Where our beloved city stands
Amid the greenery of Moore, like a satin dress, Where the spirit of art and knowledge reigns
There, in a true temple of beautiful nature -
Beautiful land - Styrian land, Dear land, my homeland!
Anthem of Styria. Dachstein's Song 1844 Translated by Arkady Kuznetsov
Military museums in Europe. The city referred to in the epigraph is Graz, which is today the capital of Styria, and in the past even the capital of Austria. The city is old and very beautiful. In any case, those who have visited it say so. I personally did not have a chance, I just drove by and admired him from a distance. But those who have been there report that the center of Graz is quite small in size. It is quite possible to get around it all in a day, and with a simultaneous visit to museums. True, this is only if you just walk and watch. "Selling Eyes" … Inspection of some museums for some "visitors" would require much more time. One of them is the Arsenal Museum (Landeszeughaus). And someone who, and I certainly would not leave it quickly. Fortunately, we live in an information society today. You find the site of the museum or organization you need and apply there with a letter. An answer comes with permission to use their photographic materials, after which you take it and use it. Usually answers of this kind come from the West: “Oh, how good that you have contacted us. Here is your password, access code to all information - use it. " I also received an answer from our Armory Chamber in the Kremlin, but there they asked me for 6500 rubles for the right to publish one image of a museum item on the website. Just lovely, isn't it? Well, we can do without them. But about this very Arsenal in Graz on the pages of "VO" many wanted to know in more detail, and now I can tell about it.
Well, you will have to start with the fact that the main street of Graz is Central Street, or Herrengasse. The most beautiful buildings in this city are lined up. And if you walk along this street, you will certainly stumble upon a five-story building, painted in bright yellow and decorated with baroque sculptures of the warlike Mars and the warrior Minerva, but also the patroness of the arts. Above the entrance to the building is the coat of arms of Graz, which is adorned with the image of a heraldic panther.
This is the Arsenal and the most amazing thing is that this building houses … the largest collection of ancient weapons in Europe. It is clear that the inhabitants of Graz are very proud of their weapons museum and are always ready to ask a tourist if he saw their Landeszeughaus? Vendalen Beheim, chief curator of the Imperial Arsenal in Vienna, also once visited here and wrote that this tseikhhaus with all its intact equipment from the first half of the 17th century is a completely unique phenomenon in the world. And he wrote this in his "Encyclopedia of Weapons" and … was not entirely right, since there are earlier samples. However, he also reports that some information about this house, standing here since the XIV century, was already in 1547. That is, in the middle of the 16th century, there was already an arsenal here, and weapons were stored in it.
However, the building of the workshop itself was built in 1642. And the most interesting thing is that it is filled with armor and weapons, which were not gathered here for the amusement of someone who, like the same Emperor Maximilian I (and even more so Maximilian II), decided to collect for their own pleasure. Almost all of the local exhibits, except for a few artifacts dating back to the 15th century, are real weapons that belonged to the residents of the city.
The museum building is five stories high, but it occupies the top four floors, and the first is a tourist information center. And now, going up from floor to floor, you are personally convinced that you have found yourself in a real warehouse of weapons, which contains 32,000 different exhibits from knightly, cuirassier and pikemen's armor, to pikes, halberds and drums, inclusive. And when the city was in danger of war, its inhabitants came here, armed themselves and went to defend it.
And I must say that the threat of attack hung over Graz for a long time. The fact is that the city lies south of the Alps and is located in such a way that it is the "gateway" to the very heart of Austria. Therefore, already in XV Graz became an important outpost, whose task was to repel the Turkish threat.
To discourage the Ottomans from storming the city, the powerful Schlossberg fortress was built in it. But the fortress would not have helped its inhabitants, if not for their courage, thanks to which Graz became famous as a city that was never captured by the enemy. And when the Turks once again approached the city, the inhabitants of the city dismantled all the weapons stored in its arsenal, and thus were able to arm … 16 thousand soldiers. Moreover, not anyhow, but to put on iron armor, to give in hands shields-rondash and powerful muskets and pistols with wheel and wick locks.
True, then, in 1749, Empress Maria Theresa ordered this arsenal to be destroyed. But the inhabitants of Styria defended the right to preserve it as a historical monument, and although such arsenals were destroyed throughout the country, an exception was made for the citizens of Graz at that time. They asked the empress to keep it as a monument to their courage and valor in battles against the eternal enemies of Christianity. At that time, no one had a clue about tolerance towards other religions, and their appeal worked!
