jean-Paul.
>> Indy: We went out– >> Flo: –to the forest.
>> Indy: We went out to the forest, and we looked at a bunch of sites with him,
and he explained a bunch of the history about them.
He also walked us through his museum here, which has literally hundreds of thousands of …
*things* from the First World War that he's found over the years here, and it's one of the more interesting museums you'll ever see,
because it's different from– It's not just exhibits, it's *all* of the stuff.
He's got prosthetic arms from the First World War that he's found.
He's got all kinds of weapons, and canteens, and spades, but thousands of them.
It's really fascinating, so we did some footage there.
>> Flo: And most of it is actually from the five-kilometer radius around this museum, so that gives you an idea about how much history there is.
We drove two minutes, walked over to the forest,
*Bam!* we found the first German bunker.
Then we walked up a hill and then we suddenly stand on top of the 'Kriemhilde Stellung' of the Hindenburg Line,
in the middle of a howitzer pit. That's how this region is, and I think that's one of the things we learned this week.
You can film here for months and years, and you don't run out of anything interesting to film.
I mean, on Tuesday … >> Indy: Tuesday, we went to Douaumont.
>> Flo: Yeah, we went to Douaumont. >> Indy: Fort Douaumont.
>> Flo: Surprisingly, it was really foggy … >> Indy: … and cold and raining. I was miserable.
But it'll look really cool. It'll look pretty—Grippy—
which is interesting that we we were filming in the fog and mist. Because when the French did their counter-attack and retook Douaumont,
they did it in the fog and mist, because they had trained to be able to do it with their eyes closed,
so they would surprise Germans, which they actually did.
We were– we counter-attacked on Tuesday, and then after that we had the– we had to meet–
well, we had a little press meeting first, right? We met a very cool woman who works with …
>> Flo: The Tourist. >> Indy: Yeah, with the Tourist Board. But it's the whole Lorraine Tourist Board? Or is it just–
>> Flo: No, from the Meuse region. >> Indy: Meuse region. >> Jean-Paul: (O.S.) Lower Lorraine.
>> Indy: And Lorraine. >> Flo: And Lorraine as well.
>> Indy: And we're going to do something in conjunction with her and with them in the future.
But then we had a meet-and-greet with us and the 'Verdun' guys, where people could ask us all sorts of questions, and drink lots of wine.
(And eat lots of his good food.) That was really fun.
>> Flo: Yeah, we had like … 50, 60 people here–
>> Indy: Yep, he's turned up a lot of them from Germany, from the Netherlands …
>> Flo: Some French people, obviously.
>> Indy: Yeah, but I mean that the foreign guys that turned up was– is pretty impressive.
And then on Wednesday—I think that's the highlight of the filming Wednesday was when we went to see Fleury.
>> Flo: Oh, yeah, that was really– >> Indy: Which it's almost–
It's really heartbreaking if you see that, and if– It wasn't a bright sunny day it was– again, it was cold and foggy.
And you see, there's nothing left. There's nothing left.
>> Flo: You basically walk through a blasted landscape …
>> Indy: … with signs that say "Bakery", "Farm", because they've marked out where everything used to be, before it was destroyed.
But it still has a mayor, so it still technically exists as a town even though there's nothing left. That's how its commemorated.
>> Flo: That really drove the point home about this whole area.
I mean, that's like– and it's not the only one. It's like one of eight villages, I think, that are destroyed
from the Battle of Verdun, and World War I, and it's like, "Man, that's really– Wow!"
>> Indy: And that afternoon, we had good French pizza, actually. >> Flo: Oh, yeah.
>> Indy: And the afternoon before, we had not-particularly-good food at the place that you– with "Buffalo" in the title.
But they had ridiculously good house wine, which— we're in France, so that's not surprising.
Wednesday evening we had really good French food. Did we not?
>> Flo: We did. We went to a restaurant here in the region. We're going to put the link in the description.
If you ever come here for … >> Indy: Really good.
>> Flo: … to explore the battlefields, and any– or if you're just generally in the area, go to those restaurants.
>> Indy: We ate there again last night. >> Flo: We went there two times. Really good.
>> Indy: And yesterday, we did some shooting at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, which is the largest of the American World War I cemeteries in Europe.
There were eight originally built, and it's got,
between the Wall of the Missing or Unidentified People and all the graves, it's got around 15,000 people there,
and it's really, really, really … enormous.
