The Museum’s latest permanent exhibition organically fits in the exhibition series representing the history of the Hungarian soldier, and in the Commemorative Programmes of the First World War organized by the MoD Military History Institute and Museum.
The exhibition presents the events of the war chronologically, from an Austro-Hungarian (and mainly Hungarian) aspect, focusing on everyday life in the combat area and in the home front, with installations to bring the experience closer. Visitors can observe belongings of well-known and important persons (eg. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Archduke Joseph, Arthur Arz, Svetozar Boroević, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Sándor Szurmay), they can face colourful careers during the war, interesting or even typical ones, stories of soldiers and civilians (women and men), and they can examine artefacts and documents connected to the Great War.
Besides special and interesting relics, the war’s mass-produced, typical items are also worth a close look: weapons, uniforms, equipment, weaponry of the Austro-Hungarian Army, as well as its allies and enemies.
Visitors can experience the wartime fates and everyday lives of Hungarian soldiers or civilians in the battlefield or in the home front with the help of a role-play game to be played on touch screens, from room to room. Through the game anyone could get to know the chosen soldier’s or civilian’s journey, and follow it through the war.
A rich digital content on touch screens, and pieces of information available through smartphones are to draw the attention of the younger age group in the first place. The games include quizzes, uniform puzzles and map games.
The walk-through interior decorations (railway station, trench, POW barrack) deepens the experience of the war atmosphere.
Visitors can take home a part of the exhibition through a book the Museum published. It contains a selection of the exhibition’s content, representing 100 unique or typical items or groups, and introducing the events and characteristics of the Great War.