Hungarian WWI ship turned into museum in Belgrade

The Bodrog, a vessel of the Austro-Hungarian military, the cannons of which fired the first shots of the first world war in July 1914, was opened to the public as a museum in Belgrade on Friday.

Renovation of the monitor, a relatively small warship, started six years ago, after it was awarded historical heritage status in 2015, thus saving it from ending up in a scrapyard.

The Bodrog was the flagship of a secret attack aimed at capturing Belgrade. The city’s defence forces, however, put the approaching ships under fire and prevented the occupation.

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Temes Class River Monitor SMS Bodrog Boat Warship
1:33 model of an Austro-Hungarian Temes-class Danube (River) Monitor
Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Sandstein

Later in the war, the vessel ran aground and was seized and then used by the Serbian army. During the second world war and afterwards it was used by the Yugoslav military until it was retired in 1962.