You don't– You think, "15,000? Okay. We've talked about battles that have 120– 200,000 casualties."
But once you see 15,000 crosses all laid out there, you get the scale of the enormity of the destruction there.
Flo: I mean, it's like– It takes a good time to walk through it and everything,
and everyone has a name, everybody has a birthdate, everybody has a date when he died, and everything.
It's mostly soldiers of course, but there's a few nurses,
there's like three kids, infants that the died there of– shortly after the war and everything …
>> Indy: … the first African-American Medal of Honor recipient is there—buried, actually.
They were really cool. They were really nice and helpful.
And our drone guy who came from, came here from Dortmund, right?
>> Flo: Mm-hmm. >> Indy: Yeah, from Dortmund to help us with a drone.
Actually we had a fan here from Düsseldorf, which was kind of weird.
The first day when we were shooting out in the woods,
we had gone up to the Mort-Homme—which we have talked about a lot during the show—to shoot,
and there's this guy—he's cool, but odd-looking—with a suitcase there.
And it was *freezing*, and he didn't have– he wasn't wearing a jacket or anything. Just wearing like a light shirt and a vest.
And it turned out he had come to Verdun, and he was going to come to the fan meeting.
And he'd come to Verdun and he had walked the 20 kilometers …
>> Flo: … to the Mort-Homme? >> Indy: To the Mort-Homme.
>> Flo: By right– by chance, met us. >> Indy: And so we drove him back to Verdun.
So he accomplished nothing, except he had met us by chance, and then he hung out with us for the rest of the day, and stuff.
And he got to hold my coat and things that we needed holding. >> Flo: What an honor.
>> Indy: I know! I know it, man!
And—let's see—we ate again at the awesome meal last night.
Now, we didn't tell them about when– the tragedy when we had no power for a day.
That wasn't a tragedy; it was fun. We just lit a really big fire.
Oh! And we almost died again, because Julian nearly killed us by leaving a log too close to the fire,
but then he saved us by taking it away.
No, that wasn't you? >> Julian: (O.S.) It wasn't me who left the log there.
>> Indy: Who left the log there?
>> Flo: I think it was the cat. >> Indy: It was a cat.
>> Flo: So that was it. Four days packed with filming, packed with history, … >> Indy: … packed with food, wine.
>> Flo: We could stay for another month, and every day we could film one episode.
There's so much things to see here. …
We didn't even go to Fort Vaux. There's …
You just look at the signs that tell you which direction you go, and everything you know from our show, basically.
>> Indy: "Oh, I've talked about that, I've talked about that. I've talked about that."
And in the end, …
thanks again to Jean-Paul for hosting us here,
for giving us his place for the fan meeting, for showing us around, giving us some tips and everything.
Thanks to the guys from 'Verdun'. Play their game if you haven't.
>> Indy: Thanks to Toby for the drones. Thanks to the other two Dutch guy– the photographer and the information guy.
They came down from the Netherlands just to hang out and help out.
It's cool that people come to hang out and they get– they just end up helping us out,
because they know a lot of stuff that we might not know about certain battles and certain events.
And the photographer—he is really amazing. We will put up a bunch of photographs on Facebook, on Instagram.
>> Flo: And yeah, so this was … definitely an upgrade from what we achieved on the Eastern Front, when we went to Przemyśl.
>> Indy: We were more *pshoom* this time … >> Flo: … and more focused, and I think
definitely not the last road trip. We will go to have more on them,
and I hope you can see that your Patreon support and everything helps us doing these trips,
and that we also can invest in better equipment and everything to make the videos even better, and to have an even higher output and everything.
>> Indy: But we did seven specials, and we shot a couple 'Out Of The Trenches' here,
and we've shot a couple of the regular special episodes here, too.
>> Flo: So it's going to be I think pretty awesome
We're going to try to publish it as fast as possible, hopefully by—I would say—April, May.
We should start getting them out and … Yeah, so …
>> Indy: That was it, right? >> Flo: See you next time.
>> Indy: We'll see you soon. *kiss* Rock on!
♪ [Canned Heat - On The Road Again] ♪ And my dear mother left me
♪ when I was quite young
♪ ♪
♪ And my dear mother left me
♪ I'm on the road again
♪ *On the road again*
♪ Well, I'm so tired of crying
♪ I'm on the road again
♪ *On the road again*