Heeresgeschichtliches Museum
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The Heeresgeschichtliches Museum is a military history museum located in Vienna, Austria. It claims to be the oldest and largest purpose-built military history museum in the world. Its collection includes one of the world's largest collections of bronze cannon and focuses on Austrian military history from the 16th century to 1945.
The museum is located in Vienna's Arsenal, in the Landstraße district, not far from the Belvedere palace. It was constructed between 1850 and 1856 at the behest of Emperor Franz Joseph I as the new city garrison, after the old one was destroyed in the 1848 revolution. The museum, at the Arsenal's center, was part of the original design and was to serve as both a historical museum and a shrine to the Empire's military victories and leaders. (According to the Museums' official website, it is the oldest museum in Vienna.) It consists of five major parts: a main entrance hall containing the tomb-like Hall of Generals, and four large exhibit halls, in which the collections are kept. The bronze cannon are arranged outside the museum, on the Arsenal grounds.
Each of the four exhibit halls is devoted to a segment of Austrian history, beginning with the Thirty Years' War and the Ottoman Turks, continuing through the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, and World War II. There is also a small special exhibition hall where the contents are changed regularly. One of the most notable parts of the Museum's collection is located in the World War One hall, and pertains to the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand. On display are the automobile in which the Archduke and his wife were riding when they were assassinated, the uniform he was wearing, the pistol he was shot with, and the chaise longue on which he was declared dead. Other notable exhibits include the original shipbuilder's model of the battleship SMS Viribus Unitis, flagship of the Austro-Hungarian naval fleet during World War One, and the remains of the only Austro-Hungarian military submarine ever built.
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