New World War I Museum

The new Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux was inaugurated on Armistice Day, November 11, 2011. It houses Europe’s largest collection dedicated to World War I, a private collection donated by Jean-Pierre Verney, a historian and specialist on the war, who amassed it single-handedly over some 40 years. The First Battle of the Marne was fought near Meaux, and the museum sits at the foot of La Liberté Eplorée (Liberty Weeping), an immense stone war monument by American sculptor Frederick MacMonnies, offered to France by the US in 1932.The massive stone-slab building, designed by architect Christophe Lab, offers 32,000 square feet for the permanent collection, along with temporary exhibit space, an auditorium, a research center, workshop areas, a café, a bookshop and gift shop. The size and diversity of the collection is spectacular: some 50,000 objects and documents from uniforms, arms and equipment to paintings, drawings, engravings, posters, photographs and memorabilia. Besides the emotional impact, the museum seeks to highlight the shift from 19th-century to modern warfare, as well as the historical turning point of the war to end all wars that still affects today’s global scene.

Route de Varreddes, 01.60.32.14.18. website