INVESTITURE OF PRZEMYSL

Many fortresses lost a reputation of long standing for strength during the Austro-Russian campaign. Grodek and Rawa-Russka, with fine natural defenses and excellent works, were carried by assault after gallant resistance. Lemberg's defenses were reputed to be powerful, but no attempt was made to utilize them. The fall of Jaroslav has never been explained. It was considered generally to be stronger than Namur or Liege, and a prolonged resistance was anticipated there. It withstood attack for only two days. When heavy guns were brought to bear on it by the Russians the garrison withdrew. Przemysl seems, alone of all the Austrian defenses, to have justified its reputation. Przemysl was not only a strongly fortified place but a beautiful city as well, surrounded with flower gardens and orchards. Its history, like that of Lemberg, had been a stormy one. Its population in 1914, including residents of its suburbs, was about 50,000, principally Poles and Ruthenes, who lived together in amity and great religious toleration. In September of that year, when the Russians made their whirlwind advance, there was, according to official reports from Vienna, an army of 80,000 based on the city, under the leadership of General Boroyevich.

With a large part of this army, Boroyevich was reported to have moved to the line of the Wisloka to give aid to Dankl's hard-pushed troops as they made their stand on that river. It was understood that many of Von Auffenberg's soldiers, as they fell back, were employed as a garrison for the fortress. At the time of its investment it was said to contain about 100,000 men, with its defense in charge of General Kusmanek. Afterward the strength of the garrison was increased.

It has been indicated previously how the railway communications had been broken on the east and south by the advance of the Russians after the fall of Grodek and the taking of Mocsiska. The isolation of the fortress of Przemysl was completed by the fall of Jaroslav and the occupation of Radymno, a town on the main Cracow railway on the left bank of the San, about eight miles east of Jaroslav and fifteen miles north of the fortress. And so it remained isolated, save for a short period when the tide of invasion was driven back. During this time it was again in communication with Cracow.

The Russians took it as a matter of course that the fortress would soon fall to them. Its fate was predicted in the newspapers of the Allies; but, in preparation for defense, stores of all kinds had been hurried into it, and plans had been laid for stout resistance. It had a determined commander in General Kusmanek.

The first shots were fired on September 18, 1914. The city was surrounded on September 20, and an unbroken bombardment with many desperate sorties ensued until October 2, when the Russians sent out a white flag to the city and demanded its surrender. General Kusmanek's reply was that he would not discuss surrender until he had exhausted all powers of resistance. The attack reached its height on October 5, 1914. The Russians stormed again and again, hills of corpses outside the works testifying to furious attacks they made. They succeeded in carrying temporarily one of the outer works, eleven battalions having succeeded in approaching these defenses undetected, because of damage to an Austrian searchlight.

Suddenly they stormed the walls. The garrison retreated to the casemates, from which they defended themselves with rifles and machine guns. The Russians forced their way to the casements and a hand-to-hand struggle with bayonets, gun butts, and hand grenades followed. When Austrian reenforcements, hastily telephoned for, arrived, the attacking party was already retiring, leaving their dead and wounded in the casemates and on the wall. Rockets and light shells illuminated their retreat. There was desultory fighting during several days thereafter, and then the Russian army settled down to a routine investment, biding the time when their heavy siege guns could be brought up and the way made ready for an effective assault. On October 18, 1914, there was a battle to the east of Chyrow and Przemysl, which was successful for the Austrians. The fighting near Mizynico was especially severe. The Magiera Heights, which had been in the possession of the Russians, were occupied by the Austrians after a formidable bombardment by their artillery. At the same time Russian attacks on the east of Przemysl to Medyka Heights, on the southern wing of the battle field, which were especially directed against the heights to the southeast of Stryj and Sambor, were repulsed. A fresh attack of the Russians on the east bank of the river near Jaroslav also was repulsed.

The addition of reserves and the opportunity to reorganize their army, gave new fighting force to the Austrians about this time. Wherever the Russians retired they followed them closely and by reconnaissances were able to develop weak points in the Russian positions. On October 20, 1914, the Austrians had gained ground in several spots in a heavy, stubborn attack on the fortified positions of the Russians from Plotzyn to the highroad east of Medyka, while a Russian counterattack was unable to make headway.

On the heights north of Nizankowice, Austrian troops scored another victory and took also the villages situated against the heights. In the southern wing the battle was carried on mainly by artillery. The modern field fortification system being liberally used by the Austrians, the battles had largely the nature of fortress warfare. On the same day the Austrians captured in the Carpathians the last point, Jablonki Pass, held by the Russians.

