NEW PERMANENT EXHIBITION OPENS AT THE PARK OF MILITARY HISTORY

On 7 April a small ceremony took place in the Park of Military History, thus opening the new exhibition Fighting Behind the Trenches with the subtitle Military Transport on the Isonzo Front, which was prepared based on an extensive study on transport during the First World War as one of the closing activities of the project “WALKofPEACE – The Sustainable Development of First World War Heritage Between the Alps and the Adriatic”.

Transport and military logistics are two fields that are often overlooked when discussing the First World War and have not yet been given a complete museum presentation. That is why the Park of Military History decided to analyse this extensive chapter of the war and bring it to the fore as part of the project. The new permanent exhibition of the Park brings a complete insight into military transport of the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Isonzo Front, from building and setting up new transport systems on roads, cableways and railways to the logistical execution of the unimaginably large and swift movements of military units as well as the transport of enormous amounts of weapons, ammunition and everything else required to wage war on the Isonzo Front. A particularity in terms of transport was the great need for fresh water supply on the karst battlefield and the extremely difficult supply of units in the high mountains.

The exhibition authored by the Park's director M.Sc. Janko Boštjančič along with co-authors dr. Gregor Antoličič, a fellow at ZRC SAZU (Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts), and the Park's external partner Igor Gardelin, was ceremonially opened by the State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Slovenia, mr. Tone Slak. In a short speech, he expressed his sincere congratulations to the authors for their remarkably successful work in preparing such an extensive exhibition which, he believes, represents a new important contribution in the preservation and research of our military history and preserving the memory of the wars fought on our soil.

Alongside the ceremonial opening of the exhibition and the transition into the final phase of the “WALKofPEACE” project, the Park of Military History also hosted a press conference where the details of the project and the implemented activities were presented by the Park’s director M.Sc. Janko Boštjančič, a representative of the Soča Valley Development Centre Vesna Kozar and the director of the Walk of Peace Foundation Maša Klavora.