Audio Guide Rental for the permanent exhibition at Lens 14 -18 Great War museum

Located in Souchez, at the heart of the Artois Front, the Lens’ 14 - 18 War and Peace History Center is dedicated to the history of the First World War in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments of France.

The international visitors center offers a unique collection of graphic material: animated maps, letters, archive photography (some hitherto unseen), period films and iconic objects from all around the world.

The exhibition represents the points of view of all the belligerent forces at the fronts of Artois and French Flanders: the Germans, French, British, and Belgians.

There are over 300 large photographs to help illustrate offensives, and the archive film footage allows visitors to fully immerse themselves in World War one (WWI).

The permanent exhibition, developed by an international scientific committee and directed by the French historian Yves Le Maner, provides the keys to understanding and interpreting the themes and chronology of World War I. It establishes a coherent account of the events which struck the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region between 1914 and 1918.

The 7 chapters which make up the Lens’ 14 - 18 museum :

1 : The war of movement (August - October 1914)

2 : Trench warfare

3 : A deadly war of attrition

4 : The North under German occupation

5 : Return to war of movement (March - November 1918)

6 : Death at the front

7 : The « hell of the north » and reconstruction

At the end of the exhibition in the remembrance room you can use tablets to consult databases of the nearly 580,000 soldiers, of all nationalities, who fell in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. Their names are engraved on the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette International Memorial which lists all the soldiers who died, were buried or commemorated within the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments during the First World War.