Thus we now see the Austrian army, which had been described as routed and destroyed in battles in Galicia, seemingly taking on a new lease of life, although appearing to have found an impenetrable barrier at the River San north of Jaroslav. On October 22, 1914, the Austrians retook Czernowitz, capital of the crownland of Bukowina, which had been in the possession of the Russians since early in the war. They also captured two field fortifications, situated one behind the other, to the southeast of Sambor.

For eight days a terrific fight was waged between the Russians and the Austrians on the line from Sambor, along the River San to Przemysl and Jaroslav, and then to the southward. The battle extended over a front of about sixty-five miles. The cannonading was uninterrupted. The Austrians had started the attack at Sambor, but were thrown back by vigorous Russian counterattacks. A concentration of Austrian corps then attempted an advance against Lemberg, with the intention of bisecting the Russian line. This attack was defeated with losses.

On October 31, 1914, the Austrians defeated a mixed Russian column near the Galician-Bukowinian frontier, north of Kuty. In middle Galicia by that date they had occupied Russian positions northeast of Turka, near Stryj, Sambor, east of Przemysl, and on the lower San. Several Russian attacks around Lisko were repulsed. At Lisko, Stryj, Sambor, and other points the Austrians took many prisoners. Near Stryj and Sambor the Austrians blew up a Russian ammunition depot.

On November 1, 1914, the Austrians claimed that they then had interned in Austria-Hungary, 649 Russian officers and 73,179 Russian soldiers, not including the prisoners they had taken in the fighting in the district northeast of Turka and south of the Stryj-Sambor line. The fighting in this locality was renewed with greater intensity by both sides early in the month, fortune favoring first one and then the other. On November 2, 1914, two infantry divisions and a rifle brigade of Russians were dislodged from a strongly intrenched position.

About this time the czar's forces began concentrating their main attack northeast of Kielce in an effort to repeat the tactics by which they won important victories over the Austrians in the first days of the war. It was their plan, provided they were able to break through at this point, to turn southward against the rear of the Austrian army in Galicia, just as they did two months before, after the battle of Rawa-Russka.

The line of battle in the southeast now became more definitely outlined, extending from Turka through Nadworna and Kolomea to the Russian border just east of Czernowitz in Bukowina. The renewal of Russian attacks followed the bringing up of a new levy of reserves.

The Russians now advanced with fair success along the whole Vistula front. They secured Piotrkow and other places in such positions as to suggest that the Austrians were running the risk of being cut off from Cracow, their ultimate goal of retreat. A rear-guard defense was attempted by the Austrians at Opatow but without success, and the Russians took several hundred prisoners and six Maxims with a supply train.

On the San River, where the fighting had been severe for a fortnight, the Russians adopted the method of deliberately sapping their opponents' trenches, precisely as a besieging force saps its way toward a fortress. This proved a success. When the Russian sap burst in the trenches the Austrians retreated, and the Russians, taking advantage of the confusion, stormed the fortifications in the neighborhood and took them, capturing 5 officers, 500 men, and all the Maxims.

An Austrian column which had descended the north slope of the Carpathians in the direction of Narvoda, where it had intrenched itself, was attacked and driven back. This operation, being removed by more than one hundred miles from the nearest point to the great struggle, indicated that the Austrians, confident of victory, sent forces across the Carpathians to catch the Russians in the rear when the proper moment came.

This moment, it seems, failed to arrive, and the Russians, having the support of the native inhabitants, had little difficulty in dealing successfully with successive isolated attempts of the considerable Hungarian reserve bodies sent across the Carpathians at various points.

There was some activity about this time before Przemysl, which several times had been reported, incorrectly, as having been taken by the Russians. An attempt was made by the garrison at a sortie. The Russians allowed it to proceed until they could cut in behind, when the force was surrounded. When it found it was impossible to cut a way through either forward or backward, it surrendered. The Russians took about 2,000 prisoners.

On the Austrian retiring line from Kielce to Sandomierz the Russians succeeded on November 5, 1914, in breaking down the defenses of the enemy, and in stimulating a more or less orderly retreat into a hasty flight. Sandomierz, itself, an exceedingly important strategic point, which had played a vital part since the early days of the war, fell into the hands of the Russians. In fighting with the Austrian rear guard southward of Kielce the Russians took within a week 200 officers and 15,000 men prisoners, with scores of guns and Maxims.[Back to Contents]