Permanent
IWM London
Free exhibition
The award-winning First World War Galleries tell the story of how the ‘Great War’ was fought and won, its impact on people's lives both on the front and at home, and its far-reaching consequences.
On display are over 1,300 objects from IWM’s collections including weapons, uniforms, diaries, keepsakes, film and art. Each object on display gives a voice to the people who created them, used them or cared for them, and reveals stories not only of destruction, suffering and loss, but also endurance and innovation, duty and devotion, comradeship and love.
A World at War
Learn about the years leading up to the conflict and how the war started, why it continued, how it was won and its impact on people’s lives across the world.
Discover what happened to Lord Kitchener's volunteer British Army, called up to serve with the lure of adventure and a promise of paid ‘employment’, finding themselves fighting for their country in a foreign field.
Walk through an immersive trench experience, spot the famous Sopwith Camel aircraft overhead, and Mark V Tank as it blunders across your path.
On display, many smaller objects from IWM's collections continue to tell the story of the First World War through Armistice, and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, which brought the First World War to an end.
The Battle of the Somme
‘Some 20,000 men were killed in a single day’
One of the most bitterly contested and costly battles of the First World War, lasting nearly five months, the Battle of the Somme (1 July - 18 November 1916) was a joint operation between British and French forces intended to achieve a decisive victory over the Germans on the Western Front. For many in Britain, the resulting battle remains the most painful and infamous episode of the First World War. Learn more
