Association Internationale des Sites et Musees de la Guerre de 1914

One of the most appalling events of the First World War was the Battle of the Somme. As terrible as the Battle of Verdun, it raged from July to November 1916 and left more than a million dead, wounded or “missing” on both sides. Since the end of that conflict, Picardie and the Somme have become places of “war pilgrimage”, and over the decades tens of thousands of families from the English-speaking world have come here every year to visit the various memorials and perhaps pause in commemoration before the tomb of a relative.

In the mid 1980s, the Conseil général de la Somme began to work on a scheme which, thanks to funding from the Picardie region, the département concerned, the French government and the EU, would lead to the creation of an International Museum of the Great War (and not only the Battle of the Somme). If was decided that this would be built at Péronne, on what had been the front line running through the eastern section of the département. To house it, the great architect Henri Ciriani designed a remarkable white concrete structure to fit within the medieval chateau where, in 1468, the famous “interview had taken place between Louis XI of France and Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.

When its opened its doors to the public on August 1, 1992, the Historial de la Grande Guerre offered its visitors the chance to see a unique collection of objects reflecting daily life on the front line.

Repérages , the company responsible for the exhibition design of the permanent collection, focused more on social/cultural rather than military history, giving visitors real insight into conflict and its main participants. The rooms chart the course of the war chronologically, with the center of each being occupied with military artifacts, while the peripheral space holds objects relating to civilian and family life (evoking cultural, artistic, educational, economic and financial life in the societies of the day).

As powerfully contemporary as the architecture of the building, the exhibition design makes for emotional involvement in -and understanding of- the events described: for example, the uniforms are “reconstructing” the conflict, the layout offers the visitor a proximity with artifacts that becomes a proximity with events themselves.

Silent film of life both at the front line and “back home” is shown on video monitors, the reduced size of which makes them part the exhibition as a whole, and serves to establish a more direct, personal relationship between the image and the viewer.

And finally, the thing which makes the Historial a museum that offers a truly comparative study of the period: the exhibits come from all three of the empires involved in the war on the Western Front.