Fine leather-lined Reitar armor. Made by Hans Prenner (1645), a gunsmith in Graz. This armor is one of the heaviest in the Arsenal collection. It has a dark gray iron color and shiny metal around the edges of the plates. The cuirass plates on the chest, back and helmet were smoothly polished and then blued black. To achieve a good color contrast, all rivets, belt tongues as well as noseplate, holder, screw heads and hinges have been gold-plated. The helmet has a thick quilted lining, which is sewn to the metal using linen threads, and inside it also has a silk satin lining. Inserts with semicircular petals are reinforced on the headphones and neck guard of the helmet. They also go along all the edges of the gorget, on the front and back of the shoulder pads, as well as along the edges of the legguards. They are made of leather, which is covered with dark red velvet on top and edged with gold border. In the 17th century, such armor was worn mainly by army commanders. The massive, often awkward shape fully matched the Baroque body image. Very wide legguards were supposed to hide cotton-stuffed pants and were attached directly to the breastplate of the cuirass. It is believed that this style of armor could have originated in the Netherlands, which had a strong influence on European weapons in the first half of the 17th century. By the way, the weight of this armor in "three quarters" is 41.4 kg. That is, they are heavier than the usual full knightly armor!
The weapons are placed in the arsenal as follows: on the first floor (for us this is the second) there is a collection of firearms with wheel and flint locks. Armor and weapons, including tournament weapons, are stored on the second and third floors. But again, the most important thing is that there are knightly weapons here, a lot of armor and weapons, ordinary men at arms - soldiers of the ignoble classes. Although there is even horse armor of the early 16th century, it is clear that this is purely knightly equipment. On the fourth floor, musical instruments are collected, without which they also did not fight at that time: regimental drums, timpani, flutes, various pipes and horns.
Unfortunately, the letter combination "IEVVDHH" engraved on the armor does not provide any specific information about its first owner or customer. Armor weight - 42, 2 kg.
But how much is stored there:
2414 swords, swords and sabers;
5395 polearms - pikes, spears, halberds, protazans, etc.;
3844 armor sets? Cuirass, helmets, chain mail, shields and knightly armor;
3867 shotguns and 4259 pistols, as well as powder flasks, natruski and bandellers;
704 cannons, including falconets, centipedes, stone cannonballs, three organ cannons, shuffles, and so on, dating back to 1500.
50 heavy guns from the first floor of the Arsenal were removed when Napoleon's troops approached Graz, so as not to give rise to reprisals. But then they were not returned to their place, but bells were cast from them.
Now here is a question that constantly pops up in the comments on "VO": why does such a mass of old iron not rust? After all, it is clear that such a quantity of second-rate weapons cannot be remakes. Faking it would simply not have recouped the costs, let alone the entries in the arsenal's documents. Firstly, let us note that the museum exhibits are well looked after, and they are masters of their craft. Secondly, the fact is that the Arsenal building was built in the traditional technology for those years: that is, it has only stone walls, and wooden ceilings, floors and wall panels. And not just wooden ones - oak ones. And wood absorbs moisture well, so a special atmosphere is created inside the premises of the Arsenal, in which its exhibits feel very good.
An interesting fact, in the 30s - and our "Pravda" for some reason reported about this, Adolf Hitler, "the chancellor of the German nation", came to Graz. From a note in the newspaper, one cannot judge whether he was at Arsenal or not. But he could not not know about him. What else could the inhabitants of the city have to brag about in front of him? However, when during the war years Germany experienced a catastrophic shortage of metal, so that even metal gratings were removed from the balconies of houses, no one touched the "metal reserves" of Graz. It is not surprising that the precious armor of the Vienna Imperial Armory collection and the collection of knightly armor of the Ambras castle were not turned into metal. But the Graz Arsenal? This is 90% mass consumer goods, which, what it is, what it does not, does not, in general, affect history. But they didn’t let him go for scrap, and today we can admire the slender rows of "iron guys" and halberds, stretching tens of meters into the semi-dark halls of the arsenal. I myself have not seen this, but judging by the photographs, the picture is really impressive!
This concludes our excursion to the Graz arsenal. But we will also get acquainted with its exhibits in the materials of the cycle "Military affairs at the turn of the epochs".
P. S. The administration of the VO website and the author personally would like to express their heartfelt gratitude to the director of the Arsenal Museum (Landeszeughaus) in Graz, Dr. Bettina Habsburg-Loringen, for the permission to use the photographs of the artifacts of the museum collection.
